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Syrian President Bashar Assad fled to Russia at the weekend, ending a nearly 14-year struggle to hold on to power in his country amid a civil war that has turned into a battleground between international and regional powers.
But Assad’s people learned through news of the war in Syria that he was not what some expected when he came to power.
Rise to power
Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, raised Bashar’s eldest brother Basil as his heir. In 1994, Basil was killed in a traffic accident in Damascus. Bashar was then brought home from his ophthalmology practice in London and given military training, where he was promoted to the rank of colonel to give him the credentials to one day rule Syria.
Hafez ruled Syria for nearly 30 years, during which he established a centralized Soviet-style economy. He also formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, sealed Syrian dominance over Lebanon, and established a network of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (C) and his wife Asma al-Assad (L) attend the opening ceremony of the 2022 Asian Games at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center stadium in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang province on September 23, 2023. (PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images)
When Hafez died in 2000, the country’s parliament lowered the age limit to become president from 40 to 34, and in a national referendum Bashar became president, as he was the only candidate.
Bashar at first seemed the opposite of his father. When Bashar came to power, he spoke in a soft whisper, was tall, thin, quiet and mild-mannered. His only official position before becoming president was head of the Syrian Computer Society, so people believed him to be a geeky tech-savvy computer geek with a gentle demeanor.
Bashar also released political prisoners and allowed more open discourse.
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FILE – This April 13, 2016 file photo released on the official Facebook page of the Syrian presidency shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad voting in a parliamentary election, with his wife Asma, left, standing next to him, in Damascus, Syria. (Syrian Presidency via AP, file)
Princess Diana of Syria?
A few months after taking office, Bashar married Asma al-Akhras, a British-born woman known for being attractive and stylish. The two eventually had three children.
The couple lived in an apartment in the upscale neighborhood of Abu Rumane in Damascus, unlike the mansions of other Arab leaders.
Asma, who was born in Acton, West London, to Sunni parents Muslims from Homs, Syriabecame known as Princess Diana of Syria.
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Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad attends the harvest of Damascene (Damascus) roses in Al-Marah village, Damascus countryside, May 25, 2023. (LOUI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
She graduated in computer science and French literature from Queen’s College London and entered banking, working as a hedge fund analyst.
She married Bashar in a “secret” wedding in 2000 when he was 35 and she was only 25.
As Bashar continued to rule, things began to change.
Change of instructions
In 2005, Bashar was dealt a blow by the loss of Syria’s decades-long control over neighboring Lebanon following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many in Lebanon accused Bashar of being behind the killing. Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and a pro-American government came to power.
At the same time, the Arab world split in two – one side was allied with the US and included Sunni-led countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while the other side consisted of Syria and Iran, along with their ties to Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrives in Jeddah to attend the next day’s Arab League summit, Saudi Arabia, May 18, 2023.
Bashar appointed family members to key roles, while he also gave entrusted roles to Asma.
In 2011, protesters overthrew rulers in Tunisia and Egypt, although Bashar has denied it could happen in Syria.
His security forces carried out a brutal crackdown, while Bashar denied facing a popular uprising. Instead, he blamed “foreign-backed terrorists” for trying to destabilize his regime.
The uprising grew into civil war with millions of Syrians fleeing to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Europe.
In March 2011, Vogue magazine profiled Asma, calling her “a rose in the desert” and “the freshest and most magnetic first lady”. The article, which describes the Assads as “wildly democratic” and portrays them as progressive and intelligent, is based on an interview conducted in late 2010. It was pulled from the Internet weeks after it was published, as Assad’s bloody crackdown on Syrian dissidents was well underway.
“After our interview, as the horrific events of the last year and a half have unfolded in Syria, it became clear that her priorities and values are completely at odds with those of Vogue,” said the magazine’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. he said then.
Lavish consumption
In 2012, WikiLeaks released private emails of a 42-year-old British woman showing she blew $350,000 on 130 pieces of furniture as the country’s civil war raged for a year.
Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad attends a graduation ceremony for future teachers of the Syrian Organization for Persons with Disabilities, in Damascus on December 3, 2018. (LOUI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
The released emails also allegedly showed she also bought a $7,000 pair of shoes with crystal-studded heels and shipped the goods to Dubai to circumvent sanctions.
The couple’s ultra-modern presidential mansion – commissioned in 1979 and designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange – is thought to have cost $1 billion.
In 1989 The Washington Post reported that a single room was furnished with 125,000 Italian marble tiles at a cost of $85 per tile. The total cost spent on one room was about $10.6 million.
On the same day her husband is believed to have dropped sarin gas on civilians in Khan Sheikhoun, Asma posted a photo of herself wearing a chic polka dot dress, seemingly deep in thought and smiling.
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Asma’s social media posts portrayed her as a humanitarian, adorned with photos of the first lady reading to children and hugging the family of a Syrian man killed in the country’s civil war – all with the affectionate hashtag #VeLoveYouAsma.
The photos are in stark contrast to those on news channels showing Syrian children lying dead in the streets after being suffocated by poison gas that the US and its allies said was released by her dictator husband.
In May, Syrian officials announced that Asma had been diagnosed with leukemia, forcing her to temporarily withdraw from public life.
Bashar’s office released a statement at the time saying Asma had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and would “follow a specialized treatment protocol that includes strict infection prevention measures.”
Acute myeloid leukemia is an aggressive cancer of the bone marrow and blood.
Asma was previously treated for breast cancer.
Fox News Digital’s Timothy HJ Nerozzi and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
