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

Published

1 month 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.

Read more: Syria latest updates

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

Donald Trump refuses to rule out military force over Panama Canal and Greenland – as he warns NATO to spend more

Published

3 hours ago

January 8, 2025

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Donald Trump refuses to rule out military force over Panama Canal and Greenland - as he warns NATO to spend more

US president-elect Donald Trump has refused to rule out military or economic action to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland – as he said he believes NATO spending should be increased to 5% per member state.

Speaking at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Mr Trump made a series of sweeping claims on what his policies could look like when he takes office on 20 January.

He said he believes NATO spending should be increased to 5% per member state, while he also declared US control of Greenland and the Panama Canal as vital to American national security.

The 78-year-old Republican also spoke of relations with Canada, as well as addressing his position on the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.

Sky News takes a look at some of the key claims brought up during the conference.

NATO

Mr Trump claimed “nobody knows more about NATO than I do”, before adding: “If it weren’t for me, NATO wouldn’t exist right now.

“I raised from countries that weren’t paying their bills, over $680bn. I saved NATO, but NATO is taking advantage of us.”

The president-elect also said members of NATO should be contributing 5% of their GDPs (gross domestic product) to defence spending – the previous target has been 2%.

Greenland and Panama Canal

Asked if he can reassure the world he won’t resort to military action or economic coercion in trying to get control of the areas, he said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two.”

“But, I can say this, we need them for economic security.”

He didn’t add any further detail around Greenland – which he has recently suggested the US should own or control – but he said the Panama Canal “was built for our military”.

He said the canal was “vital” to the country and China was “operating” it.

Mr Trump criticised the late Jimmy Carter for his role in signing over the Panama Canal to Panama during his presidency, saying it’s “a disgrace what took place” and “Jimmy Carter gave it to them for one dollar.”

Canada

A day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down, Mr Trump said he believed the US’ northern neighbour should become the 51st US state.

He mocked Mr Trudeau by calling him “governor” rather than prime minister.

He argued the US and Canada combined would amount to an “economic force” that would “really be something”.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Mr Trudeau responded.

Israel-Hamas war

Israel has been waging a 15-month war on the militant group ruling Gaza, Hamas, since they launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October which saw 1,200 people massacred and about 250 taken hostage, many of whom remain in captivity.

Mr Trump said: “If those hostages aren’t back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East.”

Nearly 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Hamas-run health officials in the enclave.

Analysis: Trump’s warning risks becoming less threatening

Ukraine war

Referring to Russia’s ongoing full-scale war against its smaller neighbour, Mr Trump said a “big part of the problem” was Russian President Vladimir Putin had said for many years he did not want Ukraine involved with NATO.

“Somewhere along the line [outgoing President Joe] Biden said you can join NATO,” he said.

“Well, then Russia has NATO right on their doorstep.

“When I heard the way Biden was negotiating I said ‘you are going to end up in a war’ and it turned out to be a war.”

Asked if he would commit to keep supporting Ukraine during negotiations with Moscow, Mr Trump quipped: “Well, I wouldn’t tell you if that were the case.”

Offshore drilling

Mr Trump repeated one of his favourite phrases from the campaign trail, “drill, baby, drill”.

On Monday, outgoing President Biden moved to ban new offshore oil and gas developments along most US coastlines.

But Mr Trump, who has vowed to boost domestic energy production, said he will undo it.

“We’re going to be drilling a lot of other locations,” he said.

World

Donald Trump’s threats could be a make-or-break test for NATO

Published

5 hours ago

January 7, 2025

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Donald Trump's threats could be a make-or-break test for NATO

The public articulation by Donald Trump of a new desired target for NATO allies to spend 5% of national income on defence will surely plunge governments across Europe into crisis mode – not least here in the UK.

Britain presents itself to the world and in particular to the United States as the biggest defence spender in Europe and NATO’s most powerful European military.

Yet Sir Keir Starmer has not even managed to set out a timeline for what he describes as a “path to 2.5%” of GDP being invested in his armed forces, up from just over 2% today.

If the prime minister merely sticks to this pledge, he risks being viewed by the new administration as woefully unambitious and not credible on defence.

Then there is the extraordinary threat by Mr Trump to seize Greenland by force if necessary, even though this valuable piece of territory belongs to a fellow NATO ally in the form of Denmark.

The move – were it to happen – would demonstrate the limitations of the alliance’s Article 5 founding principle.

It is supposed to guarantee that all allies would come to the defence of any member state which is under armed attack.

But what about if the aggressor is also meant to be an ally?

The president-elect also appeared to dash any hope of Ukraine being offered membership to the alliance anytime soon – a core request of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Instead, Mr Trump sounded sympathetic to Vladimir Putin’s absolute opposition to such a move.

He said he would meet the Russian president after taking office – reiterating a promise to end the war in Ukraine, though again without spelling out how.

The outbursts came in a lengthy press conference on Tuesday that marked the starting shot in what could be a make-or-break test for NATO – an alliance of transatlantic friends that rose from the ashes of the Second World War.

European members of NATO, as well as Canada, already took a battering the last time Mr Trump was in the White House – and rightly so.

The US had for far too long largely bankrolled the security of Europe, while the majority of its allies – including the UK – reaped the so-called “peace dividend” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, swapping expenditure on defence for peacetime priorities such as economic growth, healthcare and education.

Mr Trump made clear during his first term his displeasure about what he saw as Washington being ripped off and vowed to make Europe take its fair share of the burden.

He even warned member states that the US would not come to the aid of an ally that was not hitting at the very least a minimum NATO spending targeting of 2% of GDP – something they had previously pledged to do by 2024 but were slow to deliver on.

Such language electrified allies in a way that even Putin’s initial 2014 invasion of Ukraine, with the annexation of Crimea and attacks in the east of the country, had not.

Yet, with the threat from Russia growing in the wake of its full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, coupled with conflict in the Middle East and the challenge posed by China, it has become clear that this heightened level of expenditure by allies was still far short of what is required to rebuild militaries across Europe that have been hollowed out over decades.

Mark Rutte, the new secretary general of NATO, set the stage for what is expected to be another push to ramp up investment when he delivered a landmark speech last month in which he called on allies to return to a “war mindset” and “turbocharge” defence spending.

He said this was to counter growing threats, but observers said it was also a pre-emptive response to the anticipated demands of the next Trump administration.

Either way, it poses a huge challenge for all allies, in particular for Sir Keir Starmer.

He and Rachel Reeves face a choice: change course when it comes to their top priorities of economic growth, hospital waiting lists and new housing and instead invest more in defence or defy what will doubtless be growing demands from the United States to spend billions of pounds more on the UK armed forces – and maybe even leave the country in a position whereby the US would not come to its aid if attacked.

World

Rapid Support Forces (RSF) accused by US of committing genocide in Sudan war

Published

6 hours ago

January 7, 2025

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Rapid Support Forces (RSF) accused by US of committing genocide in Sudan war

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allied militias are committing genocide in Sudan while waging war against the army for control of the country, Joe Biden’s US administration has determined – two weeks before leaving office.

In a statement sharing the designation on Tuesday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the RSF and its aligned militias had “systematically murdered men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis” and “deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence”.

He announced that Washington would impose sanctions on RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo and seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The UAE is credibly accused of backing and arming the RSF – something it has strenuously denied.

When reached for comment by Reuters, the RSF rejected these measures and said: “America previously punished the great African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, which was wrong.

“Today, it is rewarding those who started the war by punishing (RSF leader) general Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, which is also wrong.”

The RSF has been fighting Sudan’s army for territorial control of the country since war erupted in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023.

The ensuing devastation has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis ever recorded – with over 11 million people forced out of their homes, tens of thousands dead, and 30 million in need of humanitarian assistance.

In December 2023, Mr Blinken announced that both warring parties had committed war crimes, but that the RSF in particular had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

He mentioned this precedent in this latest announcement, adding: “Today’s action is part of our continued efforts to promote accountability for all warring parties whose actions fuel this conflict.

“The United States does not support either side of this war, and these actions against Hemedti and the RSF do not signify support or favour for the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces).

“Both belligerents bear responsibility for the violence and suffering in Sudan and lack the legitimacy to govern a future peaceful Sudan.”