BEIRUT (AP) — The fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government on Sunday dramatically ended his nearly 14-year struggle to retain power as his country fell apart amid a brutal civil war that has become a proxy became a battlefield for regional and international powers.
Assad's demise was 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. The Western-trained ophthalmologist, only 34 years old, was a rather nerdy, tech-savvy fan of computers with a mild-mannered attitude.
But when faced with protests against his rule that erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to his father's brutal tactics in an attempt to crush them. As the uprising spiraled into full-blown civil war, he deployed his army to blow up opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.
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International rights groups and prosecutors allege there is widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in Syria's government-run detention centers.
Syria's war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of its pre-war population of 23 million. As the uprising spiraled into civil war, millions of Syrians fled across borders to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon and further into Europe.
His departure marks the end of the Assad family's rule of just under 54 years. Because there is no clear successor, this brings the country into further uncertainty.
Until recently, it seemed Assad was almost out of the woods. The long-running conflict had been resolved along frozen conflict lines in recent years, with Assad's government regaining control of most of Syria's territory, while the northwest remained under the control of opposition groups and the northeast under Kurdish control.
While Damascus remained under crippling Western sanctions, neighboring countries began to come to terms with Assad's continued grip on power. The Arab League restored 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 earlier.
However, the geopolitical tide quickly turned when a surprise offensive was launched by opposition groups in northwestern Syria in late November. Government forces quickly collapsed, while Assad's allies, preoccupied with other conflicts — including Russia's war in Ukraine and the yearslong wars between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas — appeared reluctant to intervene forcefully.
Assad's whereabouts were unclear on Sunday, amid reports that he had left the country as insurgents took control of the Syrian capital.
By a twist of fate, he came to power in 2000. His father had raised Bashar's eldest brother Basil as his successor, but in 1994 Basil died in a car accident in Damascus. Bashar was brought home from his ophthalmology practice in London, given military training and elevated to the rank of colonel to establish his credentials so that he could one day rule.
When Hafez Assad died in 2000, parliament quickly lowered the age requirement for the president from 40 to 34. Bashar's appointment was sealed by a national referendum, in which he was the only candidate.
A lifelong soldier, Hafez ruled the country for nearly three decades, during which he set up a Soviet-style centralized economy and stifled dissent so much that Syrians were even afraid to joke about politics with their friends.
He pursued a secular ideology that aimed to bury sectarian differences under Arab nationalism and the image of heroic resistance to Israel. He formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, sealed Syrian rule over Lebanon and set up a network of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.
Bashar initially seemed completely different from his strong father.
He was tall and lanky, with a slight lisp and a calm, friendly demeanor. His only official position before becoming president was head of the Syrian Computer Society. His wife, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married a few months after taking office, was attractive, stylish and of British descent.
The young couple, who eventually had three children, seemed to avoid the trappings of power. They lived in an apartment in the posh Abu Rummaneh neighborhood of Damascus, as opposed to a palatial mansion like other Arab leaders.
Initially, when Assad came to power, he freed political prisoners and allowed more open discourse. During the 'Damascus Spring', salons for intellectuals emerged where Syrians could discuss art, culture and politics in a way that was impossible under his father.
But after a thousand intellectuals signed a public petition calling for multiparty democracy and greater freedoms in 2001 and others tried to form a political party, the salons were ransacked by the feared secret police, who jailed dozens of activists.
Instead of a political opening, Assad turned to economic reforms. He slowly lifted economic restrictions, let in foreign banks, threw open the doors to imports and empowered the private sector. Damascus and other cities long mired in dreariness saw a boom in shopping malls, new restaurants and consumer goods. Tourism grew.
Abroad, he stuck to the line set by his father, based on the alliance with Iran and a policy of pushing for a full return of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel, although in practice Assad never confronted Israel militarily.
He suffered a major blow in 2005 when he lost decades-old Syrian control over neighboring Lebanon following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. As many Lebanese accused Damascus of being behind the massacre, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from the country and a pro-American government came to power.
At the same time, the Arab world became split into two camps: one of US-allied, Sunni-led countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other of Syria and Shiite-led Iran, with their links to Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.
At home, Assad largely relied on the same power base as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that made up about 10 percent of the population. Many of the positions in his government went to younger generations of the same families who had worked for his father. It also attracted the new middle class created by his reforms, including prominent Sunni merchant families.
Assad also turned to his own family. His younger brother Maher led the elite presidential guard and was expected to lead the crackdown on the insurgency. Their sister Bushra was a powerful voice in his inner circle, along with her husband, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, until he was killed in a bomb attack in 2012. Bashar's cousin, Rami Makhlouf, became the country's biggest businessman and headed a financial empire before the two had a falling out that forced Makhlouf aside.
Assad also increasingly entrusted key roles to his wife Asma, before announcing in May that she was undergoing treatment for leukemia and stepping out of the spotlight.
When protests broke out in Tunisia and Egypt, eventually toppling their rulers, Assad dismissed the possibility of the same happening in his country, insisting that his regime was more aligned with its people. After the Arab Spring wave spread to Syria, his security forces carried out a brutal crackdown, while Assad consistently denied that he was facing a popular uprising, instead blaming “foreign-backed terrorists” who tried to to destabilize the regime.
His rhetoric struck a chord with many in Syria's minority groups — including Christians, Druze and Shiites — as well as some Sunnis who feared the prospect of rule by Sunni extremists even more than they hated Assad's authoritarian rule.
Ironically, on February 26, 2011, two days after the fall of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak among the demonstrators and just before the wave of Arab Spring protests swept Syria, Assad wrote in an email released by Wikileaks as part of a cache in 2012 – Emailed a joke he came across, mocking the Egyptian leader's stubborn refusal to step down.
“NEW WORD ADDED TO DICTIONARY: Mubarak (verb): To stick something, or glue something. … Mubarak (adjective): slow to learn or understand,” it said.
