BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the nation on Sunday, bringing to a dramatic shut his almost 14-year wrestle to carry onto management as his nation fragmented in a brutal civil battle that turned a proxy battlefield for regional and worldwide powers.
Assad’s exit stood in stark distinction to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he could be a younger reformer after three a long time of his father’s iron grip. Only 34 years outdated, the Western-educated ophthalmologist appeared as a geeky tech-savvy fan of computer systems with a delicate demeanor.
Syrian President Bashar Assad opinions the presidential guard in the course of the welcoming ceremony in Athens, Dec. 15, 2003. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
But when confronted with protests in opposition to his rule that erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to the brutal techniques of his father in an try to crush dissent. As the rebellion hemorrhaged into an outright civil battle, he unleashed his navy to blast opposition-held cities, with help from allies Iran and Russia.
International rights teams and prosecutors alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in Syria’s government-run detention facilities. The battle has killed almost half one million individuals and displaced half of the nation’s prewar inhabitants of 23 million.
The battle gave the impression to be frozen in recent times, with Assad’s authorities regaining management of most of Syria’s territory whereas the northwest remained underneath the management of opposition teams and the northeast underneath Kurdish management.
Although Damascus remained underneath crippling Western sanctions, neighboring international locations had begun to resign themselves to Assad’s continued maintain on energy. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership final 12 months, and Saudi Arabia in May introduced the appointment of its first ambassador since severing ties with Damascus 12 years in the past.
However, the geopolitical tide turned shortly when opposition teams in northwest Syria in late November launched a shock offensive. Government forces shortly collapsed whereas Assad’s allies, preoccupied by different conflicts — Russia’s battle in Ukraine and the yearlong wars between Israel and the Iran-backed militant teams Hezbollah and Hamas — appeared reluctant to forcefully intervene.
An finish to a long time of household rule
Assad got here to energy in 2000 by a accident. His father had been cultivating Bashar’s oldest brother, Basil, as his successor, however in 1994, Basil was killed in a automotive crash in Damascus. Bashar was introduced house from his ophthalmology follow in London, put via navy coaching and elevated to the rank of colonel to ascertain his credentials so he might in the future rule.
When Hafez Assad died in 2000, parliament shortly lowered the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34. Bashar’s elevation was sealed by a nationwide referendum, through which he was the one candidate.
Hafez, a lifelong navy man, dominated the nation for almost 30 years throughout which he arrange a Soviet-style centralized financial system and stored such a stifling hand over dissent that Syrians feared even to joke about politics to their pals.
He pursued a secular ideology that sought to bury sectarian variations underneath Arab nationalism and the picture of heroic resistance to Israel. He shaped an alliance with the Shiite clerical management in Iran, sealed Syrian domination over Lebanon and arrange a community of Palestinian and Lebanese militant teams.
President-elect Lt. Gen. Bashar al Assad, proper, attends navy coaching video games with Ali Aslan, Chief of Staff of the Syrian military, July 12, 2000, in Syria. (SANA by way of AP, File)
Bashar initially appeared fully not like his strongman father.
Tall and lanky with a slight lisp, he had a quiet, mild demeanor. His solely official place earlier than turning into president was head of the Syrian Computer Society. His spouse, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married a number of months after taking workplace, was engaging, fashionable and British-born.
The younger couple, who finally had three kids, appeared to shun trappings of energy. They lived in an condo within the upscale Abu Rummaneh district of Damascus, versus a palatial mansion like different Arab leaders.
Initially upon coming to workplace, Assad freed political prisoners and allowed extra open discourse. In the “Damascus Spring,” salons for intellectuals emerged the place Syrians might talk about artwork, tradition and politics to a level unimaginable underneath his father.
But after 1,000 intellectuals signed a public petition calling for multiparty democracy and larger freedoms in 2001, and others tried to kind a political occasion, the salons have been snuffed out by the dreaded secret police, who jailed dozens of activists.
Tested by the Arab Spring, Assad relied on outdated alliances to remain in energy
Instead of a political opening, Assad turned to financial reforms. He slowly lifted financial restrictions, let in overseas banks, threw the doorways open to imports and empowered the personal sector. Damascus and different cities lengthy mired in drabness noticed a flourishing of purchasing malls, new eating places and client items. Tourism swelled.
Abroad, he caught to the road his father had set, based mostly on the alliance with Iran and a coverage of insisting on a full return of the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, though in follow Assad by no means militarily confronted Israel.
In 2005, he suffered a heavy blow with the lack of Syria’s decades-old management over neighboring Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. With many Lebanese accusing Damascus of being behind the slaying, Syria was compelled to withdraw its troops from the nation and a pro-American authorities got here to energy.
At the identical time, the Arab world cut up into two camps — one in all U.S.-allied, Sunni-led international locations similar to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the opposite Syria and Shiite-led Iran with their ties to Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.
Throughout, Assad relied largely on the identical energy base at house as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam comprising round 10% of the inhabitants. Many of the positions in his authorities went to youthful generations of the identical households that had labored for his father. Drawn in as effectively have been members of the brand new center class created by his reforms, together with distinguished Sunni service provider households.
Assad additionally turned to his family. His youthful brother Maher headed the elite Presidential Guard and would lead the crackdown in opposition to the rebellion. Their sister Bushra was a powerful voice in his internal circle, alongside along with her husband, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, till he was killed in a 2012 bombing. Bashar’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, turned the nation’s largest businessman, heading a monetary empire earlier than the 2 had a falling-out that led to Makhlouf being pushed apart.
Assad additionally more and more entrusted key roles to his spouse, Asma, earlier than she introduced in May that she was present process therapy for leukemia and stepped out of the limelight.
When 2011 protests erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, finally toppling their rulers, Assad dismissed the potential for the identical occurring in his nation, insisting his regime was extra in tune with its individuals. After the Arab Spring wave reached Syria, his safety forces staged a brutal crackdown whereas Assad constantly denied he was dealing with a well-liked revolt. He as an alternative blamed “foreign-backed terrorists” making an attempt to destabilize his regime.
His rhetoric struck a chord with many in Syria’s minority teams — together with Christians, Druze and Shiites — in addition to some Sunnis who feared the prospect of rule by Sunni extremists much more than they disliked Assad’s authoritarian rule.
As the rebellion spiraled right into a civil battle, thousands and thousands of Syrians fled to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon and on to Europe.
Ironically, on Feb. 26, 2011, two days after the autumn of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to protesters and simply days earlier than the wave of Arab Spring protests swept into his nation, Assad e-mailed a joke he had run throughout mocking the Egyptian chief’s cussed refusal to step down.
