BEIRUT (AP) – The fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government on Sunday marked a 14-year struggle for power as his country was torn apart by a deadly civil war that became a battleground for regional and global powers.
Assad’s fall came as a stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unpredictable leader in 2000, when many expected him to become a young stalwart after three decades of his father’s iron grip. Just 34 years old, the Western-educated optician was a nimble computer genius.
But when he faced opposition to his rule that began in March 2011, Assad turned to his father’s brutal tactics in an attempt to crush them. As the rebellion escalated into a civil war, he unleashed his army to destroy rival cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.
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International rights groups and prosecutors have alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in Syrian government detention facilities.
The Syrian war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. As the civil war erupted, millions of Syrians fled across borders into Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon and into Europe.
His departure ends the rule of the Assad family, which lasts less than 54 years. Without a clear successor, it puts the country in a state of uncertainty.
Until recently, it seemed that Assad was already out of the woods. The long-running conflict has settled in recent years, with Assad’s government regaining control of much of Syria while the northwest remained under the control of opposition groups and the northeast under Kurdish rule.
While Damascus remained under crippling Western sanctions, neighboring countries had begun resigning to keep Assad in power. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership last year, and Saudi Arabia in May announced the appointment of its first ambassador to Syria since it cut ties with Damascus 12 years ago.
However, the geopolitical tide changed quickly with a surprise launch by opposition groups based in northwestern Syria in late November. Government forces quickly collapsed, while Assad’s supporters, preoccupied with other conflicts – including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the year-long war between Israel and the Iran-backed militias Hezbollah and Hamas – have shown a reluctance to intervene violently.
Assad’s whereabouts were unclear on Sunday, with reports that he had left the country when rebels seized the Syrian capital.
He started ruling in 2000 with the final twist. His father was cultivating Bashar’s older brother Basil as his successor, but in 1994 Basil was killed in a car accident in Damascus. Bashar was brought home from his ophthalmology duties in London, put through military training and promoted to the rank of colonel to strengthen his credentials to one day rule.
When Hafez Assad died in 2000, parliament quickly lowered the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34.
Hafez, a lifelong warrior, ruled the country for nearly 30 years during which he froze the Soviet Union’s economy and kept such a strict hand on dissent that Syrians were afraid to even joke about politics to their friends.
He followed a national ideology that sought to hide sectarian differences under Arab nationalism and an image of heroic opposition to Israel. He formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, established Syrian rule over Lebanon and created a network of Palestinian and Lebanese military groups.
Bashar at first seemed completely different from his strict father.
Tall and lanky with a slight swagger, she was quiet, gentle. His only official position before becoming president was head of the Syrian Computer Society. His wife, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married several months after taking office, was beautiful, well-built and British-born.
The young couple, who eventually had three children, seemed to avoid the trappings of power. They lived in an apartment in the upper part of Abu Rummaneh in the district of Damascus, as opposed to a large house like other Arab leaders.
Early on coming to office, Assad released political prisoners and allowed free speech. In the “Damascus Spring,” intellectual salons emerged where Syrians could discuss art, culture and politics to a level unmatched by his father.
But after 1,000 intellectuals signed a public petition for greater democracy and freedom in 2001 and some tried to form a political party, the salons were sacked by the dreaded secret police and many militants were arrested.
Instead of a political opening, Assad turned to economic reforms. He gradually lifted economic restrictions, brought in foreign banks, opened the doors to imports and empowered the private sector. Damascus and other cities that were often mired in unrest have seen a proliferation of shops, new restaurants and consumer goods. Tourism has increased.
Abroad, he stuck to the line laid down by his father, based on the alliance with Iran and the policy of insisting on the full return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, although in practice Assad never confronted Israel.
In 2005, he was hit hard by Syria’s loss of control over decades of rule by neighboring Lebanon after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. With many Lebanese blaming Damascus for the massacre, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from the country and an American-backed government came to power.
At the same time, the Arab countries were divided into two camps – one of the countries allied with the United States, led by Sunnis such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other led by Iran in Syria and Shiite and their relations with Hezbollah and Palestinian forces.
Everywhere, Assad relied heavily on the same power at home as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that comprises 10 percent of the population. Many of the positions in his government went to younger generations of the same families that had worked for his father. Also drawn in was a new middle class created by his reforms, including prominent Sunni merchant families.
Assad also turned to his family. His brother Maher led the Presidential Guard and would lead the counter-revolution. Their sister Bushra was a strong voice inside her, along with her husband Deputy Minister of Defense Assef Shawkat, until she was killed in the 2012 bombing. Bashar’s brother, Rami Makhlouf, became the country’s biggest businessman, leading a financial empire before the two clashed and pushed Makhlouf aside.
Assad increasingly gave an important role to his wife, Asma, before announcing in May that she was being treated for leukemia and went public.
When demonstrations began in Tunisia and Egypt, which eventually overthrew their rulers, Assad rejected the possibility of the same happening in his country, insisting that his regime was compatible with its people. After the Arab Spring wave swept through Syria, his security forces carried out brutal crackdowns while Assad continued to deny that he was facing a popular uprising, accusing “foreign-backed terrorists” of trying to undermine his rule.
His comments struck a chord with many in Syria’s minority groups – including Christians, Druze and Shiites – as well as some Sunnis who feared a hardline Sunni regime more than they disliked Assad’s authoritarian regime.
Coincidentally, February 26, 2001, two days after the fall of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to the protesters and shortly before the Arab Spring violence entered Syria – in an email published by Wikileaks as part of the cache in 2012 – Assad e- sent a joke that he would run mockingly unwilling to leave the office of the Egyptian president.
“A NEW WORD ADDED TO THE DICTIONARY: Mubarak (verb): To stick to something, or stick to something. … Mubarak (adverb): slow to learn or understand,” it read.