Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad has served as the President of Syria since July 2000, following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled the country for nearly three decades. Initially trained as an ophthalmologist, Bashar was thrust into politics after the death of his older brother, which led to his preparation for leadership. His presidency has been marked by attempts to modernize Syria, including expanding internet access and allowing the emergence of non-state media, although he has also faced criticism for continuing an authoritarian regime and suppressing dissent.
The Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring protests, has defined much of al-Assad’s tenure. His government's violent response to protests sparked widespread international condemnation and allegations of human rights abuses, including the use of chemical weapons. Despite significant opposition, al-Assad's regime, with Russian military support, regained control over much of Syria by the late 2010s.
As the conflict has persisted, al-Assad has faced ongoing humanitarian crises and political instability. He has been reelected multiple times amid accusations of electoral fraud, and in recent years, he has sought to restore Syria's relations with other Arab nations. However, his governance remains contentious, with ongoing concerns about war crimes and the humanitarian impact of his regime’s actions during the civil war.
Bashar al-Assad
President of Syria
- Born: September 11, 1965
- Place of Birth: Damascus, Syria
Bashar al-Assad became the president of Syria in July 2000, shortly after the death of his father, former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. Prior to becoming president, al-Assad was a medical resident and was not involved in Syrian politics. However, when his oldest brother, Bassel al-Assad, was killed in a car crash, he began to be groomed to succeed his father. As president, al-Assad was influential in bringing internet access and mobile technology to Syria. However, he was also criticized for continuing his father's authoritarian regime. Opponents called for major political and economic reform, eventually leading to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War by 2012. During that conflict, frequent reports accused al-Assad's government of atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons on civilians, drawing international condemnation. Despite opposition to al-Assad's regime from a number of opponents, his government, with the backing of the Russian military, was able to establish control over a significant portion of Syria by the end of the 2010s. In late 2024, al-Assad's government was overthrown by opposition forces, and al-Assad fled to Russia, marking the end of over fifty years of dictatorship in Syria by the al-Assad family.
Background
Bashar al-Assad was born on September 11, 1965, in Syria's capital of Damascus. His family, whose last name translates as "lion," belongs to the Alawite sect, a small group of Muslims who have held political power in Syria since the 1960s. Al-Assad's mother was Anisa al-Assad. His father was air force commander and president Hafez al-Assad, the first political leader of independent Syria, and an extremely powerful figure in the world of Middle East politics.
Al-Assad was the third of five children in a very tight-knit family. He was an accomplished volleyball, badminton, and soccer player as a youth. In 1968, he began attending one of Syria's most prestigious French schools. His teachers later remembered him as being unassuming and humble in class but outgoing and popular with his schoolmates.
Al-Assad married Asma Fawaz al-Akhras, a former merchant banker from a wealthy Sunni family, in December 2000. The couple had three children together: two sons, Hafez and Kareem, and a daughter, Zein.
Ophthalmology
After graduating from high school, al-Assad enrolled at the University of Damascus, where he studied medicine. Not only did he enjoy his training, he proved to be a skilled physician with a striking capacity for making patients feel at ease. He also possessed an aptitude for conducting surgical procedures. By 1998, al-Assad had chosen ophthalmology as his medical specialty and spent the next four years training in the field at a military hospital in Syria.
In 1992, al-Assad decided to leave for England to pursue more advanced training in ophthalmology, despite the fact that at the time he spoke both Arabic and French far better than he spoke English. After passing the required medical exam, al-Assad began his training at the Western Eye Hospital in central London. During the two years that he spent there, al-Assad lived a relatively solitary life, spending most of his time in the hospital or attending classes. However, he became intrigued by the power and possibility of technology, particularly computers and the internet.
In 1992, a few months before he was to take the written and practical exams that would fully qualify him as an eye surgeon, he received the news that his older brother Bassel had died. This meant that al-Assad himself was next in line for the presidency.
Training for Political Leadership
After the death of his brother, al-Assad's career path underwent a sudden shift. He had to abandon his medical education in London and return to Syria, where he began undergoing military training at an academy near Damascus. By 1999, al-Assad had been promoted several times and reached the rank of colonel. He also became a commander in the Republican Guard, a post his brother Bassel had previously held. During the same period, al-Assad received an informal education in politics. Although he had no formal position within the Syrian government, his father began grooming him for the presidency by entrusting him with more and more important roles.
For example, in 1994, al-Assad took on the leadership of the Syrian Scientific Society for Information Technology, an organization designed to promote the development of information technology within the Syrian economy and culture. By 1998, he was handling much more significant political matters, such as being placed in charge of managing Syria's relations with Lebanon. He was also charged with the task of investigating and fighting corruption within the government. The anti-corruption campaign al-Assad led resulted in the dismissal of a number of prominent officials, including those who might have rivaled him as a future leader of the country.
Becoming President
After several years of failing health, Hafez al-Assad died in June 2000. Bashar al-Assad was immediately nominated as his successor by the Ba'ath party, Syria's ruling political party, and a successful vote was held in the Syrian parliament that lowered the minimum age requirement for the president from forty to thirty-four—al-Assad's own age. Al-Assad was also promoted to lieutenant general and took charge as commander in chief of the army. He also became the leader of the Ba'ath party. He stepped into office amidst a strong show of support from those who had backed his father.
When al-Assad assumed Syrian leadership, he was perceived by some as a force for change. It was hoped that he would enact reforms that would modernize his country, give it a more open and less authoritarian government, and move it toward a free-market economy. Some of these changes indeed began to take place. For example, during his father's rule, no independent newspapers were permitted to operate within Syria, while under al-Assad non-state owned media emerged. However, freedom of the press remained limited and censorship continued to be an issue.
Al-Assad also took some steps to follow through on his intention to bring Syrians into the internet age by opening internet cafés in the capital. However, many websites were blocked by the government. In addition, al-Assad allowed private banks to begin operating in the country. For the most part, however, the international community expressed disappointment in the slow pace of reforms in Syria. Under al-Assad, as under his father, anyone who publicly opposed official political policies ran the risk of arrest, and corruption was widespread.
International Relations
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Syria have never been particularly warm, and deteriorated after Bashar al-Assad assumed office. Under al-Assad's rule, Syria initially began to cooperate in a limited way with the US government in the fight against terrorism. However, when Syria chose to oppose the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, relations between the two countries soured. In 2004, the administration of US president George W. Bush imposed economic sanctions on Syria, claiming the country was a sponsor of terrorism and had not done enough to protect the stability of Iraq. The US also withdrew its ambassador to Syria.
The 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was attributed by some to al-Assad's regime. Many believed that Hariri was targeted because of his campaign to eliminate Syrian influence in Lebanon. While the claims have not been proven, the suspicions of Syria's involvement in the Hariri assassination, along with the country's support of Iran and the militant Islamist group Hezbollah, made al-Assad a frequent target of Western criticism. Al-Assad met directly with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to attempt to defuse tensions, but the assemblage of Syrian troops on the Syrian-Lebanese border that same year seemed to contradict his efforts to re-establish diplomatic efforts with Lebanon.
In May 2007, the Syrian parliament voted to elect al-Assad into a second term as president. However, he was the only candidate.
In April 2008, the US government publicly accused North Korea of having aided Syria in building a covert nuclear reactor at a site that was bombed in 2007 by Israel. (The United Nations group IAEA—International Atomic Energy Agency—confirmed in June 2009 that undeclared man-made uranium had been detected at a second site in Damascus well.) In late October 2008, an American antiterrorist raid into Syria resulting in the deaths of eight civilians brought tensions between the United States and Syria to a head once again. In February 2010, the United States posted its first ambassador to Syria in five years, signaling a potential thaw in relations with the al-Assad regime. However, sanctions against Syria were renewed by the United States in May amidst claims that Syria supported terrorist groups, sought to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and provided Hezbollah with Scud missiles in violation of UN resolutions.
Al-Assad met with Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, in April 2010. He also met with Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese politician and leader of Lebanon's Druze community. The meeting was significant because Jumblatt had publicly accused Syria of being involved in the assassination of Hariri.
Syrian Civil War
In the spring of 2011, anti-government protests developed in Syria as part of the broader Arab Spring movement, with many calling for al-Assad to step down. Police and security forces responded violently, attracting international criticism and fueling further riots. In an effort to stem the growing opposition movement, al-Assad pledged to end the edict of emergency rule that had been established in Syria some forty years earlier. Yet violent crackdowns continued, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of demonstrators at the hands of government troops. Military check points were established throughout the country and many opposition supporters were arrested. International outrage mounted, with reports that al-Assad would be indicted by the International Criminal Court. US president Barack Obama officially called for al-Assad to leave office on August 18, 2011, freezing all Syrian assets under American control.
Violent unrest continued to spread across Syria, with Al-Assad claiming that the conflict had been incited by enemies outside of the country and refusing to step down despite repeated calls for his resignation from both his own people and foreign governments. The pro-Assad military entered several cities and their suburbs in an attempt to crush protester efforts, which led the United States and the European Union (EU) to increase sanctions against Syria. By June 2011, more than ten thousand refugees had fled the country to neighboring Turkey.
In late November 2011, the Arab League approved severe economic sanctions against Syria, impacting trade and investments between the country and the rest of the Arab world. Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi stated that the sanctions were put in place in an effort to stop the country's brutal crackdown against political demonstrators. The International Committee of the Red Cross officially declared the situation in Syria to be a civil war in 2012. By then, the overall death toll was reported to be approximately twenty thousand people.
As the Syrian Civil War progressed, reports of potential war crimes by pro-Assad forces led several Western governments to expel senior Syrian diplomats from their countries in May 2012 in protest. In December 2012, the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, and the Gulf states formally recognized the opposition National Coalition as a "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people rather than the al-Assad government. Meanwhile, millions of Syrian refugees were displaced by the fighting to camps throughout the Middle East. In March 2013, the United States and Britain pledged non-military aid to rebel groups.
During the war, al-Assad drew international outrage, including rebukes from US president Barack Obama and British prime minister David Cameron, for the Syrian Army's use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, including women and children. Al-Assad denied the accusations that he used chemical weapons against his own people and agreed to allow international inspectors to destroy the country's stockpile of chemical weapons, a process that was reportedly completed in June 2014. That same month, al-Assad was reelected by a wide margin, although human rights groups considered the fairness of the election suspect. International attention then began to shift away from al-Assad to the growing terrorist organization the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as ISIL or IS). However, critics of his regime continued to condemn the Syrian Army's targeting of civilians in the civil war.
In September 2015, Russia began a Syrian-approved air campaign ostensibly targeting terrorists in the region, but civilians and Western-backed rebels were severely hit in the strikes. The following month, al-Assad made his first foreign trip since the start of the war to visit Russian president Vladimir Putin in order to personally thank him for his help and military intervention. He later credited Russia with turning the tide in the fight against ISIS in Syria, dismissing the efforts of the United States and its allies.
In July 2016, al-Assad was directly named in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of reporter Marie Colvin, who was killed in Syria in 2012 while covering the war. The suit alleged that the Syrian government had tracked and directly targeted Colvin and other journalists. Al-Assad personally denied any responsibility in an interview, suggesting that Colvin's entry into the country had been illegal. In May 2019, a US federal court ruled in favor of Colvin's family, ordering the al-Assad regime to pay $302.5 million. The case was seen as an important landmark in efforts to prosecute war crimes.
In early 2017, new reports of chemical attacks on Syrian civilians emerged, leading US president Donald Trump to order airstrikes against pro-Assad forces. Similar reports of chemical attacks persisted into the next year, however. In May 2018, in an interview in the Russian media, al-Assad directly called for the United States to withdraw from Syria. By that time, pro-Assad forces had taken control of most of the main cities in the country and were continuing to push rebels back; the last holdout for opposition forces was the Idlib region, due to support from Turkey. In December 2018, Trump announced he planned to indeed withdraw US troops from Syria, though citing the claim that ISIS had been defeated.
With the rebels largely routed and ISIS significantly weakened, though not fully destroyed, al-Assad turned some attention to rebuilding Syria. Years of devastating warfare had left hundreds of thousands dead, many more displaced, and much infrastructure and property ruined and abandoned. Al-Assad announced projects intended to draw foreign investment and develop commercial sites. He also enacted a law allowing the government to take ownership of property left unclaimed, which proved controversial as critics noted most Syrians with ties to the opposition would be unable to make such claims.
By 2019, despite foreign attempts at instituting cease-fires, al-Assad's regime had continued military operations to reclaim territory held by opposition forces, largely focusing efforts on the province of Idlib. Even as the conflict continued, prompting further international concern regarding humanitarian affairs, al-Assad's regime also had to deal with the crisis of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic beginning in 2020; while the Syrian government claimed that the virus was largely under control in the country, international groups argued that this was not actually the case.
Meanwhile, al-Assad continued to consolidate his power in the parts of Syria under his government's control. In May 2021, while fighting continued and parts of the country remained under the control of separatists, jihadists, and other anti-government groups, the Syrian government held a presidential election. Al-Assad won with more than 95 percent of the vote, although the validity of the election was widely criticized by international observers. As he began his new term as president, al-Assad faced a number of issues, including ongoing political instability and warfare, poverty, and lasting damage from the civil war. Through the end of 2021, al-Assad attempted to repair Syria's relations with a number of other Arab countries, including Jordan.
In March 2022, al-Assad made his first visit to an Arab country since the 2011 onset of the Syrian Civil War, when he traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). During the trip, al-Assad met with UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan as well as the country's vice president and prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. Just over a year later, al-Assad made his first appearance at an Arab League summit since 2011 when he attended the Council of the League of Arab States in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on May 19, 2023.
In June 2024, a French appeals court ruled on a case involving al-Assad that began in 2013. Al-Assad, along with his brother Maher and two of the country's generals, Ghassan Abbas and Bassam al-Hassan, were charged with war crimes resulting from chemical gas attacks in 2013 in the cities of Douma and East Ghouta. More than one thousand citizens were killed and thousands more injured in the attacks. Lawyers argued that al-Assad's presidential status made him immune from prosecution, but the French court did not agree. While the court's decision meant that al-Assad and the others could be brought to France for prosecution, it was largely seen as a symbolic gesture.
Collapse of the al-Assad Regime
In late 2024, opposition forces led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebel group, and supported by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, launched a major offensive. After capturing the city of Aleppo and several other cities in Syria, the rebel forces entered Damascus on December 8, 2024. Encountering little resistance, the Syrian army—badly depleted after fourteen years of civil war—was swiftly defeated, ending al-Assad's twenty-four-year reign. After the capture of Damascus, Al-Assad fled to Russia, where he was granted asylum, and the opposition forces declared victory in Syria. They established a transitional government, as Syrian citizens celebrated the overthrow of al-Assad's authoritarian rule.
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