Aniseh al assad biography of christopher
Assad’s Fall: The End of Syria’s Brutal Ruling Dynasty
(Bloomberg) -- Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president who inherited power in with promises of reform, only to brutally suppress his opponents in a war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, has been toppled in a lightning rebel advance, according to state television.
Assad, according to multiple reports, fled Damascus as Islamist-led opposition forces entered the capital and put an end to more than half-a-century of his family’s rule.
His whereabouts weren’t immediately clear. A Reuters report and a non-governmental group tracking the war in Syria suggested Assad’s plane left an airport in the capital shortly before rebels took over.
Once courted by European governments, Assad’s transformation from a potential Western ally to a ruler who responded ruthlessly to peaceful protests against his rule took many by surprise. From using chemical weapons against civilians to widespread torture, Assad faced grave accusations during the Syrian war, but managed to survive the unrest thanks to strong support from Moscow and Tehran.
During his last days in power, Assad’s backers were unwilling or unable to support him in the face of a shock military advance Syrian rebels embarked on just about 10 days earlier.
Unlikely Ruler
Bashar Hafez Al-Assad was born on Sept. 11, , in Damascus, the third child and second son of Hafez al-Assad and Aniseh Makhlouf. The family’s roots were in the minority Alawite sect, a small part of the Shiite school of Islam.
Assad’s father was an air force officer who helped lead the takeover of government by the socialist Baath Party before seizing power himself in a bloodless military coup in
Assad grew up in the capital and graduated from medical school at Damascus University in , according to his official biography. Fluent in English, he was getting advanced training as an ophthalmologist in London in when Bassel, his father’s first choi
by Christian Sahner
The following is an excerpt from “Among the Ruins: Syria Past and Present,” just out from Oxford University Press/ C. Hurst & Co. For further information on the book and the history of Syria, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
The road from Latakia to Qardaha wound gently along the Mediterranean coast. From here, the blue waters seemed to race to an endless horizon, to a world still wider than crowded Damascus, over one hundred and fifty miles inland. But the beachside view obscured the intimacy of the moment. Plato referred to this sea and the cities perched on its shores as a pond crowded with frogs. In antiquity, as today, these frogs came in a dizzying menagerie of shapes and colors, yet their diversity disguised their essential unity. There was more uniting these far-flung peoples than dividing them. It was a sense of a common heritage held together by the relentless flow of merchants, philosophers, and missionaries across this small pond.
Latakia—ancient Laodicea—is Syria’s principal port. It is located along a narrow coastal strip in the northwest of the country, between the Lebanese and Turkish borders. With its beachside resorts, open-air cafes, and relaxed ambiance, the city was a salutary reminder that Syria—at least in these parts—was very much one of Plato’s frogs, a Mediterranean country with its eyes trained on the sea.
Mountains of northwestern Syria, with Mediterranean Sea in the distance, Tartus Province (photo: author)
Nevertheless, not everyone who basks in the Mediterranean sun enjoys its riches. For just as Syria’s geography and culture are divided between coast and desert, there is an equally pronounced rift between the coasts and mountains, which rise mightily from the waters’ edge. Here, the rugged peaks shelter villages that form the once-destitute heartland of Syria’s ‘Alawi community, a region known as Jabal Ansariyya. One hot day in July , I headed to one of the most important of the
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