History of assad family

Joshua Landis. Archived from the original on 17 August The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 February Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original PDF on 13 August Middle East Monitor. Archived from the original on 8 November Retrieved 11 January Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original on 8 February US Department of the Treasury.

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History of assad family: The Assad family ruled

Archived from the original on 15 August Asad of Syria: the struggle for the Middle East. University of California Press. Princeton University Press. Archived from the original on 31 December A staunch nationalist, he is lauded by loyalists for modernising and industrialising Syria, strengthening not only its military but also its economy.

History of assad family: Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian dynast

According to a Syrian Human Rights Committee reportwhile the Hama raid was the most deadly assault, it was not the first of its kind:. Of these massacres was the massacre on Jisr Alshaghoor, which took place on the 10th of March Some sources said that mortars bombed the city and 97 people were shot dead, after being taken from their homes, and 30 houses were demolished there.

The massacres of Sarmadah which saw 40 citizens killed, and the massacre of the village Kinsafrah, which took place at the same time as the massacre of Jisr Alshaghoor…. Few months later, the massacre of Palmyra prison was committed on the 26th of Junewhen around 1, detainees were killed in their cells…. It was Hafez's eldest son, Bassel, that was groomed for power.

But Bassel's death in a car accident in thrust his brother Bashar to the fore.

History of assad family: Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, was born

When Bashar al-Assad assumed the presidency in following Hafez's death, many expected him to be a chip off the old block, but this has not proved to be the case. When Bashar took over, he was obliged at first to work with his father's coterie of revolutionary leaders - many of whom had headed the state's key institutions, such as the security services and military, for decades.

But, in order to assert his independence, he slowly pushed them aside in favour of his own close set of advisers. In most cases, key ministries and state agencies had been under the purview of Hafez's trusted allies since the s. He ruled through a clan system, based on a dozen cronies and their families, many, if not all of them, Alawites. The secular opposition was largely destroyed, leaving only the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood a Sunni group.

Assad portrayed himself to Christians and other minorities as a bulwark against Sunni extremists. The city of Hama was a centre of conservative anti-Ba'athist interests, and of Muslim Brotherhood guerillas. Ina conflict with security forces led to a general Islamist uprising there.

History of assad family: The Assad family ruled Syria from

State forces, led by Assad's brother Rifaat, besieged the city and shelled it, before razing many of its neighbourhoods, killing not only any Islamists they found but also large numbers of civilians. Syrian rights activists recently put the number of dead at more than 40, Until the civil war that was to follow 30 years later, it was the single bloodiest assault by an Arab ruler against his own people in modern times.

Bashar was Hafez's second son. Gawky and cerebral, he trained in London as an ophthalmologist in the s, and married a British Syrian woman, Asma. His older brother, and Hafez's eldest son, Bassel, was a charismatic soldier and athlete, and had been groomed to succeed his father, but he died in a car crash in So, when Hafez died inBashar inherited the presidency.

Initially, there were hopes that the new ruler would be a reformer: during the "Damascus spring" ofpolitical prisoners were released. But he soon reverted to a version of his father's ways. In fact, he narrowed the ruling inner circle. He introduced changes to Syria's socialist economy, but allowed the Makhloufs, his mother's family, to dominate much of it.

His brother Maher and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat — two hardliners — were his main security advisers. In Marchprotests about unemployment, corruption and lack of freedom broke out, inspired by the Arab Spring in North Africa. Peaceful protests in Syria were met by arrests and shootings, first in the southern city of Daraa, then countrywide.