Assad, Bashar al-

Assad, Bashar al- (1965- ), President of Syria (2000- ). Assad was born in Damascus, the son of Hafez al-Assad, later president of Syria (1971-2000). He studied ophthalmology at the Tishrin military hospital in Damascus until 1992, and continued his studies at St Mary’s Hospital, London. The death of his older brother Basil caused Bashar’s return to Syria in 1994, where he took up a public role as head of the Syrian Computer Society, dedicated to developing an interest in information technology among the young people of Syria, and joining the army, becoming a staff colonel in 1999.

In the years before his father’s death, Bashar gradually assumed the role of a potential successor as president. He led a campaign against corruption among senior members of the government that also served to remove several possible rivals for power. When Hafez al-Assad died in June 2000, the Syrian parliament voted to lower the minimum age required for a president from 40 to 34—Bashar’s age at the time—and later named him president and commander-in-chief of the army.

Assad joined in the worldwide condemnation of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. Despite this, and Assad’s support for a Saudi Arabian peace proposal to settle the question of Palestinian claims to the West Bank of the River Jordan, Syria was named as part of the “axis of evil” by US president George W. Bush in May 2002 because of its alleged support for the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as well as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, all regarded by the United States as terrorist organizations. Assad justified their activities as acts of resistance against Israeli aggression. In the same month, Assad welcomed Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to Syria, part of his pilgrimage retracing the steps of St Paul.

Assad supported the pressure applied on Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein to admit weapons inspectors in November 2002, and visited London the following month for discussions with Tony Blair. Nevertheless he remained critical of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, warning that it would destabilize the region (see War on Iraq). Assad's concern that Iraq would be dismembered was one reason that led him to open talks with one of Syria's regional rivals, Turkey, in January 2004. Both countries were worried about the development of autonomy among Iraqi Kurds influencing their own large Kurdish populations.

The US presence in Iraq increased pressure on Assad’s government to accommodate itself with American plans for the region. A particular cause of tension was the continued Syrian military presence in Lebanon (a legacy of the Lebanese Civil War). Syria was widely accused of complicity in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in February, 2005. Massive protests were held in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. In March Assad invited the Lebanese president Emile Lahoud to Damascus, where he announced that Syria had agreed to withdraw its forces to the Bekaa Valley. The following month the United Nations verified that all Syrian forces had left Lebanese territory. Syria came under international pressure to cooperate with a United Nations tribunal established to investigate the Hariri assassination, after it asserted in a preliminary report (published in October 2005) that Syrian intelligence was probably involved. In April 2006 Assad held a meeting with Serge Brammertz, the head of the tribunal. Nevertheless, Assad continued to limit Syrian co-operation with the investigation, stating that it represented interference in Syria’s internal affairs. In November, Assad’s government took the step of re-establishing diplomatic links with Iraq (they had been severed in 1982).