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| Author: | Esther Pan |
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Updated: March 10, 2006
Trained as a doctor, Bashar never expected to become president. His father, former President Hafez al-Assad—who ruled Syria with an iron fist for thirty years beginning in 1970—groomed his elder son Basil as his successor. But when Basil died in a car crash in 1994, Bashar was summoned back from ophthalmology studies in London to take over the position of heir apparent. After Hafez al-Assad's death in 2000, the country's Majlis (Parliament) lowered the minimum required age for candidates from 40 to 34 to allow Bashar to become president.
The Assad family is part of the minority Alawite sect, a Shiite Muslim faction that —despite making up only 12 percent of the population—has dominated political life in Syria since the Baath Party seized power in 1963, and forms the core of the country's armed services and intelligence bureaucracy. After five years in power, Bashar—who introduced tentative reforms after his election before being forced to pull back—exerts an unknown degree of control over the security apparatus of the state. Bashar has replaced many of his father's old guard with his own loyalists, but he has also pursued policies that have threatened the security of his own regime. These include opposing the U.S. war in Iraq—which earned Syria severe U.S. animosity and international pariah status—and pushing through a term extension for Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, widely seen as a Syrian puppet, in the fall of 2004. The move was an overt power play to assert Syria's control over Lebanon, and it forced Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to quit the government and join the opposition. Hariri and his opposition movement gained tremendous popular support until Hariri was killed in a Beirut car bomb attack February 14, 2005. The assassination, which also killed more than twenty others, was blamed on Syria and sparked mass demonstrations in Beirut that forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after twenty-nine years of occupation. A United Nations investigation headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis implicated many high-ranking Syrian officials in Hariri's death. Assad denies any Syrian involvement. The investigation continues under the leadership of Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz.
Ali al-Bayanoni, General Guide of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The leader of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned, is currently in exile in London, but wields considerable influence through the network of social services his supporters provide throughout the country. Although Hafez al-Assad ruthlessly suppressed the Brotherhood's political activities—most notably in a brutal 1982 crackdown in the town of Hama that left tens of thousands of civilians dead—experts say the Muslim Brotherhood is still Syria's most viable opposition party. Both Hafez al-Assad and his brother Rifaat courted Bayanoni's support at various times.
Rifaat al-Assad. Rifaat, 68, a younger brother of Hafez al-Assad, has long sought to rule Syria. He graduated from Damascus University and joined the army in 1963. He advanced rapidly and supported Hafez's seizure of power in 1970. During the 1970s, Rifaat's unit, the Defense Companies, became an elite force of some 55,000 soldiers equipped with tanks, artillery, and helicopters. This unit was instrumental in the 1982 military action in Hama, earning Rifaat the nickname "the butcher of Hama." In November 1983, after Hafez suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized, Rifaat staged a coup attempt. It was put down by Syrian troops, and after Hafez recovered in March he stripped Rifaat of his military command and appointed him one of three vice presidents to dilute his power. In May, however, Hafez suffered a relapse, and Rifaat once again tried to seize power, an attempt which failed. Rifaat was sent on a series of "diplomatic trips" abroad. Rifaat has spent the last dozen years in exile. Rifaat has reportedly kept up a campaign to present himself as an alternate leader of Syria to European and other officials. He even announced himself as a Syrian presidential candidate after Hafez's death in 2000; Syrian officials threatened him with death if he returned to the country.
Sumer al-Assad, Rifaat's son and head of the Arab News Network. Bashar's cousin runs a London-based satellite television network partly financed by his father. The network ran reports critical of the Syrian regime in the 1990s as part of Rifaat and Sumer's campaign against Hafez, which culminated in a gun battle between their opposing camps in the Alawite Latakia region in 1999. The Syrian army restored order, imprisoned many of Sumer's supporters, and closed down an illegal port run by Rifaat. While Sumer and Rifaat are not seen as direct threats to Bashar, they are potentially disruptive influences who add to the list of his problems.
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