Bashar al-assad children

Asma al-assad
Bashar al-assad wife
Hafez al-assad

•

From doctor to brutal dictator: the rise and fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad

On the face of it at least, the Bashar al-Assad of 2002 presented a starkly different figure from the brutal autocrat he would become, presiding over a fragile state founded on torture, imprisonment and industrial murder.

He had been president then for just two years, succeeding his father, Hafez, whose own name was a byword for brutality.

For a while the gawky former ophthalmologist, who had studied medicine in London and later married a British-Syrian wife, Asma, an investment banker at JP Morgan, was keen to show the world that Syria, under his leadership, could follow a different path.

Reaching out to the west, he pursued a public relations campaign to show the young Assad family as somehow ordinary despite the palaces and the ever visible apparatus of repression.

Visiting Damascus that year before Bashar’s state visit to the UK, arranged by the then prime minister, Tony Blair – the high point of that engagement – I was invited for a private coffee with Assad, who sat on a white sofa in an expens

•

Profile: Bashar al-Assad

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad inherited power in July 2000, a month after his father, military strongman Hafez al-Assad died.

But since March 2011, his rule over Syria has been under threat, with the country beset by violence that has killed an estimated 465,000 people and embroiled regional and world powers in the never-ending horror.

Despite Western and Arab countries backing the opposition, Assad has survived seven years of war and refuses to step aside.

But who is he? This is what we know:

Medical student

Ruling family: Born on September 11, 1965, Bashar al-Assad is the second son of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, and his wife Anisa.
His father, Hafez, rose to power through the Syrian military and the minority Alawite political party before taking control of Syria in 1970.
Studies: Bashar al-Assad was educated at the Arab-French al-Hurriya School in Damascus where he learned to speak English and French fluently.
He graduated from school in 1982 and continued studying medicine at the University of Damascus, graduating in 1988.

•

Bashar al-Assad

President of Syria from 2000 to 2024

In this Arabic name, the surname is Assad.

Bashar al-Assad^[a] (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer, and former dictator^[1] who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until his government was overthrown in the Syrian Revolution in 2024. As president, Assad was commander-in-chief of the Syrian Arab 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 in 1998 took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon begun by his father. On 17 July 2000, Assad became president, succeeding his father, who had died on 10 June 2000.^[2] Many hoped the UK-educat