WEB DESK
The fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government Sunday December 8 brought to a dramatic end his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto power as his country fragmented amid a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers.
Bashar al-Assad was the third child of Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until he died in 2000. The Assads, belonging to Syria’s Alawite minority, a sect constituting about 10 per cent of the Syrian population, rose to prominence through military and political manoeuvring.
Bashar al-Assad initially pursued a medical career, graduating as an ophthalmologist from the University of Damascus in 1988, and later trained in London. However, his path changed dramatically in 1994 when his elder brother and heir apparent, Basil, died in a car accident. Bashar returned to Syria and was groomed to succeed his father.
Hafez al-Assad’s death in June 2000 paved the way for Bashar al-Assad’s presidency. A constitutional amendment reduced the minimum age for the presidency to 34, matching Bashar’s age. He was swiftly appointed secretary-general of the ruling Ba’ath Party and later confirmed as president in an unopposed election.
Initially, hopes were high that his Western education and relative youth would introduce reforms and liberalisation in the Syrian political system. However, Bashar al-Assad largely maintained the authoritarian governance of his father, emphasising control through powerful intelligence networks and a rigid political structure.
Assad’s downfall came as a stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. Only 34 years old, the Western-educated ophthalmologist was a rather geeky tech-savvy fan of computers with a gentle demeanor.
But when faced with protests against his rule that erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to the brutal tactics of his father in an attempt to crush them. As the uprising hemorrhaged into an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.
International rights groups and prosecutors alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial executions in Syria’s government-run detention centers.
The Syrian war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. As the uprising spiraled into a civil war, millions of Syrians fled across the borders into Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon and on to Europe.
His exit brings an end to the Assad family rule, spanning just under 54 years. With no clear successor.