Bashar Hafez al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) was the President of Syria from 10 July 2000, succeeding his father Hafez al-Assad. al-Assad was originally a doctor, but the death of his brother of Bassel al-Assad led to him becoming the new heir apparent of his father; he became president in 2000 on his father's death. al-Assad emerged as the head of the Syrian Ba'ath Party, and he led the Syrian Arab Republic progressively; the country championed Palestinian rights and secularism (the hijab and niqab were nearly legally banned in the country, while teachers could not wear headscarves to school), and Muslims, Christians, Druze, and the other ethnoreligious groups of the country enjoyed relative freedom. However, Islamist and pro-democracy rebels began an uprising against his rule in 2011, and al-Assad's use of Syrian Arab Army troops against protesters led to defectors from the military and former protesters forming the Syrian Opposition. With the help of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and Shia and Ba'athist volunteers from across the Middle East, al-Assad fought against the rebels as well as the extremist Islamic State. al-Assad would become infamous for his use of chemical weapons against his enemies, and there were a few notable incidents in which the Syrian government killed civilians with these weapons. al-Assad was seen as a ruthless dictator by his opponents and a champion of Palestinian nationalism and resistance to Israel by his allies.
Biography[]
Early life[]
al-Assad (left) being trained as a doctor by Edmund Schulenburg
Bashar Hafez al-Assad was born on 11 September 1965 in Damascus, Syria, the son of Hafez al-Assad and Anisa Makhlouf. He came from a family of Alawites that acquired minor noble status in 1927, and his family came to rule Syria in 1970 at the head of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. Bashar al-Assad was not interested in politics while he was young, as his brother Bassel al-Assad was his father's handpicked successor. Assad studied medicine and became a military doctor with the Syrian Arab Army at Tishrin in 1988, but in 1994 he became his father's new heir when his brother died in a car accident at Damascus International Airport. Bashar was systematically prepared for taking power, and in 1994 he entered the Homs Military Academy. In January 1999, he became a colonel, and he was elected President of the Syrian Arab Republic in 2000 on his father's death in an unopposed ballot.
Foreign policy as President of Syria[]
al-Assad at a Syrian Ba'ath Party congress in June 2000
Upon becoming President of Syria, al-Assad launched security crackdowns, but he released several convicted members of the Muslim Brotherhood from prisons in a general amnesty. He shifted his focus to Lebanon, intervening in Lebanese politics with Hezbollah as his puppets; he assassinated anti-Syrian candidates, leading to the 2005 Cedar Revolution after Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was murdered. Syrian troops were forced out of the country thirty years after the start of the Lebanese Civil War, bringing an end to the political crisis. However, al-Assad would continue to have a strong alliance with Hezbollah and militant Palestinian groups such as the PFLP and as-Sa'iqa, giving them money, sanctuary, and training on behalf of the Syrian government. Hezbollah assassinated several Maronite politicians in Lebanon to ensure that Syria would still influence politics, and al-Assad funded them during their wars with Israel; Israel occupied the Golan Heights and most of Quneitra Governorate, leading to al-Assad supporting Hezbollah.
Internal issues[]
Assad walking with Iranian leader Mohammed Ahmedinejad
al-Assad in a 2016 interview with a German journalist
However, al-Assad was unpopular among both liberals and Islamists. al-Assad's socialist Syrian Ba'ath Party was secularist, enforcing freedom of religion, but it considered banning the hijab and niqab for women to prevent youths from becoming Islamic fundamentalists. This angered Islamist groups, chief among them the Muslim Brotherhood, which had rebelled against his father from 1979 to 1981. al-Assad imprisoned many Islamists in the infamous Sednaya prison, where they were tortured by his police forces. al-Assad's actions against the Islamists also angered the liberal youths, who were opposed to his dictatorship. al-Assad's father had purged the Ba'ath leadership of all Sunnis, Christians, and Druzes upon taking power, and al-Assad's government consisted mostly of fellow Alawites from the Syrian coast. Sunni activists sought to bring an end to minority rule in the country, as Sunnis made up around 74% of the population in 2011, while the Alawites made up 13% of the population. For these reasons, protests began during the Arab Spring of 2011, which saw Islamists rise up against the secular dictatorships that ruled the countries of the Arab World. Like Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, al-Assad had his soldiers fire on demonstrators, leading to international condemnation of his regime. The Syrian Arab Army consisted mostly of Sunnis at the time of the civil war, and many felt that the regime was too cruel to serve under; many soldiers defected to the protesters, who took up arms against the government. The defectors formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to resist the government, while Christian and Druze villagers sought to fight alongside the regime, which protected their religious freedom.
Syrian Civil War[]
al-Assad visiting troops at Kharabo village, near Marj al-Sultan military airbase in eastern Ghouta, 25 June 2016
Eventually, the revolution turned into a sectarian conflict as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Persian Gulf countries funded rising extremist groups in the country such as the Islamic Front (which included Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam), the al-Nusra Front (the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria), and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. al-Assad's government lost much of the country to the rebels, clinging to the center and coast of the country in areas mostly populated by Alawites or Druze. al-Assad's forces were accused of atrocities, such as a chemical attack on Free Syrian Army forces in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus and Shabiha and National Defense Forces attacks on Sunni villages, and the United Nations and international community recognized the Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and not Assad's government.