Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad ruled Syria from 2000 until December 2024, when his government collapsed in eleven days. Born in Damascus in 1965, he was a second son and was not raised to rule; he trained as an ophthalmologist and was doing postgraduate work in London in 1994 when his elder brother Basil, the designated heir, was killed in a car crash. He was recalled, put through the military academy, and promoted rapidly. When his father Hafez died in 2000 the constitution was amended to lower the minimum presidential age to thirty-four, and he was elected unopposed. The Damascus Spring of 2000-01 briefly permitted discussion forums, which were closed within a year. He liberalised the economy partially, which enriched a circle around his cousin Rami Makhlouf. Protests began in Deraa in March 2011 after schoolchildren were tortured for anti-government graffiti. The security forces fired on demonstrators, the protests spread nationally, and the response escalated into war. His government used siege and starvation against civilian areas, dropped barrel bombs from helicopters, systematically tortured detainees — documented in photographs smuggled out by a defector — and used sarin at Ghouta in 2013 and chlorine repeatedly. Estimates of the dead exceed half a million, and around thirteen million people were displaced. He survived through Iranian and Hezbollah ground support and Russian air power from 2015, and had recovered most of the country by 2020. In late 2024, with Russia occupied in Ukraine and Hezbollah damaged, a rebel offensive took Aleppo, Hama and Homs in days. He fled to Moscow on 8 December 2024, ending fifty-four years of family rule.
- Lived: 1965 CE – ?
- Nationality: Syrian
- Roles: President of Syria (2000-2024)
