33 Facts About Bashar al-Assad

Bashar al-Assad was born on 11September 1965 and is a Syrian politician, military officer and former dictator who served as the 19th president of Syria from 2000 until his government was overthrown in 2024.

Bashar al-Assad is the son of Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000.

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.

Bashar al-Assad was born in Damascus on 11 September 1965, as the second son and third child of Anisa Makhlouf and Hafez al-Assad.

Unlike his brothers Bassel and Maher, and second sister, named Bushra, Bashar al-Assad was quiet, reserved and lacked interest in politics or the military.

The Assad children reportedly rarely saw their father, and Bashar al-Assad later stated that he only entered his father's office once while he was president.

Bashar al-Assad was described as "soft-spoken", and according to a university friend, he was timid, avoided eye contact and spoke in a low voice.

Bashar al-Assad had few political aspirations, and his father had been grooming Bashar al-Assad's older brother Bassel as future president.

Shortly after Bassel died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar al-Assad was recalled to the Syrian Army.

In 1998, Bashar al-Assad took charge of Syria's Lebanon file, which had since the 1970s been handled by Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, who had until then been a potential contender for president.

Parallel to his military career, Bashar al-Assad was engaged in public affairs.

Bashar al-Assad was granted wide powers and became head of the bureau to receive complaints and appeals of citizens, and led a campaign against corruption.

Bashar al-Assad became the President of the Syrian Computer Society and helped to introduce the internet in Syria, which aided his image as a moderniser and reformer.

Ba'athist loyalists in the party, military and the Alawite sect were supportive of Bashar al-Assad, enabling him to become his father's successor.

Bashar al-Assad derided the Arab Spring movement, and described those participating in the protests as "germs" and fifth-columnists.

Bashar al-Assad urged refugees to return home from Turkey, while assuring them amnesty and blaming all unrest on a small number of saboteurs.

Bashar al-Assad said that the Arab League, by suspending Syria, revealed that it was no longer Arab.

Bashar al-Assad recognised the Russian annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts and ratified the new Russian borders, claiming that the territories were "historically Russian".

Bashar al-Assad met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and other Arab leaders.

Bashar al-Assad was encouraged to do so by its allies, such as those in the Axis of Resistance, but he did not follow up on these suggestions leaving the society polarized.

Hafez Bashar al-Assad's government was widely counted amongst the most repressive Arab dictatorships of the 20th century.

Bashar al-Assad 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.

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.

Bashar al-Assad 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.

However, unlike Hafez; Bashar al-Assad had even less loyalty and was politically fragile, exacerbated by alienation of the majority of the population.

Bashar al-Assad kept us busy with chemical weapons when he massacred his people.

Bashar al-Assad never allowed the Iranians to intervene in Syrian affairs.

Since 2011, Bashar al-Assad has lost recognition from several international organizations such as the Arab League, Union for the Mediterranean and Organization of Islamic Co-operation.

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".

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.

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.

Bashar al-Assad performed the hajj pilgrimage twice, in 1999 and in 2000.

On 23 December 2024, it was reported that Asma Bashar al-Assad had filed for divorce after being dissatisfied with life in Moscow.