(Reuters) – Syria's Bashar al-Assad used Russian and Iranian firepower to push again insurgent forces throughout years of civil warfare however by no means defeated them, leaving him susceptible to their breakneck advance when his Allies had been distracted by wars elsewhere.
President for twenty-four years, Assad left Damascus on Sunday morning for an unknown vacation spot, two senior military officers informed Reuters. The rebels declared the town “liberated from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad”. Half a century of Assad household rule was over, military command informed officers, in response to a Syrian officer.
Statues of Assad's father and brother have been toppled in cities captured by rebels, whereas pictures of him on billboards and authorities workplaces have been torn down, trampled, burned or riddled with bullets.
Assad grew to become president in 2000 after the loss of life of his father Hafez, preserving the household's iron fist and the dominance of their Alawite sect within the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation and Syria's standing as a hostile Iranian ally. to The occupying Zionist entity and the US.
Formed in its early years by the warfare in Iraq and the disaster in Lebanon, Assad's regime was outlined by the civil warfare that adopted the Arab Spring of 2011, when Syrians demanding democracy took to the streets, to come across lethal drive.
Referred to as an “animal” in 2018 by US President Donald Trump for utilizing chemical weapons – a cost he denied – Assad outlasted many international leaders who believed his demise was imminent within the early days of the battle, when he misplaced components of Syria to rebels.
Aided by Russian airstrikes and Iranian-backed militias, he recovered a lot of the territory misplaced throughout years of navy offensives, together with siege warfare condemned as “medieval” by Iran investigators. UN.
Whereas his opponents had been largely confined to a part of northwest Syria, he presided over a number of years of relative calm, at the same time as massive components of the nation remained exterior his grip and the economic system was hobbled by the worldwide sanctions.
Assad has reestablished ties with Arab states that had as soon as shunned him however remained pariahs to a lot of the world and by no means managed to revive the shattered Syrian state, whose armed forces shortly withdrew within the face of to the advances of the rebels.
He has made no public remarks since insurgents seized Aleppo per week in the past, however mentioned in a name with Iran's president that the escalation was geared toward reshaping the area for Western pursuits, echoing his view of the revolt as a foreign-backed conspiracy.
Justifying his response to the insurgency in its early levels, Assad compares himself to a surgeon. “Do they are saying to him: 'Your arms are coated in blood?' Or can we thank him for saving the affected person?” he mentioned in 2012.
Firstly of the battle, as rebels captured metropolis after metropolis, Assad exuded confidence.
“We’ll strike them with an iron fist and Syria will return to what it was,” he informed troopers after retaking the city of Maaloula in 2014.
He stored his first promise, however not the second. Years later, massive components of Syria had been nonetheless exterior state management, cities had been razed, the loss of life toll exceeded 350,000 and greater than 1 / 4 of the inhabitants had fled overseas.
RED LINES
Assad was supported by Syrians who believed he was saving them from radical Sunni Islamists.
As al-Qaeda-inspired rebel teams grew in prominence, this worry resonated amongst minorities. Insurgent forces sought to guarantee Christians, Alawites and different minorities that they’d be protected as they superior this week.
Assad clung to the thought of Syria as a bastion of secular Arab nationalism, even because the battle appeared more and more sectarian. Chatting with Overseas Affairs in 2015, he mentioned the Syrian military was “made up of all colours of Syrian society”.
However for his opponents, he fueled sectarianism.
The sectarian aspect of the battle has been strengthened by the arrival of Iranian-backed Shiite fighters from throughout the Center East to assist Assad, and by assist from Sunni Muslim-led states together with Turkey and Qatar , to the rebels.
Assad's worth to Iran was underlined by a senior Iranian official who mentioned in 2015 that his destiny constituted a “purple line” for Tehran.
Whereas Iran supported Assad, the US did not implement its personal “purple line” – set by President Barack Obama in 2012 towards using chemical weapons.
UN-backed investigations concluded that Damascus used chemical weapons.
A sarin gasoline assault on rebel-held Ghouta in 2013 killed lots of, however Moscow brokered a deal for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, avoiding a U.S. response. But poison gasoline continued to strike insurgent areas, with a sarin assault in 2017 prompting Trump to order a response with a cruise missile.
Assad has denied accusations that the state was accountable.
He additionally denied that the military dropped barrel bombs full of explosives that precipitated indiscriminate destruction. He appeared to take the accusation evenly in a 2015 BBC interview, saying: “I haven't heard of the military utilizing barrels, or possibly pots. »
He additionally rejected tens of 1000’s of pictures displaying the torture of individuals in authorities custody, calling them a conspiracy financed by Qatar.
Because the combating subsided, Assad accused Syria's enemies of waging an financial warfare.
However whereas he remained a pariah to the West, some Arab states that when supported his opponents started to open their doorways to him. A beaming Assad was greeted by UAE leaders throughout a go to there in 2022.
Ophthalmologist
Assad has typically offered himself as a humble man of the folks, showing in movies behind the wheel of a modest household automobile and in images along with his spouse visiting veterans of their houses.
He took workplace in 2000 after his father's loss of life, however was not at all times destined for the presidency.
Hafez had ready one other son, Bassel, to succeed him. However when Bassel died in a automobile crash in 1994, Bashar went from being an ophthalmologist in London – the place he was finding out for postgraduate research – to inheritor obvious.
As soon as he grew to become president, Assad appeared to embrace liberal reforms, optimistically described as “the Damascus Spring.”
He freed lots of of political prisoners, made overtures to the West and opened the economic system to personal enterprise.
His marriage to British-born former funding banker Asma Akhras – with whom he had three kids – helped gas hopes that he might take Syria on a extra reformative path.
Highlights of his early liaisons with Western leaders included attending a summit in Paris the place he was the visitor of honor on the annual Bastille Day navy parade.
However with the political system he inherited remaining intact, indicators of change shortly dried up.
Dissidents had been imprisoned and financial reforms contributed to what U.S. diplomats described, in a 2008 embassy cable launched by WikiLeaks, as “parasitic” nepotism and corruption.
Though the elite fared nicely, the drought drove the poor from rural areas into the slums the place revolt would escape.
Tensions created with the West after the US' invasion of Iraq in 2003 upset the steadiness of energy within the Center East.
The assassination of Lebanese Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut in 2005 sparked Western strain that compelled Syria to withdraw from its neighbor. An preliminary worldwide investigation implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese officers within the homicide.
Whereas Syria has denied any involvement, former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam mentioned Assad had threatened Hariri months earlier – a cost Assad has additionally denied.
Fifteen years later, a U.N.-backed courtroom discovered a member of Iran-backed Hezbollah responsible of plotting to kill Hariri. Assad's ally Hezbollah has denied any position.
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