He didn’t appear like a dictator. Awkward and gangly, his mannerisms unassuming, not less than till he opened his mouth, Bashar al-Assad exuded not one of the machismo of different Arab strongmen like Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein.
His spouse Asma known as him “duck”, presumably as a result of he appeared a bit of like one – though his benighted folks thought he additionally resembled a giraffe, given his lengthy neck.
But when it got here to butchery, he was up there with the worst of them, presiding over 13 years of carnage that claimed the lives of properly over half one million folks.
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If ever there was a contemporary ruler who epitomised Hannah Arendt’s description of the “banality of evil”, it was absolutely Assad.
For some time, Iran and Russia got here to his rescue, laying waste to swathes of Syria’s greatest cities till the rebels had been pushed out. In the long run, although, it solely delayed the inevitable by just a few years.
As the end came, with bewildering speed, Assad’s prolonged household scurried for security as shortly and stealthily as they might, in search of refuge with whichever energy would have them. Solely Russia appeared keen to come back to the rescue.
They left with no announcement, with little clue of their meant vacation spot, presumably fleeing, as different toppled Arab potentates did earlier than them, with as a lot of their billion-pound fortune as they might stuff into their suitcases.
The one unbiased affirmation that Assad was not both in energy or the nation got here not from any of his officers however from his patrons in Moscow, infuriated to the final within the feckless despot through which that they had invested a lot with such little reward.
Greeting his ally Vladimir Putin, Assad shakes arms with then defence minister Sergei Shoigu in Damascus in 2020 – Alexey Nikolsky/AFP through Getty
Russia, nonetheless, is prone to be one in all Assad’s greatest bets as a spot of exile – the truth is, studies have come out that he is in Moscow and that Russia has provided him asylum.
And Russia is among the few locations the place he might be assured he is not going to be handed over both to the brand new Syrian authorities or the Worldwide Felony Courtroom to face trial.
Assad provides Putin a heat embrace in 2017, when he visited his residence within the Black Sea resort of Sochi – Mikhail Klimentyev/AP
It’s extensively believed that Mrs Assad, battling an aggressive type of leukaemia, had already arrived in Moscow along with her three youngsters days earlier than he lastly fled.
She has at all times been his mainstay, her ruthlessness tempered by the form of charisma he by no means had.
All strongmen have a component of caricature about them, but there was little of Assad that match the form of strongman Sacha Baron Cohen spoofed in his 2012 comedy, The Dictator.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s tinpot despot in 2012’s The Dictator was little question partly impressed by Assad – Fred Duval/Getty
As a substitute, he was sensitive and thin-skinned, a deeply insecure beta-male despot riled to fury by the slightest criticism.
Because the Arab Spring unfold by way of the Center East in early 2011, Syria initially remained quiet till one evening in February a gaggle of youngsters within the southern city of Deraa daubed graffiti on a wall. “It’s your flip subsequent, physician,” they wrote, taunting Assad, an ophthalmologist.
The goad infuriated the Assad clan. The native safety chief, a cousin of the president, had his males spherical up and torture the children.
Bashar al Assad, proper, seen in 2000 with military chief Ali Aslan having fun with navy coaching video games – Sana/AP
Crowds gathered to demand their launch. Assad’s generals, and fairly presumably Asma herself, begged him to conform, apologise and defuse the disaster.
As a substitute, the president gave the order to open fireplace on the protesters, triggering the 13-year rebellion that ultimately noticed him dumped so unceremoniously from workplace.
Over the approaching months, his response turned ever bloodier and extra ruthless.
Within the following decade, his regime would kill a whole lot of 1000’s, torture greater than 14,000 prisoners to dying and precipitate the best refugee disaster for the reason that Second World Conflict, with half of Syria’s inhabitants fleeing.
The irony is that Assad himself couldn’t stand the sight of blood. It was the explanation why, after learning drugs in London, he turned an ophthalmologist within the first place, eschewing grander types of the science.
He was fairly proficient at it, notably when it got here to draining cysts, former colleagues recall.
A household snapshot taken in 1985 exhibits then president Hafez al-Assad and his spouse Anisa with behind them, from left, Maher, Bashar, Bassel, Bushra and Majd. Bassel was meant to succeed his father, not Bashar – AFP through Getty
He was not meant to change into president in any respect. His older brother, Bassel, was the one earmarked to succeed their father Hafez, who had seized energy in a coup in 1971 to mark the start of half a century of Assad rule.
Bassel, along with his fondness for quick automobiles and sooner ladies, was the other of his gauche youthful brother, who most well-liked to take a seat quietly at house, learning, listening to Phil Collins and consuming inexperienced tea.
However then, in 1994, Bassel was killed racing his Mercedes by way of the streets of Damascus and Bashar discovered himself the inheritor obvious and simply six years later, the president.
Asma, a lot to the disgust of Assad’s mom, Anisa Makhlouf, was by his aspect.
The younger Assad household in 1974, three years after Hafez took energy – Alexandra De Borchgrave/Gamma-Rapho through Getty
Born and raised in a nondescript pebbledash home in nondescript Acton in 1975, nonetheless carrying the faintest trace of an estuarine accent regardless of her private-school training, she was not the Gulf princess Anisa thought her son deserved.
In his early years in cost, Assad, reportedly inspired by his spouse, flirted with the thought of turning Syria right into a extra progressive, democratic state.
Assad and his spouse Asma in Paris throughout an official go to to France in 2010. She is claimed to affectionately name him ‘duck’ – Miguel Medina/AFP through Getty
Throughout what turned referred to as the Damascus Spring, he launched prisoners and allowed a level of freedom of expression.
He was on the peak of his reputation, his modesty serving to to win over many Syrians.
“He didn’t spend most of his time in an enormous citadel,” stated Joshua Landis, a Syria skilled on the College of Oklahoma.
“He tried to eat at eating places downtown. Many individuals preferred him, notably as a result of he was a bit of bit shy, notably after his father, who had been a navy man, and his brother, who was a troublesome man.”
“He appeared to start with to be somebody who was genuinely involved in regards to the modernisation of Syria.”
A Syrian opposition fighter sits inside an workplace on the presidential palace in Damascus – Omar Sanadiki
It didn’t final lengthy. Step by step it dawned on Assad that democracy would imply an finish to dominance by his Alawite minority, a Shia sect that made up simply 10 per cent of the inhabitants.
Not solely would free and truthful elections imply the tip of Alawite rule and the give up of management to the Sunni Arab majority, it may additionally imply the extermination of the Alawites themselves and maybe even their allies the Christians, one other minority confession.
It was not an unreasonable conclusion. For some within the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, drawn from the nation’s Sunni Arab majority, the Alawites had been apostates – and subsequently truthful recreation.
Maybe, Assad reckoned, his father had been proper. Confronted with a violent rebellion by Islamists within the metropolis of Hama in 1982, Hafez ordered town to be carpet bombed. A bloodbath estimated to have killed 20,000 folks unfolded.
Bashar was simply 16 when it occurred, however the recollections remained with him and the lesson he took from the bloodbath was this, based on former regime insiders: by killing 1000’s of individuals, my father preserved stability for the following three many years.
There was some reality in it. Even when Syria exploded in 2011, Hama stayed quiet, remaining in regime arms till it fell final week to the opposition forces now in cost.
Nevertheless it additionally ensured the hatred of the Assad title amongst many Syrian Sunnis.
Assad and Asma exterior 10 Downing Road with then prime minister Tony Blair in 2002 – Adrian Dennis/AFP through Getty
He alienated others, too. His insecurity created an inclination inside him to lecture others, typically in a hectoring fashion.
If he was in a room with economists, he would search to show he knew extra about economics than they did, based on former insiders.
Likewise, at Arab League summits he would scold leaders far older than him for his or her failure to uphold Arab nationalism. Quickly he was as unpopular overseas as at house – and a troublemaker, too.
Missing his father’s pure authority, he was unable to maintain Lebanon, a Syrian shopper state, in test, and ultimately Rafik al-Hariri, its most outstanding Sunni politician, sought to interrupt the bonds with Damascus.
In 2005, Hariri was killed in an enormous automotive bomb in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
Assad, having threatened to “break Lebanon over Hariri’s head”, was seen because the prime suspect, accused of utilizing Hezbollah, the Shia militia he had lengthy armed and funded, to do the deed.
It was the ultimate straw for his relationship with the Sunni states of the Gulf, whose acceptance his father had labored laborious to win.
Bashar had no selection however to throw himself into the arms of Iran, quickly discovering himself ready of dependency that solely elevated after the rebellion pressured him to change into extra reliant than ever on Tehran.
All smiles along with his nice pal Muammar Gaddafi in 2008. Three years later, the Libyan tyrant was overthrown and killed by rebels – Hassan Ammar/AFP through Getty
By then, his horizons had narrowed. In Syria he might solely belief members of his shut household.
Because the rebellion unfold in 2011, his thuggish youthful brother Maher was charged with suppressing dissent as ruthlessly as he might, a job he relished.
Video footage quickly emerged of Maher, clad in a leather-based jacket, laughing as he fired pictures at unarmed protesters in Damascus.
There was additionally his cousin Rami Makhlouf, Syria’s richest man, who managed 60 per cent of the economic system thanks principally to his management of the nation’s principal cell phone supplier, Syriatel.
Makhlouf’s wealth, estimated at someplace between £4 billion and £8 billion, was key to propping up the Assad household – though he would ultimately fall out with the president and forfeit a lot of his belongings.
How a lot Bashar and Asma had been price themselves is unknown, though the US state division has estimated that they personally personal belongings of greater than £1 billion.
The one tangible perception into the Assad clan’s wealth got here in 2020 when a French courtroom charged the previous president’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, with cash laundering.
Through the trial, which resulted in a four-year jail sentence, it was disclosed that Rifaat owned two huge homes in Paris, one in all which was 32,000 sq ft, together with a stud farm, a chateau and greater than 500 properties in Spain. Such was the wealth of a single member of the Assad clan.
Throughout 54 years of Assad household rule, the Syrian economic system stagnated after which collapsed solely, shrinking by greater than half, because the nation’s president sacrificed half one million lives to cling to energy.
In accordance with the United Nations, 90 per cent of Syrians dwell in poverty. The Assad household weren’t amongst them.
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