Back Basjar al-Assad Afrikaans Baschar al-Assad ALS በሽር አል አሳድ Amharic Bashar al-Assad AMI Baixar al-Assad AN بشار الأسد Arabic ܒܫܐܪ ܐܠܐܣܕ ARC بشار لأسد ARY بشار الاسد ARZ Bashar al-Ásad AST
Bashar al-Assad | |
|---|---|
بشار الأسد | |
 Assad in 2024 | |
| 19th President of Syria | |
| In office 17 July 2000 – 8 December 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | |
| Vice President | See list
|
| Preceded by |
|
| Succeeded by | Ahmed al-Sharaa (de facto) |
| General Secretary of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party | |
| In office 24 June 2000 – 8 December 2024 | |
| Deputy |
|
| Preceded by | Hafez al-Assad |
| Succeeded by | Ibrahim al-Hadid (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 11 September 1965 Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic |
| Political party | Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party |
| Other political affiliations | National Progressive Front |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, including Hafez |
| Parents |
|
| Relatives | al-Assad family |
| Residences |
|
| Education | Damascus University (MD) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Ba'athist Syria |
| Branch/service | Syrian Armed Forces |
| Years of service | 1988–2024 |
| Rank | Field marshal |
| Unit | Republican Guard (until 2000) |
| Commands | Syrian Armed Forces |
| Battles/wars | Syrian civil war |
| ||
|---|---|---|
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Bashar al-Assad[a] (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer, and former dictator[1] who served as the 19th president of Syria from 2000 until his government was overthrown by Syrian rebels in December 2024. As president, Assad was commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is the son of Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000.
In the 1980s, Assad became a doctor, and in the early 1990s he was training in London as an ophthalmologist. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel al-Assad died in a car crash, Assad was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel's role as heir apparent. Assad entered the military academy and took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. On 17 July 2000, Assad became president, succeeding his father, who had died on 10 June 2000.[2] A series of crackdowns in 2001–02 ended the Damascus Spring, a period marked by calls for transparency and democracy.
Academics and analysts characterised Assad's presidency as a highly personalist dictatorship,[3] which governed Syria as a totalitarian police state,[4] and was marked by numerous human rights violations and severe repression. While the Assad government described itself as secular, various political scientists and observers noted that his regime exploited sectarian tensions in the country. Although Assad inherited the power structures and personality cult nurtured by his father, he lacked the loyalty received by his father and faced rising discontent against his rule. As a result, many people from his father's regime resigned or were purged, and the political inner-circle was replaced by staunch loyalists from Alawite clans. Assad's early economic liberalization programs worsened inequalities and centralised the socio-political power of the loyalist Damascene elite of the Assad family, alienating the Syrian rural population, urban working classes, businessmen, industrialists and people from once-traditional Ba'ath strongholds. The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in February 2005, triggered by the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, forced Assad to end the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.
Assad was responsible for one of the most repressive regimes in modern times. His deadly crackdown on Arab Spring protesters during the events of the Syrian revolution led to outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, which culminated in the fall of the Assad regime in 2024. The civil war has killed over 580,000 people, of which at least 306,000 were non-combatants. The Syrian Network for Human Rights attributes over 90% of these civilian deaths to pro-Assad forces.[5] The United States, European Union, and the majority of the Arab League called for Assad to resign in 2011, but he refused and the war continued. The Assad government perpetrated numerous war crimes during the course of the Syrian civil war,[6] while its army reportedly carried out several attacks with chemical weapons during the civil war.[7] The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that findings from an inquiry by the UN implicated Assad in war crimes, and he faced international investigations and condemnation for his actions.
In November 2024, a coalition of Syrian rebels mounted several offensives with the intention of ousting Assad.[8][9] On the morning of 8 December, as rebel troops first entered Damascus, Assad fled to Moscow and was granted political asylum by the Russian government.[10][11] Later that day, Damascus fell to rebel forces, and Assad's regime collapsed.[12][13][14]
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- ^
Sources characterising Assad as a dictator:
- "Ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad issues his first statement since leaving the country". NBC News. 16 December 2024. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- Beaumont, Peter (8 December 2024). "From doctor to brutal dictator: the rise and fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- "From eye doctor to dictator - the rise and fall of Assad's presidency". Sky News. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- Malsin, Isabel Coles and Jared (8 December 2024). "Bashar al-Assad, an Ophthalmologist Who Became a Dictator, Is the Last of a Despotic Dynasty". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- "Syria has exchanged a vile dictator for an uncertain future". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
- ^ "ICG Middle East Report: Syria Under Bashar" (PDF). European Parliament. 11 February 2004. Retrieved 30 November 2024.
- ^ Sources characterising the Assad family's rule of Syria as a personalist dictatorship:
- Svolik, Milan. "The Politics of Authoritarian Rule". Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original on 15 September 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
- Weeks, Jessica (2014). Dictators at War and Peace. Cornell University Press. p. 18.
- Wedeen, Lisa (2018). Authoritarian Apprehensions. Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning. University of Chicago Press. Archived from the original on 21 October 2019. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
- Hinnebusch, Raymond (2012). "Syria: from 'authoritarian upgrading' to revolution?". International Affairs. 88 (1): 95–113. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01059.x.
- Michalik, Susanne (2015). "Measuring Authoritarian Regimes with Multiparty Elections". In Michalik, Susanne (ed.). Multiparty Elections in Authoritarian Regimes: Explaining their Introduction and Effects. Studien zur Neuen Politischen Ökonomie. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 33–45. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-09511-6_3. ISBN 978-3658095116.
- Geddes, Barbara; Wright, Joseph; Frantz, Erica (2018). How Dictatorships Work. Cambridge University Press. p. 233. doi:10.1017/9781316336182. ISBN 978-1-316-33618-2. S2CID 226899229.
- ^ Multiple sources:
- Khamis, Sahar; Gold, Paul B.; Vaughn, Katherine (2013). "22. Propaganda in Egypt and Syria's "Cyberwars": Contexts, Actors, Tools, and Tactics". In Auerbach, Castronovo; Jonathan, Russ (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-19-976441-9.
- Wieland, Carsten (2018). "6: De-neutralizing Aid: All Roads Lead to Damascus". Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid Through Violent Regimes. London: I. B. Tauris. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-7556-4138-3.
- Ahmed, Saladdin (2019). Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura. State University of New York Press, Albany: Suny Press. pp. 144, 149. ISBN 9781438472911.
- Hensman, Rohini (2018). "7: The Syrian Uprising". Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism. Chicago: Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-60846-912-3.
- ^ "Civilian Death Toll". SNHR. September 2022. Archived from the original on 5 March 2022.
- ^ Multiple sources:
- Robertson QC, Geoffrey (2013). "11: Justice in Demand". Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (4th ed.). New York: The New Press. pp. 560–562, 573, 595–607. ISBN 978-1-59558-860-9.
- Syria Freedom Support Act; Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2011. Washington DC: Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives. 2012. pp. 221–229.
- Vohra, Anchal (16 October 2020). "Assad's Horrible War Crimes Are Finally Coming to Light Under Oath". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2 November 2020.
- "German court finds Assad regime official guilty of crimes against humanity". Daily Sabah. 13 January 2022. Archived from the original on 22 January 2022.
- Nosakhare, Whitney Martina (15 March 2022). "Some Hope in the Struggle for Justice in Syria: European Courts Offer Survivors a Path Toward Accountability". Human Rights Watch. Archived from the original on 5 April 2022.
- ^ *"Security Council Deems Syria's Chemical Weapon's Declaration Incomplete". United Nations: Meetings Coverage and Press Releases. 6 March 2023. Archived from the original on 14 March 2023.
- "Fifth Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention". European Union External Action. 15 May 2023. Archived from the original on 15 May 2023.
- ^ Abdulrahim, Raja (7 December 2024). "The leader of Syria's rebels told The Times that their aim is to oust al-Assad". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2024.
- ^ "Syrian army command tells officers that Assad's rule has ended, officer says". Reuters.
- ^ Gebeily, Maya; Azhari, Timour (8 December 2024). "Syria's Assad and his family are in Moscow after Russia granted them asylum, say Russian news agencies". Reuters. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
- ^ "Bashar al-Assad and family given asylum in Moscow, Russian media say". BBC News.
- ^ "Syrian rebels topple President Assad, prime minister calls for free elections". Reuters. 7 December 2024. Retrieved 7 December 2024.
- ^ "Assad flees to Moscow after rebels take Syrian capital, Russian state media report". CBC News. 9 December 2024. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
- ^ "Syria's President Bashar al Assad is in Moscow and has been granted asylum, confirms Russian state media". 8 December 2024.