I met Assad and his wife in 2009, before he turned to mass murder

Published

7 months ago

December 8, 2024

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Bashar al Assad started out as a doctor and ended up a mass murdering tyrant now on the run.

The man who trained to save lives in Damascus and London would go on to take them in their hundreds of thousands, bombing hospitals and gassing his own people.

He was a strangely unimpressive man to meet. Tall, slightly gauche, with a lisp and thin tufty moustache.

Christopher Hitchens called him the human toothbrush. The writer recalled Hannah Arendt’s phrase the “banality of evil” when he remembered meeting another dictator, Argentina’s General Videla. But it applied equally well to Mr Assad.

He was ordinary, more oddball than evil, with a high-pitched awkward laugh.

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It was a very different time in a very different Syria when Mr Assad and his wife invited Sky News to Damascus. We went on a walkabout with them on a warm spring evening in 2009.

Barack Obama had just been inaugurated president in America. In his reedy voice, Mr Assad said he would like to invite the young president to Syria, via Sky News. He almost giggled as he said it. His British-born wife beamed at his side.

Back then everything seemed possible but just two years later Syria erupted in protest caught up in the contagion of the Arab Spring. Mr Assad would respond with brutal force. That fateful decision put Syria on the path to a devastating civil war.

Mr Assad had become president unexpectedly and it seemed reluctantly.

His elder brother Bassel had been groomed for the job. He was everything Bashar wasn’t, good looking and confident, a special forces soldier, his father’s favourite. But Bassel died in a car crash.

Did Mr Assad’s ruthlessness later spring partly from sibling resentment? Was he needing to prove himself to his domineering dead father to be as strong as his brother? Did the weaker, overlooked Bashar overcompensate for his inadequacies with the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands?

Take the Roys of Succession and add weapons

The Assads were quite the family. Take the Roys of Succession and add weapons, both chemical and biological.

Hafez, the cold calculating patriarch whose achievement of seizing power in Syria and dominating it for decades was threatened by his scheming, weaker children.

Bashar, the brooding heir, and Maher, his psychotic, deranged brother who has personally overseen much of the regime’s reign of terror.

When his father died in 2000, Mr Assad was called back from London, cutting short his career as an eye doctor to succeed him. At first he promised reform. The country seemed to be opening up.

Assad’s wife was part of the act

Mr Assad’s telegenic wife, Asma, brought up in West London by Syrian parents, was part of the act, presenting a modernising future. She was much better at it than her husband, a natural in front of the cameras.

She told me she had travelled the country incognito after her husband took power, to help him understand its needs.

They were a normal middle-class couple she said, who loved nothing better than surprising Damascenes by popping up in restaurants on date nights in the capital.

Vogue magazine was pilloried later for calling Ms Assad Syria’s “Desert Rose” but it was not the only one taken in. There was in those days a genuine sense Syria was on a new path. Perhaps Mr and Mrs Assad believed it too.

But in the background, repression and corruption never went away.

Mr Assad was handing out lucrative privatisation contracts to cronies and family. The Assads’ secret police were stifling dissent as brutally as before.

The eruption of civil war

Two years after that invitation to Mr Obama, Mr Assad was forced to choose between a new way forward and the repressive ways of his father.

Children had been arrested in the southern city of Deraa for protests inspired by the Arab Spring sweeping the region. The police tortured them, killed them and returned their mutilated bodies.

Protests engulfed the south. The Assad regime seemed uncertain at first how to respond. If there was an attempt at conciliation, it was shortlived.

Mr Assad returned to old family tactics. In 1982, his father Hafez had slaughtered thousands in the city of Hama after an uprising there.

Peaceful protests erupted across the country. Mr Assad ordered his security forces to crush them, opening fire on peaceful unarmed crowds. His brother Maher was filmed doing so personally.

Ultimately, Syrians had little choice but to resort to arming themselves. The uprising mutated into armed rebellion. Then outside powers joined in, turning the conflict into both a proxy and civil war.

Assad could never afford to lose

Mr Assad was all in. From the minority Alawite sect, he could never afford to lose.

Desperate to prevail, he resorted to more and more desperate methods. Thousands of barrel bombs were dropped from helicopters. And then chemical weapons; chlorine gas, sarin and mustard.

Opponents disappeared in their tens of thousands into jails, where torture, sexual abuse and mass hangings were commonplace.

Mr Assad could never have held on without his allies. Russia in the air and Iran on the ground. Their support swung the war in his favour, the rebels kettled into the northwest of the country, a killing zone in the province of Idlib.

Assad’s rotten and hollow regime has folded

The conflict seemed frozen for years but Mr Assad’s enemies have used the time to re-arm and learn new tactics and discipline.

His allies were distracted, Russia in Ukraine and Iran was weakened by events in Lebanon.

Mr Assad, the young eye doctor with the glamorous British wife, had become an evil murderous despot, perverted and corrupted utterly by power.

His rule lost all legitimacy years ago. Rotten and hollow, without external support, his regime has folded, a lesson to others, not least his allies, in Moscow and Tehran.

It has taken years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives but Syrians have finally overthrown their hated dictator. The dynasty Mr Assad’s father thought he was building has collapsed.

Mr and Mrs Assad may find refuge abroad, but the fate of the rest of their dreadful family remains unknown.

World

Why hastily declared ceasefires tend to be fragile

Published

1 day ago

June 24, 2025

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Why hastily declared ceasefires tend to be fragile

Ceasefires that are suddenly declared tend to be pretty fragile.

Stable ceasefires usually require a lot of preparation so that everyone on both sides knows what is supposed to happen, and – more importantly – when.

And they normally agree on how it will be monitored so one side cannot seize a quick advantage by breaking it suddenly.

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Without such preparations, and sometimes even with them, ceasefires will tend to be breached – perhaps by accident, perhaps because one side does not exercise full control over its own forces, perhaps as a result of false alarms, or even because a third party – a guerrilla group or a militia, say – choose that moment to launch an attack of their own.

The important question is whether a ceasefire breach is just random and unfortunate, or else deliberate and systemic – where someone is actively trying to break it.

Either way, ceasefires have to be politically reinforced all the time if they are to hold.

All sides may need to rededicate themselves to it at regular intervals, mainly because, as genuine enemies, they won’t trust each other and will remain naturally suspicious at every twitch and utterance from the other side.

This is where an external power like the United States plays a critical part.

If enemies like Israel and Iran naturally distrust each other and need little incentive to “hit back” in some way at every provocation, it will take US pressure to make them abide by a ceasefire that may be breaking down.

Appeals to good nature are hardly relevant in this respect. An external arbiter has to make the continuance of a ceasefire a matter of hard national interest to both sides.

And that often requires as much bullying as persuasion. It may be true that “blessed are the peacemakers”.

World

Five key takeaways from Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s interview with Sky News

Published

1 day ago

June 24, 2025

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Five key takeaways from Volodymyr Zelenskyy's interview with Sky News

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given a wide-ranging interview to Sky News in which he was asked about the prospect of Russia attacking NATO, whether he would cede land as part of a peace deal and how to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

The Ukrainian president spoke to chief presenter Mark Austin.

Here are the five key takeaways from their discussion.

NATO ‘at risk of attack’

Mr Zelenskyy said plans for NATO members to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 are “very slow” and warned Russia could attack a NATO country within five years to test the alliance.

“We believe that, starting from 2030, Putin can have significantly greater capabilities,” he said. “Today, Ukraine is holding him up, he has no time to drill the army.”

But while Mr Zelenskyy conceded his ambition to join NATO “isn’t possible now”, he asserted long term “NATO needs Ukrainians”.

US support ‘may be reduced’

Asked about his views on the Israel-Iran conflict, and the impact of a wider Middle East war on Ukraine, Mr Zelenskyy accepted the “political focus is changing”.

“This means that aid from partners, above all from the United States, may be reduced,” he said.

“He [Putin] will increase strikes against us to use this opportunity, to use the fact that America’s focus is changing over to the Middle East.”

On the subject of Mr Putin’s close relationship with Iran, which has supplied Russia with attack drones, Mr Zelenskyy said: “The Russians will feel the advantage on the battlefield and it will be difficult for us.”

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Trump and Putin ‘will never be friends’

Mr Zelenskyy was sceptical about Mr Putin’s relationship with Donald Trump.

“I truly don’t know what relationship Trump has with Putin… but I am confident that President Trump understands that Ukrainians are allies to America, and the real existential enemy of America is Russia.

“They may be short-term partners, but they will never be friends.”

On his relationship with Mr Trump, Mr Zelenskyy was asked about whether he felt bullied by the US president during their spat in the Oval Office.

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“I believe I conducted myself honestly. I really wanted America to be a strong partner… and to be honest, I was counting on that,” he said.

In a sign of potential frustration, the Ukrainian president added: “Indeed, there were things that don’t bring us closer to ending the war. There were some media… standing around us… talking about some small things like my suit. It’s not the main thing.”

Putin and peace talks

Mr Zelenskyy was clear he supported both a ceasefire and peace talks, adding that he would enter negotiations to understand “if real compromises are possible and if there is a real way to end the war”.

But he avoided directly saying whether he would be willing to surrender four annexed regions of Ukraine, as part of any peace deal.

“I don’t believe that he [Putin] is interested in these four regions. He wants to occupy Ukraine. Putin wants more,” he said.

“Putin is counting on a slow occupation of Ukraine, the reduction in European support and America standing back from this war completely… plus the removal of sanctions.

“But I think the strategy should be as follows: Pressure on Putin with political sanctions, with long-range weapons… to force him to the negotiating table.”

Russia ‘using UK tech for missiles’

On Monday, Mr Zelenskyy met Sir Keir Starmer and agreed to share battlefield technology, boosting Ukraine’s drone production, which Mr Zelenskyy described as a “strong step forward”.

But he also spoke about the failure to limit Russia’s access to crucial technology being used in military hardware.

He said “components for missiles and drones” from countries “including the UK” were being used by Russian companies who were not subject to sanctions.

“It is vitally important for us, and we’re handing these lists [of Russian companies] over to our partners and asking them to apply sanctions. Otherwise, the Russians will have missiles,” he added.

World

At least 25 people killed after Israeli forces open fire near aid trucks in Gaza, witnesses say

Published

1 day ago

June 24, 2025

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At least 25 people killed after Israeli forces open fire near aid trucks in Gaza, witnesses say

At least 25 people have been killed after Israeli forces opened fire towards people waiting for aid trucks in Gaza, according to witnesses and hospitals.

The Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, which received the victims, said the Palestinians were waiting for the trucks on a road south of Wadi Gaza.

Witnesses told the Associated Press (AP) news agency Israeli forces opened fire as people were advancing to be close to the approaching trucks.

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The Awda hospital said another 146 Palestinians were wounded. Among them were 62 in a critical condition, who were transferred to other hospitals in central Gaza, it added.

In the central town of Deir al-Balah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the same incident.

“It was a massacre,” one witness, Ahmed Halawa, said.

He said tanks and drones fired at people, “even as we were fleeing – many people were either martyred or wounded”.

Another witness, Hossam Abu Shahada, said drones were flying over the area, watching the crowds. Then there was gunfire from tanks and drones, leaving a “chaotic and bloody” scene as people attempted to escape.

He said he saw at least three people lying on the ground motionless and many others wounded as he fled.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the reports.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, described the aid delivery mechanism in Gaza as “an abomination that humiliates and degrades desperate people”.

He added: “It is a death trap, costing more lives than it saves.”

A spokesperson for the UN’s Human Rights Office said: “The weaponisation of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law.”

Around 56,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The ministry says more than half of the dead were women and children, but does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, when militants stormed across the border and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostages. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefire agreements.