Bashar al-Assad

In this article, the surname is Assad.

Bashar al-Assad بشار الأسد
Assad in 2024
19th President of Syria
Nyengo: 17 July 2000 – 8 December 2024
Prime Minister	Template:Clist
Wachiŵili kwa mlongozgi	Template:Clist
Kupokela	Hafez al-Assad Abdul Halim Khaddam (acting)
General Secretary of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
Nyengo: 24 June 2000 – 8 December 2024
Deputy	Abdullah al-Ahmar Hilal Hilal Ibrahim al-Hadid
Kupokela	Hafez al-Assad
Kuwiska na	Ibrahim al-Hadid
Umoyo wamunthu
Kubabika	Bashar Hafez al-Assad (1965-09-11) 11 September 1965 Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic
Chipani	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party
Other political affiliations	National Progressive Front
Nthengwa	Asma al-Assad ​ (m. 2000)​
Ŵana	3, including Hafez
Malo ghakukhala	The People's Palace, Damascus (until 2024) Moscow, Russia (since 2024)
Chikhwekhwelele
Military service
Allegiance	Syria
Service/branch	Syrian Armed Forces
Vyaka mukugwila	1988–2024
Mndanda	Field marshal
Unit	Republican Guard (until 2000)
Commands	Syrian Armed Forces
Battles/wars	Syrian civil war

Bashar al-Assad (wakababika pa 11 Seputembala 1965) ndi wandale wa ku Syria ndipo ndi msilikari uyo wakaba 19th president wa Syria kufuma 2000 mpaka kuwa kwa boma la Assad mu 2024. Apo wakaŵa pulezidenti, Assad wakaŵa mulongozgi wa ŵasilikari ŵa Siriya kweniso wakaŵa mulembi wa ŵasilikari ŵa chipani cha Ba'ath. Iyo ni mwana wa Hafez al-Assad, uyo wakaŵa pulezidenti kufuma mu 1971 mpaka apo wakafwira mu 2000.

M'ma 1980, Assad wakazgoka dokotala, ndipo kukwambilira kwa m'ma 1990 wakasambizganga vya maso ku London. Mu 1994, mukuru wake Bassel al-Assad wakafwa pa ngozi ya galimoto, ndipo Assad wakacemeka ku Syria kuti wakapokere udindo wa Bassel. Assad wakanjira sukulu ya usilikali na kwamba kulongozga ŵasilikari ŵa Siriya mu Lebanoni mu 1998. Pa 17 July 2000, Assad wakazgoka pulezidenti, ndipo wakawelera mu malo gha adada ŵake, awo ŵakafwa pa 10 June 2000.Vinthu vinandi ivyo vikacitika mu 2001-2002 vikawovwira kuti Damascus Spring yimare, nyengo iyo ŵanthu ŵakakhumbanga kuti vinthu viŵe palipose kweniso kuti paŵe demokilase.

Ŵasayansi na ŵanthu ŵanyake ŵakulongosora kuti muwuso wa Assad ukaŵa wa ŵanthu awo ŵakakhumbanga kuti vinthu viŵayendere makora, ndipo boma la Syria likaŵa nga ni boma la ŵapolisi, ndipo ŵanthu ŵakaŵasuzganga na kuŵatambuzga chomene. Apo boma la Assad likati ni la ŵanthu ŵa visopa vinyake yayi, ŵasayansi na ŵanthu ŵanyake ŵakayowoya kuti boma ili likagwiliskiranga nchito ŵanthu ŵa visopa vinyake mu caru ici. Nangauli Asad wakahara mazaza na nkharo ya wiske, kweni ŵanthu ŵakamutemwanga yayi nga umo ŵakachitiranga ŵadada ŵake. Pa cifukwa ici, ŵanthu ŵanandi ŵa mu muwuso wa ŵawiske ŵakaleka nchito panji ŵakathereskeka, ndipo ŵamazaza ŵa mu muwuso ŵakasuskika na ŵanthu ŵakugomezgeka ŵa fuko la Alawite. Mapulogiramu ghakwambilira gha Assad gha kuwunjikira chuma ghakawunjikira mpambano ndipo ghakawunjikira nkhongono ŵanthu ŵa ku Damascus awo ŵakagomezgekanga ku mbumba ya Assad, ndipo ghakaŵachimbizga ŵanthu ŵa ku mizi, mu misumba, ŵamalonda, ŵamalonda, na ŵanthu ŵa ku Ba'ath. Mu Febuluwale 2005, ŵanthu ŵa ku Lebanon ŵakacita nkhondo ya Cedar Revolution, iyo yikamba cifukwa ca kukoma Rafic Hariri, uyo wakaŵa nduna yikuru ya caru ca Lebanon.

Mu 2011, United States, European Union, na vigaŵa vinandi vya Arab League vikacema Assad kuti wafumeko pa udindo wake cifukwa ca kuyuzga ŵanthu awo ŵakakhuŵiliranga mu nyengo ya Arab Spring. Nkhondo iyi yikoma ŵanthu pafupifupi 580,000, ndipo ŵanthu 306,000 awo ŵakafwa ŵakaŵa ŵasilikari yayi. Boma la Assad lapanga milandu yinandi ya nkhondo mu nyengo ya nkhondo ya chalo cha Syria, apo ŵasilikari ŵake ŵacita nkhondo zinandi na vilwero vya mankhwala (makamaka, bomba la sarin ku Ghouta pa 21 August 2013). Wupu wakuwona vya wanangwa wa ŵanthu wa UN, ukayowoya kuti ivyo ukawona vikavumbura kuti Assad wali na mulandu wa nkhondo, ndipo boma la vyaru vinyake likamufumba na kumususka.

Mu Novembala 2024, gulu la ŵasilikari ŵa ku Syria likawukira boma na chilato chakuti likhizge Assad. Pa Disembala 8, ŵasilikari ŵakugaluka ŵakati ŵanjira mu Damascus, Assad wakacimbilira ku Moscow ndipo boma la Russia likamupa ciphokwero. Pamanyuma pa zuŵa lenelira, ŵasilikari ŵakagalukira boma la Damaseko, ndipo boma la Assad likamara..

Umoyo wakwamba, mbumba na masambiro

Wonani vinandi: Al-Assad family

Bashar al-Assad wakababikira ku Damascus pa 11 September 1965, mwana wachiŵiri wa Anisa Makhlouf na Hafez al-Assad. Mu Ciarabu, zina lakuti "Al-Assad" likung'anamura kuti "nkhalamu". Ali al-Assad, uyo wakaŵa sekuru wa Assad, wakasintha zina lake kufuma pa kuŵa mulimi na kuŵa munthu wakuzirwa, ndipo mu 1927, wakasintha zina la mbumba yake kufuma pa "Wahsh" (kung'anamura kuti "Chikavu") na kuŵa "Al-Assad".

Dada wa Assad, Hafez al-Assad, wakababikira mu mbumba yambura ndalama, iyo yikaŵa ya ku mizi ndipo yikaŵa ya chigaŵa cha Alawite. Hafez wakakwezga ŵanthu awo ŵakamulondezganga mu chipani cha Ba'ath, ndipo ŵanandi mwa ŵanthu aŵa ŵakaŵa ŵa fuko la Alawite. Pamanyuma pa cipanduko ici, ŵasilikari ŵa Alawite ŵakamba kuwusa, ndipo ŵa Sunni, ŵa Druze, na ŵa Ismaili ŵakafumiskika mu gulu la ŵasilikari na gulu la Ba'ath. Muwuso wa ŵasilikari wa Hafez al-Assad wa vilimika 30, ukazgora Siriya kuŵa muwuso waciŵembu. Ndondomeko yiphya ya ndyali yikalongozgekanga na ŵanthu ŵakumanyikwa ŵa gulu la Ba'ath, awo ŵakaŵa ŵakugomezgeka comene ku mbumba ya Assad, ndipo ŵakalongozganga ŵasilikari, ŵasilikari ŵa boma, na ŵapolisi.

Mubali Assad wakaŵa na ŵabali ŵake ŵankhondi, ndipo ŵatatu ŵali kufwa. Mudumbu munyake zina lake Bushra wakafwa apo wakaŵa bonda. Mudumbu wa Assad, Majd, wakaŵa munthu wakumanyikwa yayi, ndipo pali vinandi yayi ivyo tikumanya vya iyo padera pa fundo yakuti wakaŵa wakupendera maghanoghano, ndipo wakafwa mu 2009 pamanyuma pa "kulwara kwa nyengo yitali".

Mwakupambana na ŵanung'una ŵake Bassel na Maher, na mudumbu wake Bushra, Bashar wakaŵa wakuzika, wakudemelera, ndipo wakakhumbanga yayi kunjira ndyali panji usilikari. Ŵana ŵa Assad ŵakatemwanga yayi kucezga na adada ŵawo, ndipo Bashar wakayowoya kuti wakanjira mu ofesi ya adada ŵake kamoza pera apo ŵakaŵa pulezidenti. Munthu munyake uyo wakasambiranga nayo ku yunivesite wakayowoya kuti wakaŵa na soni, wakakhumbanga yayi kulaŵiskana na munthu, ndipo wakayowoyanga mwakuzika.

Assad wakasambira sukulu ya pulayimale na sekondare ku sukulu ya Al-Hurriya ku Damascus. Mu 1982, wakamalizga masambiro gha ku sekondare ndipo wakasambira udokotala pa yunivesite ya Damascus.

Medical career and rise to power

Chithunzithunzi cha Bassel al-Assad (1962–1994), mubali mulara wa Bashar, uyo pakwamba wakakhumbikwiranga kuzakatora malo gha ŵawiske pa udindo wa pulezidenti wa Syria, kweni wakafwa pa ngozi ya galimoto mu 1994.

Mu 1988, Assad wakamalizga masambiro ghake gha udokotala ndipo wakamba kugwira nchito ya udokotala ku chipatala cha Tishrin ku Damascus. Pakati pajumpha vilimika vinayi, wakasamira ku London kuti wakambe masambiro gha ku chipatala cha Western Eye. Mu nyengo iyo wakaŵa ku London, ŵanthu ŵakamuzunuranga kuti ni "munthu wakucita vya makompyuta". Bashar wakaŵa na vilato vichoko waka vya ndyali, ndipo adada ŵake ŵakasambizganga Bassel, mukuru wa Bashar kuti waŵe mulongozgi wa caru. Mu 1994, Bassel wakafwa pa ngozi ya galimoto, ndipo nyengo yicoko waka, Bashar wakacemeka kuti wakambe usilikari. Boma likamba kuphalira ŵanthu kuti Bashar ni "chigomezgo cha ŵanthu wose" kuti ŵalutilire kuwusa mu muwuso wa Assad.

Ŵakati ŵafwa waka, Hafez al-Assad wakasankha Bashar kuti ndiyo waŵe themba. Kwa vyaka 6 na hafu, mpaka apo wakafwira mu 2000, Hafez wakanozganga Bashar kuti wapokere mazaza. General Bahjat Suleiman, uyo wakaŵa msilikari mu gulu la ŵasilikari, wakapika mulimo wa kulongozga kunozgekera kuti vinthu viŵe makora, ndipo mulimo uwu ukachitika mu vigaŵa vitatu. Cakwamba, ŵasilikari na ŵasilikari ŵakamovwira comene Bashar. Caciŵiri, ŵanthu ŵakamba kumumanya makora Bashar. Paumaliro, Bashar wakamanyikwa makora umo boma likwendera.

Kuti waŵe msilikari, Bashar wakaluta ku sukulu ya usilikali ku Homs mu 1994 ndipo wakaluta ku gulu la ŵasilikari la Syrian Republican Guard mu Janyuwale 1999. Kuti Bashar waŵe na mazaza pa ŵasilikari, ŵalongozgi ŵa vigaŵa ŵakaŵachimbizga kuti ŵaleke kunjira usilikari, ndipo ŵapya, ŵawukirano, ŵasilikari ŵa chigaŵa cha Alawite awo ŵakaŵa ŵakugomezgeka kwa Bashar ndiwo ŵakanjira m'malo mwawo.

Mu 1998, Bashar wakatora udindo wa Syria ku Lebanon, uwo kufuma mu 1970 ukaŵa wa wachiŵiri kwa pulezidenti Abdul Halim Khaddam, uyo m'paka pa nyengo iyi wakaŵa kuti wangakhumbikwira kuŵa pulezidenti. Pakwamba kulamulira ku Lebanon, Bashar wakathereska Khaddam na kukhazikiska boma lake ku Lebanon. Mu chaka chenechichi, pamanyuma pa kudumbiskana na ŵanthu ŵa ndyali ŵa ku Lebanoni, Bashar wakimika Emile Lahoud, uyo wakaŵa mubwezi wake wakugomezgeka, kuŵa pulezidenti wa ku Lebanoni ndipo wakathereska Rafic Hariri, uyo wakaŵa nduna yikuru ya ku Lebanoni. Kuti watimbanizge boma la Syria ku Lebanon, Bashar wakasora Rustum Ghazaleh, uyo wakakhala kwa nyengo yitali nga ni High Commissioner wa Syria ku Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan.

Kuyana waka na ntchito yake ya usilikari, Bashar wakachitanga ntchito za boma. Wakapika mazaza ghanandi ndipo wakazgoka mulara wa ofesi yakupokelera madandaulo na mapemphero gha ŵantu, ndipo wakalongozga kampeni yakulimbana na vimbundi. Chifukwa cha kampeni iyi, ŵanandi awo ŵangaŵa ŵakususkana na Bashar pakuŵa pulezidenti ŵakazengeka mulandu chifukwa cha vimbundi. Bashar wakazgokaso Pulezidenti wa wupu wa ŵamakompyuta ŵa ku Syria ndipo wakawovwira kuti paŵe intaneti ku Syria, ndipo ivi vikamovwira kuti ŵawoneke kuti ni munthu uyo ​​wakusintha vinthu mazuŵa ghano ndiposo wakusintha vinthu. Ŵanthu ŵakugomezgeka ŵa Ba'athist mu chipani, ŵasilikari na gulu la Alawite ŵakakhozgeranga Bashar al-Assad, ndipo ivi vikamovwira kuti waŵe mulongozgi wa ŵawiske.

Presidency

Nkhani ikulu: Presidency of Bashar al-Assad

Early leadership (2000–2011)

Pa nyengo iyo, Nduna ya Chitetezo Mustafa Tlass pamoza na Bashar al-Assad, pa 1 Ogasiti 2000. Pamanyuma Tlass na mwana wake Manaf Tlass ŵakafumapo pa gulu ili pamanyuma pakuti ŵanthu ŵa ku Syria ŵasintha boma.

Assad mu 2004

Hafez al-Assad wakati wafwa pa 10 June 2000, Constitution ya Syria yikasinthika. Ŵakachepeska vyaka vya munthu uyo wangaŵa pulezidenti kufuma pa 40 kufika pa 34, apo Bashar wakaŵa pa nyengo iyo. Asad ndiyo yekha wakakhalapo pa mpikisano uwu ndipo pa 10 Julayi 2000, wakazomerezgeka kuŵa pulezidenti. Mwakuyana na udindo wake wa pulezidenti wa Syria, wakasoleka kuŵa mulongozgi wa ŵasilikari ŵa Syria kweniso kuŵa mulembi wa chipani cha Ba'ath. Pa vyaka 7 vilivyose kukaŵanga visankho ndipo Assad ndiyo wakawusanga. Ŵanthu awo ŵakuwona umo vinthu viliri pa caru ŵakuwona kuti ivyo vikucitika pa visora ni vyautesi ndipo ŵakususka ŵakuvilekeska. Masankho ghaŵiri ghaumaliro agho ghakachitika mu 2014 na 2021 ghakachitikira mu vigaŵa ivyo vikaŵa mu mawoko gha boma la Syria.

Damascus Spring

Wonaniso: Damascus Spring

Wakati wamba waka kuwusa, gulu linyake lakucemeka Damascus Spring, ilo likalongozgekanga na ŵalembi, ŵanthu ŵavinjeru, ŵakususka, na ŵanthu ŵakutemwa vinthu vyautesi, likacita vinthu mwamahara, ndipo ŵakamalizga kujalira jele la Mezzeh na kufumiska ŵakayidi ŵanandi awo ŵakaŵa mu gulu la Muslim Brotherhood. Ndipouli, ŵanthu ŵakambaso kutimbana na ŵasilikari, ndipo ivi vikapangiska kuti vinthu viŵe nga ni umo vikaŵira ku Damascus mu nyengo ya chiwuvi. Ŵanandi ŵakaŵakora, kuŵatimba, kuŵatumizga ku wuzga, panji kuŵakaka, ndipo boma likalutilira kuŵapa wanangwa wa kuyowoya. Vinthu ivyo ŵakacita pakwamba vikawelerapo kuti ŵalutilire kuŵa na mazaza pa vinthu, ndipo boma likakanizga mulimo wa Damascus Spring na chilato chakuti "ŵanthu ŵaŵe ŵakukolerana kweniso ŵakhazikike". Ndondomeko ya boma ya "kukolerana pa vinthu vya ŵanthu na vya malonda" yikazgoka chimanyikwiro cha vimbundi, ndipo awo ŵakakolerananga na Assad ndiwo ŵakasanganga chandulo. Maofesi ghanandi ghakakanizgika, ndipo ŵanthu ŵanandi ŵavinjeru ŵakakoleka na ŵapolisi ŵa Mukhabarat, ŵakakomeka na kutambuzgika. Ŵanandi ŵakugomezga kuti ivyo boma likalayizga pakwamba vikaŵa vigaŵa vya nthowa iyo boma likagwiliskiranga nchito kuti lisange Ŵasiriya awo ŵakakolerananga yayi na boma liphya.

Pa ulendo wa nduna yikuru ya Britain Tony Blair ku Syria mu Okutobala 2001, Bashar wakususka pakweru kuwukira kwa United States ku Afghanistan pa ungano wa wupu wa ŵapharazgi, wakati "tikutondeka kuzomera ivyo tikuwona zuŵa lililose pa TV kwithu - kukomeka kwa ŵanthu ŵambura mulandu. Ŵanandi ŵakufwa zuŵa lililose". Pa ungano uwu, Asad wakalumba gulu la ŵasilikari ŵa ku Palestina kuti ni "ŵasilikari awo ŵakurwa nkhondo ya wanangwa" ndipo wakasuska Israyeli na vyaru vya ku Europe. Ŵalaraŵalara ŵa boma la Britain ŵakayowoya kuti ivyo Assad wakacitanga pakusopa vikaŵa vyakukolerana yayi na ŵanthu ŵanyake. Ŵakatenge wakususka ivyo vikacitika pa Seputembala 11, ndipo wakuzomerezga kuti boma la Israyeli ndakuzomerezgeka.

Pamanyuma pa vilengo vya pa 11 Seputembala, ndipo pa nyengo ya nkhondo ya ku America ya kulimbana na vigeŵenga, "Syria yikaŵa yimoza mwa vyaru ivyo CIA yikagwiliskiranga nchito pa nkhondo yakwimikana na al-Qaeda", ndipo "makhaliro na unandi wa uthenga uwo ukafumanga ku Syria [ukaŵa] ukuru comene kuluska ivyo CIA yikaghanaghananga". 8] Syria yikakolerana chomene na CIA pakukaka ŵanthu na kuŵafumba mafumbo. Mu majele gha ku Syria ndimo mukaŵanga ŵanthu ŵanandi awo CIA yikaŵapharazgiranga kuti mba al-Qaeda. Kuyana na lipoti la 2013 la gulu la Open Society Foundations, ku Syria ndiko kukaŵanga ŵanthu ŵanandi awo ŵakagwiranga nchito ya CIA.

Killing of Rafic Hariri and Cedar Revolution

Wonaniso: Assassination of Rafic Hariri, Cedar Revolution, and Syrian occupation of Lebanon

"It will be Lahoud.. opposing him is tantamount to opposing Assad himself.. I will break Lebanon over your head and over Walid Jumblatt's head. So you had better return to Beirut and arrange the matter on that basis."

— Assad's threats to Rafic Hariri in August 2004, over the issue of tenure extension of Syrian ally Emile Lahoud

The crime-scene in Beirut where Hariri and 21 others were killed in a terrorist attack in February 2005. The area was cordoned off to conduct an international investigation.

On 14 February 2005, Rafic Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in a massive truck-bomb explosion in Beirut, killing 22 people. The Christian Science Monitor reported that "Syria was widely blamed for Hariri's murder. In the months leading to the assassination, relations between Hariri and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad plummeted amid an atmosphere of threats and intimidation." Bashar promoted his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, a key figure suspected of orchestrating the terrorist attack, as the chief of Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate immediately after Hariri's death.

Protesters take to the streets during Lebanon's "Independence Intifada", also known as the Cedar Revolution.

The killings caused massive uproar, triggering an intifada in Lebanon and hundreds of thousands of protestors poured on the streets to demand total withdrawal of Syrian military forces. After mounting international pressure that called Syria to implement the UNSC Resolution 1559, Bashar al-Assad declared on 5 March that he would order the departure of Syrian soldiers. On 14 March 2005, more than a million Lebanese protestors – Muslims, Christians, and Druze – demonstrated in Beirut, marking the monthly anniversary of Hariri's murder. UN Resolution 1595, adopted on 7 April, sent an international commission to investigate the assassination of Hariri. By 5 May 2005, United Nations had officially confirmed the total departure of all Syrian soldiers, ending the 29-year old military occupation. The uprisings that occurred in these months came to be known as Lebanon's "independence intifada" or the "Cedar Revolution".

UN investigation commission's report published on 20 October 2005 revealed that high-ranking members of Syrian intelligence and Assad family had directly supervised the killing. The BBC reported in December 2005 that "Damascus has strongly denied involvement in the car bomb which killed Hariri in February".

Assad with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, India, 18 June 2008

On 27 May 2007, Assad was approved for another seven-year term in a referendum on his presidency, with 97.6% of the votes supporting his continued leadership. Opposition parties were not allowed in the country and Assad was the only candidate in the referendum. Syria's opposition parties under the umbrella of Damascus Declaration denounced the elections as illegitimate and part of the regime's strategy to sustain the "totalitarian system". Elections in Syria are officially designated as the event of "renewing the pledge of allegiance" to the Assads and voting is enforced as a compulsory duty for every citizen. Announcement of the results are followed by pro-government rallies conducted across the country extolling the regime, wherein citizens declare their "devotion" to the President and celebrate "the virtues" of the Assad dynasty.

Syria began developing a covert nuclear weapons programme with assistance of North Korea during the 2000s, but its suspected nuclear reactor was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force during Operation Outside the Box in September 2007.

Syrian Civil War (2011–2024)

Leadership until 2015

Wonaniso: Arab Spring, 2011 Syrian Revolution, Syrian civil war, and Sanctions against Syria

Anti-Assad demonstrations in Douma, 8 April 2011

Protests in Syria began on 26 January 2011 following the Arab Spring protests that called for political reforms and the reinstatement of civil rights, as well as an end to the state of emergency which had been in place since 1963. One attempt at a "day of rage" was set for 4–5 February, though it ended uneventfully. Protests on 18–19 March were the largest to take place in Syria for decades, and the Syrian authority responded with violence against its protesting citizens. In his first public response to the protests delivered on 30 March 2011, Assad blamed the unrest on "conspiracies" and accused the Syrian opposition and protestors of seditious "fitna", toeing the party-line of framing the Ba'athist state as the victim of an international plot. He also derided the Arab Spring movement, and described those participating in the protests as "germs" and fifth-columnists.

"Throughout the speech, al-Assad remained faithful to the basic ideological line of Syrian Baathism: the binary opposition of a devilishly determined, conspiring 'outside' bent on hurting a heroically defending and essentially good 'inside'... consistent with Baathist dualism, [the speech] makes the sparing, if not grudging, mention of supposedly minor dissent in this 'inside'. This dissent loses its political meaning, or moral justification, acquiring 'othering' essence when the president places it in the dismissive context of the fitna... Following this hard-line speech, the protesters' demands moved from reforming to overthrowing the regime."

— Professor Akeel Abbas on Assad's first public speech after the outbreak of Syrian Revolution protests

The U.S. imposed limited sanctions against the Assad government in April 2011, followed by Barack Obama's executive order as of 18 May 2011 targeting Bashar Assad specifically and six other senior officials. On 23 May 2011, the EU foreign ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels to add Assad and nine other officials to a list affected by travel bans and asset freezes. On 24 May 2011, Canada imposed sanctions on Syrian leaders, including Assad.

On 20 June, in response to the demands of protesters and international pressure, Assad promised a national dialogue involving movement toward reform, new parliamentary elections, and greater freedoms. He also urged refugees to return home from Turkey, while assuring them amnesty and blaming all unrest on a small number of saboteurs.

Pro-Assad demonstration in Alawite majority coastal city of Latakia, 20 June 2011

Hundreds of thousands of anti-Assad protesters parade the Syrian flag and shout the Arab Spring slogan Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam (the people want to bring down the regime!) in the Assi square, during the Siege of Hama, 22 July 2011.

In July 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Assad had "lost legitimacy" as president. On 18 August 2011, Barack Obama issued a written statement that urged Assad to "step aside". In August, the cartoonist Ali Farzat, a critic of Assad's government, was attacked. Relatives of the humourist told media outlets that the attackers threatened to break Farzat's bones as a warning for him to stop drawing cartoons of government officials, particularly Assad. Farzat was hospitalised with fractures in both hands and blunt force trauma to the head.

Since October 2011, Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, repeatedly vetoed Western-sponsored draft resolutions in the UN Security Council that would have left open the possibility of UN sanctions, or even military intervention, against the Assad government.

By the end of January 2012, it was reported by Reuters that over 5,000 civilians and protesters (including armed militants) had been killed by the Syrian army, security agents and militia (Shabiha), while 1,100 people had been killed by "terrorist armed forces".

On 10 January 2012, Assad gave a speech in which he maintained the uprising was engineered by foreign countries and proclaimed that "victory [was] near". He also said that the Arab League, by suspending Syria, revealed that it was no longer Arab. However, Assad also said the country would not "close doors" to an Arab-brokered solution if "national sovereignty" was respected. He also said a referendum on a new constitution could be held in March.

Destroyed vehicle on a devastated Aleppo street, 6 October 2012

On 27 February 2012, Syria claimed that a proposal that a new constitution be drafted received 90% support during the relevant referendum. The referendum introduced a fourteen-year cumulative term limit for the president of Syria. The referendum was pronounced meaningless by foreign nations including the U.S. and Turkey; the EU announced fresh sanctions against key regime figures. In July 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denounced Western powers for what he said amounted to blackmail thus provoking a civil war in Syria. On 15 July 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross declared Syria to be in a state of civil war, as the nationwide death toll for all sides was reported to have neared 20,000.

On 6 January 2013, Assad, in his first major speech since June, said that the conflict in his country was due to "enemies" outside of Syria who would "go to Hell" and that they would "be taught a lesson". However, he said that he was still open to a political solution saying that failed attempts at a solution "does not mean we are not interested in a political solution." In July 2014, Assad renewed his third term of presidency after voting process conducted in pro-regime territories which were boycotted by the opposition and condemned by the United Nations. According to Joshua Landis: "He's (Assad) going to say: 'I am the state, I am Syria, and if the West wants access to Syrians, they have to come through me.'"

A poster of Bashar al-Assad at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus

After the fall of four military bases in September 2014, which were the last government footholds in the Raqqa Governorate, Assad received significant criticism from his Alawite base of support. This included remarks made by Douraid al-Assad, cousin of Bashar al-Assad, demanding the resignation of the Syrian Defence Minister, Fahd Jassem al-Freij, following the massacre by the Islamic State of hundreds of government troops captured after the IS victory at Tabqa Airbase. This was shortly followed by Alawite protests in Homs demanding the resignation of the governor, and the dismissal of Assad's cousin Hafez Makhlouf from his security position leading to his subsequent exile to Belarus. Growing resentment towards Assad among Alawites was fuelled by the disproportionate number of soldiers killed in fighting hailing from Alawite areas, a sense that the Assad regime has abandoned them, as well as the failing economic situation. Figures close to Assad began voicing concerns regarding the likelihood of its survival, with one saying in late 2014; "I don't see the current situation as sustainable ... I think Damascus will collapse at some point."

Military situation in December 2015

In 2015, several members of the Assad family died in Latakia under unclear circumstances. On 14 March, an influential cousin of Assad and founder of the shabiha, Mohammed Toufic al-Assad, was assassinated with five bullets to the head in a dispute over influence in Qardaha – the ancestral home of the Assad family. In April 2015, Assad ordered the arrest of his cousin Munther al-Assad in Alzirah, Latakia. It remains unclear whether the arrest was due to actual crimes.

After a string of government defeats in northern and southern Syria, analysts noted growing government instability coupled with continued waning support for the Assad government among its core Alawite base of support, and that there were increasing reports of Assad relatives, Alawites, and businessmen fleeing Damascus for Latakia and foreign countries. Intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk was placed under house arrest sometime in April and stood accused of plotting with Assad's exiled uncle Rifaat al-Assad to replace Bashar as president. Further high-profile deaths included the commanders of the Fourth Armoured Division, the Belli military airbase, the army's special forces and of the First Armoured Division, with an errant air strike during the Palmyra offensive killing two officers who were reportedly related to Assad.

After Russian intervention (from 2015)

Wonaniso: Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war and Foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war

Bashar al-Assad meets with Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, 25 February 2019.

Assad with former Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu, 9 September 2017

On 4 September 2015, when prospects of Assad's survival looked bleak, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was providing the Assad government with sufficiently "serious" help: with both logistical and military support. Shortly after the start of direct military intervention by Russia on 30 September 2015 at the formal request of the Syrian government, Putin stated the military operation had been thoroughly prepared in advance and defined Russia's goal in Syria as "stabilising the legitimate power in Syria and creating the conditions for political compromise". Putin's intervention saved the Assad regime at a time when it was on the verge of a looming collapse. It also enabled Moscow to achieve its key geo-strategic objectives such as total control of Syrian airspace, naval bases that granted permanent martial reach across the Eastern Mediterranean and easier access to intervene in Libya.

In November 2015, Assad reiterated that a diplomatic process to bring the country's civil war to an end could not begin while it was occupied by "terrorists", although it was considered by BBC News to be unclear whether he meant only ISIL or Western-supported rebels as well. On 22 November, Assad said that within two months of its air campaign Russia had achieved more in its fight against ISIL than the U.S.-led coalition had achieved in a year. In an interview with Czech Television on 1 December, he said that the leaders who demanded his resignation were of no interest to him, as nobody takes them seriously because they are "shallow" and controlled by the United States. At the end of December 2015, senior U.S. officials privately admitted that Russia had achieved its central goal of stabilising Syria and, with the expenses relatively low, could sustain the operation at this level for years to come.

In December 2015, Putin stated that Russia was supporting Assad's forces and was ready to back anti-Assad rebels in a joint fight against IS.

Bashar al-Assad meets with Iran's representative on Syrian affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, 6 May 2016.

On 22 January 2016, the Financial Times, citing anonymous "senior western intelligence officials", claimed that Russian general Igor Sergun, the director of GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, had shortly before his sudden death on 3 January 2016 been sent to Damascus with a message from Vladimir Putin asking that President Assad step aside. The Financial Times' report was denied by Putin's spokesman.

It was reported in December 2016 that Assad's forces had retaken half of rebel-held Aleppo, ending a 6-year stalemate in the city. On 15 December, as it was reported government forces were on the brink of retaking all of Aleppo – a "turning point" in the civil war, Assad celebrated the "liberation" of the city, and stated, "History is being written by every Syrian citizen."

After the election of Donald Trump, the priority of the U.S. concerning Assad was unlike the priority of the Obama administration, and in March 2017, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley stated the U.S. was no longer focused on "getting Assad out", but this position changed in the wake of the 2017 Khan Shaykhun chemical attack. Following the missile strikes on a Syrian airbase on the orders of President Trump, Assad's spokesperson described the U.S.' behaviour as "unjust and arrogant aggression" and stated that the missile strikes "do not change the deep policies" of the Syrian government. President Assad also told the Agence France-Presse that Syria's military had given up all its chemical weapons in 2013, and would not have used them if they still retained any, and stated that the chemical attack was a "100 percent fabrication" used to justify a U.S. airstrike. In June 2017, Russian President Putin said "Assad didn't use the [chemical weapons]" and that the chemical attack was "done by people who wanted to blame him for that." UN and international chemical weapons inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found the attack was the work of the Assad regime.

Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria, 11 December 2017

On 7 November 2017, the Syrian government announced that it had signed the Paris Climate Agreement. In May 2018, it recognized the independence of Russian-occupied separatist republics of Abhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, leading to backlash from the European Union, United States, Canada and other countries. On 30 August 2020, the First Hussein Arnous government was formed, which included a new Council of Ministers.

In the 2021 presidential elections held on 26 May, Assad secured his fourth 7-year tenure; by winning 95.2% of the eligible votes. The elections were boycotted by the opposition and SDF; while the refugees and internally displaced citizens were disqualified to vote; enabling only 38% of Syrians to participate in the process. Independent international observers as well as representatives of Western countries described the elections as a farce. United Nations condemned the elections for directly violating Resolution 2254; and announced that it has "no mandate".

Assad with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Damascus, 3 May 2023

On 10 August 2021, the Second Hussein Arnous government was formed. Under Assad, Syria became a strong supporter of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and was one of the five countries that opposed the UN General Assembly resolution denouncing the invasion, which called upon Russia to pull back its troops. Three days prior to the invasion, Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was dispatched to Moscow to affirm Syria's recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk separatist republics. A day after the invasion, Bashar al-Assad praised the invasion as "a correction of history and a restoration of balance in the global order after the fall of the Soviet Union" in a phone call with Vladimir Putin. Syria became the first country after Russia to officially recognize the "independence and sovereignty" of the two breakaway regions in June 2022.

On the 12th anniversary of beginning of the protests of Syrian Revolution, Bashar al-Assad held a meeting with Vladimir Putin during an official visit to Russia. In a televised broadcast with Putin, Assad defended Russia's "special military operation" as a war against "neo-Nazis and old Nazis" of Ukraine. He recognised the Russian annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts and ratified the new Russian borders, claiming that the territories were "historically Russian". Assad also urged Russia to expand its military presence in Syria by establishing new bases and deploying more boots on the ground, making its military role permanent.

Military situation before the opposition offensives in late 2024.
Territories held by the SDF (yellow), IS (grey), the Syrian Army (red), the SNA and Turkey (light green), Tahrir al-Sham (white), the SFA and the United States (teal).

In March 2023, he visited the United Arab Emirates and met with UAE's President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In May 2023, he attended the Arab League summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he was welcomed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and other Arab leaders. In September 2023, Assad attended the Asian Games opening ceremony in Hangzhou and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. They announced the establishment of a China–Syria strategic partnership.

In November 2023, Assad attended the Arab–Islamic extraordinary summit in Riyadh. In May 2024, he attended the Arab League summit in Bahrain.

Rebel offensive, regime collapse and exile in Russia (2024)

Wonaniso: 2024 Syrian opposition offensives and Fall of the Assad regime

Syrian opposition offensives that overthrew Assad's regime in 11 days

In December 2024, the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom urged for de-escalation in Syria as violence flared up once again. Rebel factions, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), had taken control of Aleppo, prompting a retaliatory airstrike campaign by President Assad and his Russian allies. The strikes, which targeted population centers and several hospitals in the rebel-held city of Idlib, resulted in at least 25 deaths, according to the White Helmets rescue group. NATO countries issued a joint statement calling for the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure to prevent further displacement and ensure humanitarian access. They stressed the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which advocates for dialogue between the Syrian government and opposition forces. The rebel offensive, which had begun on 27 November 2024, continued its advance into Hama Governorate following their capture of Aleppo.

On 4 December 2024, fierce clashes erupted in Hama Governorate as the Syrian army engaged Islamist-led insurgents in a bid to halt their advance on the key city of Hama. Government forces claimed to have launched a counteroffensive with air support, pushing back rebel factions, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), around six miles from the city. However, despite reinforcements, the rebels captured the city on 5 December. The fighting led to widespread displacement, with nearly 50,000 people fleeing the area and over 600 casualties reported, including 104 civilians. On 6 December, rebels began encircling the capital Damascus. On 7 December, Assad fled the city just before its fall to the rebels, ending 54 years of the Assad family's rule. The Russian government said that Assad had "stepped down" as president following a personal decision and had left Syria. Interfax, quoting an unnamed source at the Kremlin, said that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow and that the Russian government had granted them asylum "on humanitarian grounds."

Controversies

Corruption

Nkhani ikulu: Corruption in Syria

Wonaniso: Economy of Syria

At the onset of the Syrian revolution, corruption in Syria was endemic, and the country was ranked 129th in the 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index. Since the 1970s, Syria's economy has been dominated by the patronage networks of Ba'ath party elites and Alawite loyalists of the Assad family, who established control over Syria's public sectors based on kinship and nepotism. The pervasive nature of corruption had been a source of controversy within the Ba'ath party circles and the wider public; as early as the 1980s.

Bashar al-Assad's economic liberalization program during the 2000s became a symbol of corruption and nepotism, as the scheme's beneficiaries were Alawite loyalists who seized a significant portion of the privatized sectors and business assets. The government's actions alienated the vast majority of the Syrian public, particularly the rural and urban working classes, who strongly disliked the resulting economic disparities that became overtly visible. Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf was the regime's most favored oligarch during this period, marked by the institutionalization of corruption, handicapping of small businesses and casting down private entrepreneurship. The persistence of corruption, sectarian bias towards Alawites, nepotism and widespread bribery that existed in party, bureaucracy and military led to popular anger that resulted in the eruption of the 2011 Syrian Revolution. The protests were the most fierce in working-class neighbourhoods, which had long bore the brunt of the regime's exploitation policies that privileged its own loyalists.

According to ABC News, as a result of the Syrian civil war, "government-controlled Syria is truncated in size, battered and impoverished." Economic sanctions (the Syria Accountability Act) were applied long before the Syrian civil war by the U.S. and were joined by the EU at the outbreak of the civil war, causing disintegration of the Syrian economy. These sanctions were reinforced in October 2014 by the EU and U.S. Industry in parts of the country that are still held by the government is heavily state-controlled, with economic liberalisation being reversed during the current conflict. The London School of Economics has stated that as a result of the Syrian civil war, a war economy has developed in Syria. A 2014 European Council on Foreign Relations report also stated that a war economy has formed:

Three years into a conflict that is estimated to have killed at least 140,000 people from both sides, much of the Syrian economy lies in ruins. As the violence has expanded and sanctions have been imposed, assets and infrastructure have been destroyed, economic output has fallen, and investors have fled the country. Unemployment now exceeds 50 percent and half of the population lives below the poverty line ... against this backdrop, a war economy is emerging that is creating significant new economic networks and business activities that feed off the violence, chaos, and lawlessness gripping the country. This war economy – to which Western sanctions have inadvertently contributed – is creating incentives for some Syrians to prolong the conflict and making it harder to end it.

A UN commissioned report by the Syrian Centre for Policy Research states that two-thirds of the Syrian population now lives in "extreme poverty". Unemployment stands at 50 percent. In October 2014, a $50 million mall opened in Tartus which provoked criticism from government supporters and was seen as part of an Assad government policy of attempting to project a sense of normalcy throughout the civil war. A government policy to give preference to families of slain soldiers for government jobs was cancelled after it caused an uproar while rising accusations of corruption caused protests. In December 2014, the EU banned sales of jet fuel to the Assad government, forcing the government to buy more expensive uninsured jet fuel shipments in the future.

Taking advantage of the increased role of the state as a result of the civil war, Bashar and his wife Asma have begun annexing Syria's economic assets from their loyalists, seeking to displace the old business elites and monopolize their direct control of the economy. Maher al-Assad, the brother of Bashar, has also become wealthy by overseeing the operations of Syria's state-sponsored captagon drug industry and seizing much of the spoils of war. The ruling couple currently owns vast swathes of Syria's shipping, real estate, telecommunications and banking sectors. Significant changes have been happening to Syrian economy since the government's confiscation campaigns launched in 2019, which involved major economic assets being transferred to the Presidential couple to project their power and influence. Particularly noteworthy dynamic has been the rise of Asma al-Assad, who heads Syria's clandestine economic council and is thought to have become "a central funnel of economic power in Syria". Through her Syria Trust NGO, the backbone of her financial network, Asma vets the foreign aid coming to Syria; since the government authorizes UN organizations only if it works under state agencies.

Corruption has been rising sporadically in recent years, with Syria being considered the most corrupt country in the Arab World. As of 2022, Syria is the ranked second worst globally in the Corruption Perceptions Index.

Sectarianism

Wonaniso: Sectarianism and minorities in the Syrian civil war

Hafez al-Assad's government was widely counted amongst the most repressive Arab dictatorships of the 20th century. As Bashar inherited his father's mantle, he sought to implement "authoritarian upgrading" by purging those from his father's generation and staffing the party and military with loyalist Alawite officers, further entrenching the sectarianism within the system. While officially the Ba'athist government adheres to a strict secularist doctrine, in practice it has implemented sectarian engineering policies in the society to suppress dissent and monopolize its absolute power.

"During Hafez-al-Assad's reign, he resorted to emphasising the sectarian identities that the previous Ba'ath Party rejected; believing the only way to ensure stability was through building a trusted security force... Hafez pursued a strategy to "make the Alawite community a loyal monolith while keeping Syria's Sunni majority divided". Yet Syria became a police state, enforcing stability through threat of brute force repression... Bashar had already followed in his father's footsteps, carefully manoeuvring his most loyal allies into the military-security apparatus, government ministries and the Ba'ath party."

— Antonia Robson

The regime has attempted to portray itself to the outside world as "the protector of minorities" and instills the fear of the majority rule in the society to mobilize loyalists from minorities. Assad loyalist figures like Michel Samaha have advocated sectarian mobilization to defend the regime from what he labelled as the "sea of Sunnis". Assad regime has unleashed sectarian violence through private Alawite militias like the Shabiha, particularly in Sunni areas. Alawite religious iconography and communal sentiments are common themes used by Alawite warrior-shaykhs who lead the Alawite militias; as justification to commit massacres, abductions and torture in opposition strongholds. Various development policies adopted by the regime had followed a sectarian pattern. An urbanization scheme implemented by the government in the city of Homs led to expulsions of thousands of Sunni residents during the 2000s, while Alawite majority areas were left intact.

Even as Syrian Ba'athism absorbed diverse communal identities into the homogenous unifying discourse of the state; socio-political power became monopolized by Alawite loyalists. Despite officially adhering to non-confessionalism, Syrian Armed Forces have also been institutionally sectarianized. While the conscripts and lower-ranks are overwhelmingly non-Alawite, the higher ranks are packed by Alawite loyalists who effectively control the logistics and security policy. Elite units of the Syrian military such as the Tiger Forces, Republican Guard, 4th Armoured Division, etc. regarded by the government as crucial for its survival; are composed mostly of Alawites. Sunni officers are under constant surveillance by the secret police, with most of them being assigned with Alawite assistants who monitor their movements. Pro-regime paramilitary groups such as the National Defense Force are also organized around sectarian loyalty to the Ba'athist government. During the Syrian Revolution uprisings, the Ba'athist government deployed a securitization strategy that depended on sectarian mobilization, unleashing violence on protestors and extensive crackdowns across the country, prompting opposition groups to turn to armed revolt. Syrian society was further sectarianized following the Iranian intervention in the Syrian civil war, which witnessed numerous Khomeinist militant groups sponsored by Iran fight in the side of the Assad government.

Human rights

Wonaniso: Human rights in Syria

The Ba'athist government has been ruling Syria as a totalitarian state, policing every aspect of Syrian society for decades. Commanders of government's security forces – consisting of Syrian Arab Army, secret police, Ba'athist paramilitaries – directly implement the executive functions of the state, with scant regard for legal processes and bureaucracy. The surveillance system of the Mukhabarat is pervasive, with the total number of agents working for its various branches estimated to be as high as 1:158 ratio with the civilian population. Security services shut down civil society organizations, curtail freedom of movement within the country and bans non-Ba'athist political literature and symbols. In 2010, Human Rights Watch published the report "A Wasted Decade" documenting repression during Assad's first decade of emergency rule; marked by arbitrary arrests, censorship and discrimination against Syrian Kurds.

Billboard with a portrait of Bashar al-Assad and the text 'Syria is protected by God' on the old city wall of Damascus in 2006

Throughout the 2000s, the dreaded Mukhabarat agents carried out routine abductions, arbitrary detentions and torture of civilians. Numerous show trials were conducted against dissidents, filling Syrian prisons with journalists and human rights activists. Members of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate had long enjoyed broad privileges to carry out extrajudicial actions and they have immunity from criminal offences. In 2008, Assad extended this immunity to other departments of security forces. Human Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have detailed how the Assad government's secret police tortured, imprisoned, and killed political opponents, and those who speak out against the government. In addition, some 600 Lebanese political prisoners are thought to be held in government prisons since the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, with some held for as long as over 30 years. Since 2006, the Assad government has expanded the use of travel bans against political dissidents. In an interview with ABC News in 2007, Assad stated: "We don't have such [things as] political prisoners," though The New York Times reported the arrest of 30 Syrian political dissidents who were organising a joint opposition front in December 2007, with 3 members of this group considered to be opposition leaders being remanded in custody.

The government also denied permission for human rights organizations and independent NGOs to work in the country. In 2010, Syria banned face veils at universities. Following the protests of Syrian Revolution in 2011, Assad partially relaxed the veil ban.

Demonstration in Montreal in solidarity with the people of Syria. The sign reads: "Stop torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners in Syria!"

Foreign Affairs journal released an editorial on the Syrian situation in the wake of the 2011 protests:

During its decades of rule... the Assad family developed a strong political safety net by firmly integrating the military into the government. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, seized power after rising through the ranks of the Syrian armed forces, during which time he established a network of loyal Alawites by installing them in key posts. In fact, the military, ruling elite, and ruthless secret police are so intertwined that it is now impossible to separate the Assad regime from the security establishment. Bashar al-Assad's threat to use force against protesters would be more plausible than Tunisia's or Egypt's were. So, unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, where a professionally trained military tended to play an independent role, the regime and its loyal forces have been able to deter all but the most resolute and fearless oppositional activists... At the same time, it is significantly different from Libya, where the military, although brutal and loyal to the regime, is a more disorganized group of militant thugs than a trained and disciplined army.

Between 2011 and 2013; the state security apparatus is believed to have tortured and killed over 10,000 civil activists, political dissidents, journalists, civil defense volunteers and those accused of treason and terror charges, as part of a campaign of deadly crackdown ordered by Assad. In June 2023, UN General Assembly voted in favour of establishing an independent body to investigate the whereabouts of hundreds of thousands of missing civilians who have been forcibly disappeared, killed or languishing in Assad regime's dungeons and torture chambers. The vote was condemned by Russia, North Korea and Iran.

In 2023, Canada and Netherlands filed a lawsuit against Syria at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), charging the latter with violating the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The joint petition accused the Syrian regime of organizing "unimaginable physical and mental pain and suffering" as a strategy to collectively punish the Syrian population. Russia vetoed UN Security Council efforts to prosecute Bashar al-Assad at the International Criminal Court.

Repression of Kurds

Wonani vinandi: Arab Belt Project, Arabization in Syria, and Qamishli massacre

Ba'athist Syria had long banned Kurdish language in schools and public institutions; and discrimination against Kurds steadily increased during the rule of Bashar al-Assad. State policy officially suppressed Kurdish culture; with more than 300,000 Syrian Kurds being rendered stateless. Kurdish grievances against state persecution eventually culminated in the 2004 Qamishli Uprisings, which were crushed down violently after sending Syrian military forces. The ensuing crackdown resulted in the killings of more than 36 Kurds and injuring at least 160 demonstrators. More than 2000 civilians were arrested and tortured in government detention centres. Restrictions on Kurdish activities has been further tightened following the Qamishli massacre, with the Assad regime virtually banning all Kurdish cultural gatherings and political activism under the charges of "inciting strife" or "weakening national sentiment." During 2005–2010, Human Rights Watch verified security crackdowns on at least 14 Kurdish political and cultural gatherings. In March 2008, Syrian military opened fire at a Kurdish gathering in Qamishli that marked Nowruz, killing three and injuring five civilians.

Censorship

Nkhani ikulu: Censorship in Syria and Internet censorship in Syria

On 22 September 2001, Assad decreed a Press Law that tightened government control over all literature printed or published in Syria; ranging from newspapers to books, pamphlets and periodicals. Publishers, writers, editors, distributors, journalists and other individuals accused of violating the Press Law are imprisoned or fined. Censorship has also been expanded into the cyberspace, and various websites are banned. Numerous bloggers and content creators have been arrested under various "national security" charges.

A 2007 law requires internet cafés to record all the comments users post on chat forums. Another decree in 2008 obligated internet cafes to keep records of their customers and report them routinely to the police. Websites such as Arabic Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook were blocked intermittently between 2008 and February 2011. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Syria as the third dangerous country to be an online blogger in 2009. Individuals are arrested based on a wide variety of accusations; ranging from undermining "national unity" to posting or sharing "false" content.

Syria was ranked as the third most censored country in CPJ's 2012 report. Apart from restrictions for international journalists that prohibit their entry, domestic press is controlled by state agencies that promote Ba'athist ideology. From 2011, the Syrian government has issued a complete media blackout and foreign correspondents were quickly detained, abducted or tortured. As a result, the outside world is able to know of situations happening inside Syria only through videos of independent civilian journalists. The Assad government has shut down internet coverage, mobile networks as well as telephone lines in areas under its control to prevent any news that has its attempts to monopolize information related to Syria.

Crackdowns, ethnic cleansing, and forced disappearances

Wonani vinandi: Casualties of the Syrian civil war and Syrian refugee crisis

The crackdown ordered by Bashar al-Assad against Syrian protesters was the most ruthless of all military clampdowns in the entire Arab Spring. As violence deteriorated and death toll mounted to the thousands; the European Union, Arab League and United States began imposing wide range of sanctions against Assad regime. By December 2011, United Nations had declared the situation in Syria to be a "civil war". By this point, all the protestors and armed resistance groups had viewed the unconditional resignation of Bashar al-Assad as part of their core demands. In July 2012, Arab League held an emergency session demanding the "swift resignation" of Assad and promised "safe exit" if he accepted the offer. Assad rebuffed the offers, instead seeking foreign military support from Iran and Russia to defend his embattled regime through scorched-earth tactics, massacres, sieges, forced starvations, ethnic cleansing, etc.

The crackdowns and extermination campaigns of Assad regime resulted in the Syrian refugee crisis; causing the forced displacement of 14 million Syrians, with around 7.2 million refugees. This has made the Syrian refugee crisis the largest refugee crisis in the world; and UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi has described it as "the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time and a continuing cause for suffering."

Ethnic cleansing

Wounded civilians getting rushed to a hospital in Aleppo

Eva Koulouriotis has described Bashar al-Assad as the "master of ethnic cleansing in the 21st century". During the course of the civil war, Assad ordered depopulation campaigns throughout the country to re-shape its demography in favor of his regime and the military tactics have been compared to the persecutions of the Bosnian war. Between 2011 and 2015, Ba'athist militias are reported to have committed 49 ethno-sectarian massacres for the purpose of implementing its social engineering agenda in the country. Alawite loyalist militias known as the Shabiha have been launched into Sunni villages and towns, perpetrating numerous anti-Sunni massacres. These include the Houla, Bayda and Baniyas massacres, Al-Qubeir massacre, Al-Hasawiya massacre, and others which have resulted in hundreds of deaths with hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing under threats of regime persecution and sexual violence. Pogroms and deportations were pronounced in central Syrian regions and Alawite majority coastal areas where the Syrian military and Hezbollah prioritize the establishment of strategic control by expelling Sunni residents and bringing in Iran-backed Shia militants. In 2016, UN officials criticized Bashar al-Assad for pursuing demographic engineering and ethnic cleansing in Darayya district in Damascus under the guise of de-escalation deals.

Syrian government forces have pursued mass-killings of civilian populations as part of its war strategy throughout the conflict and is responsible for inflicting more than 90% of the total civilian deaths in the Syrian civil war. The UN estimates a minimum of 306,000 civilian deaths occurred between 2011 and 2021. As of 2022, the total death toll has risen to approximately 580,000. An additional 154,000 civilians have been forcibly disappeared or subject to arbitrary detentions across Syria between 2011 and 2023. As of 2023, more than 135,000 individuals are being tortured, incarcerated or dead in Ba'athist prison networks, including thousands of women and children.

Since 2011, the Assad regime has arrested and detained children without trial until the age of 18, after which they are transferred to Syrian military field courts and killed. A 2024 investigative report by the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit (SIRAJ) identified 24 Syrian children who were forcibly disappeared, had their assets confiscated, detained and later killed after they reached the age of 18. The report, based on inside sources within the Assad government, interviews with victims' families, and public sources, estimated that more than 6,000 detainees under the age of 18 were sentenced to death in the Sednaya Prison and an Assadist military field court in Al-Dimas between 2014 and 2017, citing eyewitness accounts of an insider within the Ba'athist military police.

War crimes

Wonani vinandi: Human rights violations during the Syrian civil war and Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war

"The nature and extent of Assad's violence is strategic in design and effect. He is pursuing a strategy of terror, siege, and depopulation in key areas, calculating that winning back the loyalty of much of the Sunni middle class and underclass is highly unlikely and certainly not worth the resources and political capital. Better to level half the country than to give it over to the opposition."

— Emile Hokayem, Senior Fellow at International Institute for Strategic Studies

Numerous politicians, dissidents, authors and journalists have nicknamed Assad as the "butcher" of Syria for his war-crimes, anti-Sunni sectarian mass-killings, chemical weapons attacks and ethnic cleansing campaigns. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that at least 10 European citizens were tortured by the Assad government while detained during the Syrian civil war, potentially leaving Assad open to prosecution by individual European countries for war crimes. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated in December 2013 that UN investigations directly implicated Bashar al-Assad guilty of crimes against humanity and pursuing an extermination strategy developed "at the highest level of government, including the head of state."

Stephen Rapp, the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, stated in 2014 that the crimes committed by Assad are the worst seen since those of Nazi Germany. In March 2015, Rapp further stated that the case against Assad is "much better" than those against Slobodan Milošević of Serbia or Charles Taylor of Liberia, both of whom were indicted by international tribunals. Charles Lister, Director of the Countering Terror and Extremism Program at Middle East Institute, describes Bashar al-Assad as "21st century's biggest war criminal".

Bombing of Darayya suburb of Damascus by the Syrian Arab Air Force, 17 June 2016

In a February 2015 interview with the BBC, Assad dismissed accusations that the Syrian Arab Air Force used barrel bombs as "childish", claiming that his forces have never used these types of "barrel" bombs and responded with a joke about not using "cooking pots" either. The BBC Middle East editor conducting the interview, Jeremy Bowen, later described Assad's statement regarding barrel bombs as "patently not true". As soon as demonstrations arose in 2011–2012, Bashar al-Assad opted to implement the "Samson option", the characteristic approach of the Neo-ba'athist regime since the era of Hafez al-Assad; wherein protests were violently suppressed and demonstrators were shot and fired at directly by the armed forces. However, unlike Hafez; Bashar had even less loyalty and was politically fragile, exacerbated by alienation of the majority of the population. As a result, Bashar chose to crack down on dissent far more comprehensively and harshly than his father; and a mere allegation of collaboration was reason enough to get assassinated.

Nadim Shehadi, the director of The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, stated that "In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein was massacring his people and we were worried about the weapons inspectors," and claimed that "Assad did that too. He kept us busy with chemical weapons when he massacred his people." Contrasting the policies of Hafez al-Assad and that of his son Bashar, former Syrian vice-president and Ba'athist dissident Abdul Halim Khaddam states:

"The Father had a mind and the Son has a loss of reason. How could the army use its force and the security apparatus with all its might to destroy Syria because of a protest against the mistakes of one of your security officials. The father would act differently. Father Hafez hit Hama after he encircled it, warned and then hit Hama after a long siege... But his son is different. On the subject of Daraa, Bashar gave instructions to open fire on the demonstrators."

Human rights organizations and criminal investigators have documented Assad's war crimes and sent it to the International Criminal Court for indictment. Since Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute, International Criminal Court requires authorization from the UN Security Council to send Bashar al-Assad to tribunal. As this gets consistently vetoed by Assad's primary backer Russia, ICC prosecutions have not transpired. On the other hand, courts in various European countries have begun prosecuting and convicting senior Ba'ath party members, Syrian military commanders and Mukhabarat officials charged with war crimes. In September 2015, France began an inquiry into Assad for crimes against humanity, with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stating "Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of the values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the killers".

In February 2016, head of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Paulo Pinheiro, told reporters: "The mass scale of deaths of detainees suggests that the government of Syria is responsible for acts that amount to extermination as a crime against humanity." The UN Commission reported finding "unimaginable abuses", including women and children as young as seven perishing while being held by Syrian authorities. The report also stated: "There are reasonable grounds to believe that high-ranking officers – including the heads of branches and directorates – commanding these detention facilities, those in charge of the military police, as well as their civilian superiors, knew of the vast number of deaths occurring in detention facilities ... yet did not take action to prevent abuse, investigate allegations or prosecute those responsible".

In March 2016, the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs led by New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called on the Obama administration to create a war crimes tribunal to investigate and prosecute violations "whether committed by the officials of the Government of Syria or other parties to the civil war".

In June 2018, Germany's chief prosecutor issued an international arrest warrant for one of Assad's most senior military officials, Jamil Hassan. Hassan is the head of Syria's powerful Air Force Intelligence Directorate. Detention centers run by Air Force Intelligence are among the most notorious in Syria, and thousands are believed to have died because of torture or neglect. Charges filed against Hassan claim he had command responsibility over the facilities and therefore knew of the abuse. The move against Hassan marked an important milestone of prosecutors trying to bring senior members of Assad's inner circle to trial for war crimes.

In an investigative report about the Tadamon Massacre, Professors Uğur Ümit Üngör and Annsar Shahhoud, found witnesses who attested that Assad gave orders for the Syrian Military Intelligence to direct the Shabiha to kill civilians.

2023–2024 arrest warrant and legal proceedings

On 15 November 2023, France issued an arrest warrant against Syrian President Bashar Assad over the use of banned chemical weapons against civilians in Syria. In May 2024, French anti-terrorism prosecutors requested the Paris appeals court to consider revoking Assad's arrest warrant, asserting his absolute immunity as a serving head of state.

On 26 June 2024, the Paris appeals court determined that the international arrest warrant issued by France against Assad for alleged complicity in war crimes during the Syrian civil war remains valid. This decision was confirmed by attorneys involved in the case.

According to the lawyers, this ruling marked the first instance where a national court acknowledged that the personal immunity of a serving head of state is not absolute, as reported by The Associated Press.

Chemical attacks

Nkhani ikulu: Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war

Wonaniso: Syria and weapons of mass destruction

The Syrian military has deployed chemical warfare as a systematic military strategy in the Syrian civil war, and is estimated to have committed over 300 chemical attacks, targeting civilian populations throughout the course of the conflict. Investigation conducted by the GPPi research institute documented 336 confirmed attacks involving chemical weapons in Syria between 23 December 2012 and 18 January 2019. The study attributed 98% of the total verified chemical attacks to the Assad's regime. Almost 90% of the attacks had occurred after the Ghouta chemical attack in August 2013.

Children killed by pro-Assad military forces in the Ghouta chemical attack, the deadliest chemical weapons attack in the 21st century

Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and OPCW member state in October 2013, and there are currently three OPCW missions with UN mandates to investigate chemical weapons issues in Syria. These are the Declaration Assessment Team (DAT) to verify Syrian declarations of CW Programme; OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) tasked to identify the chemical attacks and type of weapons used; and the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) which investigates the perpetrators of the chemical attacks. The conclusions are submitted to the United Nations bodies.

In April 2021, Syria was suspended from OPCW through the public vote of member states, for not co-operating with the body's Investigation Identification Team (IIT) and violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. Findings of another investigation report published the OPCW-IIT in July 2021 concluded that the Syrian regime had engaged in confirmed chemical attacks at least 17 times, out of the reported 77 chemical weapon attacks attributed to Assadist forces. As of March 2023, independent United Nations inquiry commissions have confirmed at least nine chemical attacks committed by forces loyal to the Assad government.

Members of the Syrian community in Hannover protest against Bashar al-Assad on the second anniversary of Ghouta chemical attacks, 21 August 2015.

The deadliest chemical attack have been the Ghouta chemical attacks, when Assad government forces launched the nerve agent sarin into civilian areas during its brutal Siege of Eastern Ghouta in early hours of 21 August 2013. Thousands of infected and dying victims flooded the nearby hospitals, showing symptoms such as foaming, body convulsions and other neurotoxic symptoms. An estimated 1,100–1,500 civilians; including women and children, are estimated to have been killed in the attacks. The attack was internationally condemned and represented the deadliest use of chemical weapons since the Iran-Iraq war. On 21 August 2022, United States government marked the ninth anniversary of Ghouta Chemical attacks stating: "United States remembers and honors the victims and survivors of the Ghouta attack and the many other chemical attacks we assess the Assad regime has launched. We condemn in the strongest possible terms any use of chemical weapons anywhere, by anyone, under any circumstances... The United States calls on the Assad regime to fully declare and destroy its chemical weapons program... and for the regime to allow the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' Declaration Assessment Team."

In April 2017, a sarin chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun killed more than 80 people. In response, U.S. president Donald Trump ordered an missile strike against the Syrian Shayrat base. A joint report from the UN and international chemical weapons inspectors concluded that Assad regime perpetrated the sarin attack.

In April 2018, a chemical attack occurred in Douma, prompting the U.S. and its allies to accuse Assad of violating international law and initiated joint missile strikes at chemical weapons facilities in Damascus and Homs. Both Syria and Russia denied involvement. The third report published on 27 January 2023 by the OPCW-IIT concluded that the Assad regime was responsible for the 2018 Douma chemical attack which killed at least 43 civilians.

Comments on the Holocaust

Wonaniso: Holocaust denial

In a speech delivered at the Ba'ath party's central committee meeting in December 2023, Bashar al-Assad claimed that there was "no evidence" of the killings of six million Jews during the Holocaust. Emphasizing that Jews were not the sole victims of Nazi extermination campaigns, Assad alleged that the Holocaust was "politicized" by Allied powers to facilitate the mass-deportation of European Jews to Palestine, and that it was used as an excuse to justify the creation of Israel. Assad also accused the U.S. government of financially and militarily sponsoring the rise of Nazism during the inter-war period.

Public image

Domestic opposition and support

Wonani vinandi: Syrian opposition

Syrian opposition in March 2013

The secular resistance to Assad rule is mainly represented by the Syrian National Council and National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, two political bodies that constitute a coalition of centre-left and right-wing conservative factions of the Syrian opposition. Military commanders and civilian leaders of Free Syrian Army militias are represented in these councils. The coalition represents the political wing of the Syrian Interim Government and seeks the democratic transition of Syria through grass-roots activism, protests and armed resistance to overthrow the Ba'athist dictatorship. A less influential faction within the Syrian opposition is the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), a coalition of left-wing socialist parties that seek to end the rule of Assad family but without foreign involvement. Established in June 2011, major parties in the NCC coalition are the Democratic Arab Socialist Union, Syrian Democratic People's Party and the Communist Labour Party.

National Democratic Rally (NDR) was an older left-wing opposition coalition of socialist parties formed in 1980, but banned by the Baathist government. NDR was active during the nationwide protests of the 1980s and the Damascus Spring of the 2000s. During the early years of the civil war, the Druze in Syria primarily sought to remain neutral, "seeking to stay out of the conflict". Druze-Israeli politician Majalli Wahabi claimed in 2016 that over half support the Assad government despite its relative weakness in Druze areas. The "Sheikhs of Dignity" movement, which had sought to remain neutral and to defend Druze areas, blamed the government after its leader Sheikh Wahid al-Balous was assassinated and organized large scale protests which left six government security personnel dead. Druze community became fervently opposed to the Assad government over time and has been vocal about its opposition to increasing Iranian interference in Syria. In August 2023, mass protests against Assad regime erupted in the Druze-majority city of Suweida, which eventually spread to other regions of Southern Syria. Druze cleric Hikmat al-Hajiri, religious leader of Syrian Druze community, has declared war against "Iranian invasion of the country". Syrian Sufi scholar Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, a fervent opponent of both the Ba'athist regime and Islamic State group, has described Assad's rule as a "reign of terror" that wreaked havoc and enormous misery on the Syrian populace.

Military-Ba'ath party nexus constructed during the 1970s was the backbone of al-Assad's (centre) dictatorship.

The regime's support base consisted of Ba'athist loyalists who dominate Syrian politics, trade unions, youth organizations, students unions, bureaucracy and armed forces. Ba'ath party institutions and its political activities form the "vital pillars of regime survival". Family networks of politicians in the Ba'ath party-led National Progressive Front (NPF) and businessmen loyal to the Assad family form another pole of support. Electoral listing is supervised by Ba'ath party leadership which expels candidates not deemed "sufficiently loyal". Although it has been reported at various stages of the Syrian civil war that religious minorities such as the Alawites and Christians in Syria favour the Assad government because of its secularism, opposition exists among Assyrian Christians who have claimed that the Assad government seeks to use them as "puppets" and deny their distinct ethnicity, which is non-Arab. Although Syria's Alawite community forms Bashar al-Assad's core support base and dominate the military and security apparatus, in April 2016, BBC News reported that Alawite leaders released a document seeking to distance themselves from Assad.

Military situation, November 2023 – November 2024

Kurdish Supreme Committee was a coalition of 13 Kurdish political parties opposed to Assad regime. Before its dissolution in 2015, the committee consisted of KNC and PYD. Circassians in Syria have also become strong opponents of the regime as Ba'athist crackdowns and massacres across Syria intensified viciously; and members of Circassian ethnic minority have attempted to escape Syria, fearing persecution. In 2014, the Christian Syriac Military Council, the largest Christian organization in Syria, allied with the Free Syrian Army opposed to Assad, joining other Syrian Christian militias such as the Sutoro who had joined the Syrian opposition against the Assad government. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, commander of the Tahrir al-Sham rebel militia, condemned Assad regime for converting Syria "into an ongoing earthquake the past 12 years", in the context of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes.

"In June 2014, Assad won a disputed presidential election held in government-controlled areas (and boycotted in opposition-held areas and Kurdish areas governed by the Democratic Union Party) with 88.7% of the vote. Turnout was estimated to be 73.42% of eligible voters, including those in rebel-controlled areas. The regime's electoral commission also disqualified millions of Syrian citizens displaced outside the country from voting. Independent observers and academic scholarship unanimously describe the event as a sham election organized to legitimise Assad's rule. In his inauguration ceremony, Bashar denounced the opposition as "terrorists" and "traitors"; while attacking the West for backing what he described as the "fake Arab spring".

Times of Israel reported that although various individuals interviewed in a "Sunni-dominated, middle-class neighborhood of central Damascus" exhibited fealty for Assad; it was not possible to discern the actual support for the regime due to the ubiquitous influence of the secret police in the society. Ba'athist dissident Abdul Halim Khaddam who had served as Syrian Vice President during the tenures of both Hafez and Bashar, disparaged Bashar al-Assad as a pawn in Iran's imperial scheme. Contrasting the power dynamics that existed under both the autocrats, Khaddam stated:

"[Bashar] is not like his father.. He never allowed the Iranians to intervene in Syrian affairs.. During Hafez Assad's time, an Iranian delegation arrived in Syria and attempted to convert some of the Muslim Alawite Syrians to Shia Islam... Assad ordered his minister of foreign Affairs to summon the Iranian ambassador to deliver an ultimatum: The delegation has 24 hours to exit Syria.... They had no power [during Hafez's rule], unlike Bashar who gave them [Iranians] power and control."

International opposition

Anti-Assad demonstrations held in Paris, 14 December 2016

Foreign journalists and political observers who travelled to Syria have described it as the most "ruthless police state" in the Arab World. Assad's violent repression of Damascus Spring of the early 2000s and the publication of a UN report that implicated him in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, exacerbated Syria's post-Cold War isolation. Following global outrage against Assad regime's deadly crackdown on the Arab Spring protestors which led to the Syrian civil war, scorched-earth policy against the civilian populations resulting in more than half a million deaths, mass murders and systematic deployment of chemical warfare throughout the conflict; Bashar al-Assad became an international pariah and numerous world leaders have urged him to resign.

Since 2011, Bashar al-Assad has lost recognition from several international organizations such as the Arab League (in 2011), Union for the Mediterranean (in 2011) and Organization of Islamic Co-operation (in 2012). United States, European Union, Turkey, Arab League and various countries began enforcing broad sets of sanctions against Syrian regime from 2011, with the objective of forcing Assad to resign and assist in a political solution to the crisis. International bodies have criticized one-sided elections organized by Assad government during the conflict. In the 2014 London conference of countries of the Friends of Syria group, British Foreign Secretary William Hague characterized Syrian elections as a "parody of democracy" and denounced the regime's "utter disregard for human life" for perpetrating war-crimes and state-terror on the Syrian population. Assad's policy of holding elections under the circumstances of an ongoing civil war were also rebuked by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Assad meets with U.S. Senator Ted Kaufman in 2009

Georgia suspended all relations with Syria following Bashar al-Assad's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, condemning his government as a "Russian-manipulated regime" that supported Russian occupation and "ethnic cleansing". Following Assad's strong backing of Russian invasion of Ukraine and recognition of the breakaway separatist republics, Ukraine cut off all diplomatic relations with Syria in June 2022. Describing Assad's policies as "worthless", Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky pledged to expand further sanctions against Syria. In March 2023, National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine put into effect a range of sanctions targeting 141 firms and 300 individuals linked to Assad regime, Russian weapons manufacturers and Iranian dronemakers. This was days after Assad's visit to Moscow, wherein he justified Russian invasion of Ukraine as a fight against "old and new Nazis". Bashar al-Assad, Prime Minister Hussein Arnous and Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad were amongst the individuals who were sanctioned. Sanctions also involved freezing of all Syrian state properties in Ukraine, curtailment of monetary transactions, termination of economic commitments and recision of all official Ukrainian awards. Syria formally broke its diplomatic ties to Ukraine on 20 July, citing the principle of reciprocity.

Anti-Assad demonstrations in Berlin, 18 March 2023

In April 2023, a French court declared three high-ranking Ba'athist security officials guilty of crimes against humanity, torture, and various war-crimes against French-Syrian citizens. These included Ali Mamlouk, director of National Security Bureau of Syrian Ba'ath party and Jamil Hassan, former head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate. France had issued international arrest warrants against the three officers over the case in 2018. In May 2023, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna publicly demanded the prosecution of Bashar al-Assad for engaging in chemical warfare and killing hundreds of thousands of people; branding him as "the enemy of his own people". On 15 November 2023, France issued an arrest warrant against Assad for use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria.

Left-wing

Billboards of the Spanish Indignados Movement with denouncements of Bashar al-Assad's crackdown against Syrian revolution in Puerta del Sol square, Madrid (29 May 2011)

Bashar al-Assad is widely criticised by left-wing activists and intellectuals world-wide for appropriating leftist ideologies and its socialist, progressive slogans as a cover for his own family rule and to empower a loyalist clique of elites at the expense of ordinary Syrians. His close alliance with clergy-ruled Khomeinist Iran and its sectarian militant networks; while simultaneously pursuing a policy of locking up left-wing critics of Assad family has been subject to heavy criticism.

The Egyptian branch of the Iraqi Ba'ath movement has declared its strong support to the Syrian revolution; denouncing Ba'athist Syria as a repressive dictatorship controlled by the "Assad gang". It has attacked Assad family's Ba'athist credentials, accusing the Syrian Ba'ath party of acting as the borderguards of Israel ever since its overthrowal of the Ba'athist National Command during the 1966 coup d'état. Describing Bashar al-Assad as a disgraceful person for inviting hostile powers like Iran to Syria, Egyptian Ba'athists have urged the Syrian revolutionaries to unite in their efforts to overthrow the Assad regime and resist foreign imperialism.

Describing Assad's regime as a mafia state that thrives on corruption and sectarianism, Lebanese socialist academic Gilbert Achcar stated:

"Bashar Assad's cousin became the richest man in the country, controlling – it is widely believed – over half of the economy. And that's only one member of the ruling clan... The clan functions as a real mafia, and has been ruling the country for several decades. This constitutes the deep root of the explosion, in combination with the fact that the Syrian regime is one of the most despotic in the region. Compared to Assad's Syria, Mubarak's Egypt was a beacon of democracy and political freedom!... What is specific to this regime is that Assad's father has reshaped and reconstructed the state apparatus, especially its hard nucleus – the armed forces – in order to create a Pretorian guard for itself. The army, especially its elite forces, is tied to the regime itself in various ways, most prominently through the use of sectarianism. Even people who had never heard of Syria before know now that the regime is based on one minority in the country – about 10% of the population; the Alawites."

The Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Lebanon has taken an anti-Assad stance and organised mass-protests in support of the Syrian revolution. In August 2012, PSP publicly denounced the Assad government as a "killing machine" engaged in slaughtering Syrian people. PSP leader Ayman Kamaleddine demanded the expulsion of the Syrian ambassador from Lebanon, describing him as "the representative of the murderer regime in Lebanon".

International support

Far-right

Bashar al-Assad's regime has received support from prominent white nationalist, neo-Nazi and far-right figures in Europe, who were attracted by his "war on terror" discourse against Islamists during the period of European refugee crisis. Assad's bombings of Syrian cities are admired in the Islamophobic discourse of far-right circles, which considers Muslims as a civilizational enemy. American white supremacists often praise Assad as an authoritarian bulwark against what they view as the forces of "Islamic extremism" and globalism; and several pro-Assad slogans were chanted in the neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally held in Charlottesville in 2017.

Nick Griffin, the former leader of the British National Party (BNP), was formerly an official ambassador and guest of the Syrian government; due to public controversy, the Assad government publicly disassociated itself from him after his trip to Syria in 2014.

Right-wing

In 2017, former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard met with then-president Bashar al-Assad on an unannounced visit to Syria. The visit was the first by a U.S. lawmaker since 2011, and made under a travel warning issued by the United States Department of State, which continues to warn U.S. citizens against all travel to the country. Gabbard did not consult with the House speaker or State Department before meeting with Assad. The meeting came after Gabbard introduced legislation that would, in her words, "end our country's illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government." She said that Assad is "a brutal dictator. Just like Saddam Hussein. Just like Gadhafi in Libya. The reason that I’m so outspoken on this issue of ending these wasteful regime-change wars is because I have seen firsthand this high human cost of war and the impact that it has on my fellow brothers and sisters in uniform." Following her visit to Syria, Gabbard expressed doubts that the Assad regime was behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Gabbard has continued to defend her comments, and in 2019 stated that Assad was "not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States".

Left-wing

Left-wing support for Assad has been split since the start of the Syrian civil war; the Assad government has been accused of cynically manipulating sectarian identity and anti-imperialism to continue its worst activities.

Some heads of state or governments have declared their support for Assad, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. After declaring victory in the 2014 elections, Assad received congratulations from President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro, President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Guyana Donald Ramotar, President of South Africa Jacob Zuma, President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, and Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah and President of the State of Palestine. Palestinian Marxist–Leninist militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) supported Assad during the Syrian civil war. As a result of this stance, the Iranian government increased its military and financial funding to the PFLP.

International public relations

Bashar al-Assad wearing the "Grand Collar" of the National Order of the Southern Cross, accompanied by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasília, 30 June 2010

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko alongside Bashar al-Assad during a state-visit to Syria in December 2003

In order to promote their image and media-portrayal overseas, Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad hired U.S. and UK based PR firms and consultants. In particular, these secured photoshoots for Asma al-Assad with fashion and celebrity magazines, including Vogue's March 2011 "A Rose in the Desert". These firms included Bell Pottinger and Brown Lloyd James, with the latter being paid $5,000 a month for their services.

At the outset of the Syrian civil war, Syrian government networks were hacked by the group Anonymous, revealing that an ex-Al Jazeera journalist had been hired to advise Assad on how to manipulate the public opinion of the U.S. Among the advice was the suggestion to compare the popular uprising against the regime to the Occupy Wall Street protests. In a separate email leak several months later by the Supreme Council of the Syrian Revolution, which were published by The Guardian, it was revealed that Assad's consultants had coordinated with an Iranian government media advisor. In March 2015, an expanded version of the aforementioned leaks was handed to the Lebanese NOW News website and published the following month.

After the Syrian civil war began, the Assads started a social media campaign which included building a presence on Facebook, YouTube, and most notably Instagram. A Twitter account for Assad was reportedly activated; however, it remained unverified. This resulted in much criticism, and was described by The Atlantic Wire as "a propaganda campaign that ultimately has made the [Assad] family look worse". The Assad government has also allegedly arrested activists for creating Facebook groups that the government disapproved of, and has appealed directly to Twitter to remove accounts it disliked. The social media campaign, as well as the previously leaked emails, led to comparisons with Hannah Arendt's A Report on the Banality of Evil by The Guardian, The New York Times and the Financial Times.

In October 2014, 27,000 photographs depicting torture committed by the Assad government were put on display at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Lawyers were hired to write a report on the images by the British law firm Carter-Ruck, which in turn was funded by the Government of Qatar.

Assad with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, 2010

In November 2014, the Quilliam Foundation reported that a propaganda campaign, which they claimed had the "full backing of Assad", spread false reports about the deaths of Western-born jihadists in order to deflect attention from the government's alleged war crimes. Using a picture of a Chechen fighter from the Second Chechen War, pro-Assad media reports disseminated to Western media outlets, leading them to publish a false story regarding the death of a non-existent British jihadist.

In 2015, Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war in support of Assad, and on 21 October 2015, Assad flew to Moscow and met with Russian president Vladimir Putin, who said regarding the civil war: "this decision can be made only by the Syrian people. Syria is a friendly country. And we are ready to support it not only militarily but politically as well."

Personal life

Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad

Assad speaks fluent English and basic conversational French, having studied at the Franco-Arab al-Hurriyah school in Damascus.

In December 2000, Assad married Asma Akhras, a British citizen of Syrian origin from Acton, London. In 2001, Asma gave birth to their first child, a son named Hafez after the child's grandfather Hafez al-Assad. Bashar al-Assad's son Hafez graduated from Moscow State University in the summer of 2023 with a master's thesis in number theory. Their daughter Zein was born in 2003, followed by their second son Karim in 2004. In January 2013, Assad stated in an interview that his wife was pregnant.

Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite Muslim. Bashar performed the hajj pilgrimage twice, in 1999 and in 2000.

Assad's sister, Bushra al-Assad, and mother, Anisa Makhlouf, left Syria in 2012 and 2013, respectively, to live in the United Arab Emirates. Makhlouf died in Damascus in 2016.

Awards and honours

  Revoked and returned awards and honours.

Ribbon	Distinction	Country	Date	Location	Notes	Reference
	Grand Cross of the National Order of the Legion of Honour	France	25 June 2001	Paris	Highest rank in the Order of the Legion of Honor in the Republic of France. Returned by Assad on 20 April 2018 after the opening of a revocation process by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, on 16 April 2018.
	Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise	Ukraine	21 April 2002	Kyiv	Revoked on 18 March 2023, as part of sanctions issued by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy which revoked all previous Ukrainian state awards to members of the Assad government.
	Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Francis I	Two Sicilies	21 March 2004	Damascus	Dynastic order of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies; Revoked several years later by Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro.
	Order of Zayed	United Arab Emirates	31 May 2008	Abu Dhabi	Highest civil decoration in the United Arab Emirates.
	Order of the White Rose of Finland	Finland	5 October 2009	Damascus	One of three official orders in Finland.
	Order of King Abdulaziz	Saudi Arabia	8 October 2009	Damascus	Highest Saudi state order.
	Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic	Italy	11 March 2010	Damascus	Highest ranking honour of the Republic of Italy. Revoked by the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, on 28 September 2012 for "indignity".
	Collar of the Order of the Liberator	Venezuela	28 June 2010	Caracas	Highest Venezuelan state order.
	Grand Collar of the Order of the Southern Cross	Brazil	30 June 2010	Brasília	Brazil's highest order of merit.
	Grand Cordon of the National Order of the Cedar	Lebanon	31 July 2010	Beirut	Second highest honour of Lebanon.
	Order of the Islamic Republic of Iran	Iran	2 October 2010	Tehran	Highest national medal of Iran.
	Uatsamonga Order	Template:Country data South Ossetia	2018	Damascus	State award of South Ossetia.

See also

• List of international presidential trips made by Bashar al-Assad
• Presidency of Hafez al-Assad
• Foreign Policy of Bashar al-Assad

References

General and cited references

• Blanford, Nicholas (2006). Killing Mr Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-202-8.
• Bronner, Stephen Eric (2007). Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2446-9.
• Hashemi, Nader; Postel, Danny, eds. (2013). The Syria Dilemma. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02683-3.
• Heydemann, Steven; Leenders, Reinoud (2013). Middle East Authoritarianisms: Governance, Contestation, and Regime Resilience in Syria and Iran. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-9333-9.
• Leverett, Flynt L. (2005). Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial By Fire. Brookings Institution. ISBN 978-0-8157-5204-2.
• Lesch, David W. (2011). Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18651-2.
• Mammone, Andrea; Godin, Emmanuel; Jenkins, Brian, eds. (2012). Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-50265-8.
• Ma'oz, Moshe; Ginat, Joseph; Winckler, Onn (1999). Modern Syria: From Ottoman Rule to Pivotal Role in the Middle East. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1-898723-83-4.
• Mikaberidze, Alexander, ed. (2013). Atrocities, Massacres, and War Crimes: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-925-7.
• Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: A–C. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-32109-2.
• Moosa, Matti (1987). Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-2411-0.
• Pierret, Thomas (2013). Religion and State in Syria: The Sunni Ulama from Coup to Revolution. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-60990-7.
• Sadiki, Larbi (2014). Routledge Handbook of the Arab Spring: Rethinking Democratization. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-52391-2.
• Seale, Patrick; McConville, Maureen (1992). Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3.
• Tucker, Spencer C.; Roberts, Priscilla (2008). The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-841-5.
• Zisser, Eyal (2007). Commanding Syria: Bashar Al-Asad And the First Years in Power. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-153-3.

Further reading

• Abboud, Samer (2015). Syria (Hot Spots in Global Politics). Polity. ISBN 978-0-7456-9797-0.
• Belhadj, Souhaïl (2013). La Syrie de Bashar Al-Asad : Anatomie d'un régime autoritaire [Bashar's Syria: Anatomy of an Authoritarian Regime] (in French). Belin. ISBN 978-2-7011-6467-0.
• Hinnebusch, Raymond (2002). Syria: Revolution From Above. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-28568-1.
• Perthes, Volker (2005). Syria Under Bashar Al-Asad: Modernisation and the Limits of Change. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-19-856750-9.
• Tabler, Andrew (2011). In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria. Zephyr Press. ISBN 978-1-56976-843-3.

Reports

• Yossi Baidatz (Ogasiti 2001). Bashar's First Year: From Ophthalmology to a National Vision (PDF) (Report). Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ASIN B0006RVLNM. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 Disembala 2016. Retrieved 12 Malichi 2015.
• Annette Büchs (Malichi 2009). The Resilience of Authoritarian Rule in Syria under Hafez and Bashar Al-Asad (PDF) (Report). German Institute of Global and Area Studies. 97. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 Okutobala 2017. Retrieved 12 Malichi 2015.

Articles

• Abdelnour, Ziad K. (12 Epulelo 2003). "Syria's Proxy Forces in Iraq". Al-Hayat.
• "Profile: Syria's Bashar al-Assad". BBC News. 10 Malichi 2005.
• Harris, William (Summer 2005). "Bashar al-Assad's Lebanon Gamble". Middle East Quarterly.
• Pan, Esther (10 Malichi 2006). "Syria's Leaders". Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on 19 Julayi 2006.
• "Interview With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad". The Wall Street Journal. 31 Janyuwale 2011.
• "Profile: Bashar al-Assad". Al Jazeera. 25 Malichi 2011.
• Rose, Charlie (9 Sekutembala 2013). "Interview with Bashar Hafez al-Assad". PBS. Archived from the original on 18 Novembala 2016. Retrieved 5 Novembala 2016.

External links

• Official website
  • Biography
  • Decrees
  • Speeches
  • Interviews
  • Press releases
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Template:Guardian topic
• Template:NYTtopic
• Bashar al-Assad at IMDb