Biography Of Bashar Al Assad – Free PDF Download

EARLY LIFE

• Bashar Hafez al-Assad was born in Damascus on 11 September 1965, the second oldest son of Anisa Makhlouf and Hafez al-Assad.
• Assad’s father, Hafez, was born to an impoverished rural family of Alawite background and rose through the Ba’ath Party ranks to take control of the Syrian branch of the Party in the 1970 Corrective Revolution, culminating in his rise to the Syrian presidency.
• Assad received his primary and secondary education in the Arab-French al-Hurriya School in Damascus.In 1982, he graduated from high school and then studied medicine at Damascus University.

RISING

• In 1988, Assad graduated from medical school and began working as an army doctor at the Tishrin Military Hospital on the outskirts of Damascus.
• Four years later, he settled in London to start postgraduate training in ophthalmology at the Western Eye Hospital.
• Soon after the death of Bassel, Hafez al-Assad decided to make Bashar the new heir apparent. Over the next six and a half years, until his death in 2000, Hafez prepared Bashar for taking over power.
• To establish his credentials in the military, Bashar entered the military academy at Homs in 1994.

THE RISING

• To establish a power base for Bashar in the military, old divisional commanders were pushed into retirement, and new, young, Alawite officers with loyalties to him took their place.
• In 1998, Bashar took charge of Syria’s Lebanon file, which had since the 1970s been handled by Vice President.
• Bashar also became the President of the Syrian Computer Society and helped to introduce the internet in Syria, which aided his image as a moderniser and reformer.

PRESIDENT

• After the death of Hafez al-Assad on 10 June 2000, the Constitution of Syria was amended; the minimum age requirement for the presidency was lowered from 40 to 34, which was Bashar’s age at the time.
• He was then confirmed president on 10 July 2000 with 99.7% support for his leadership. In line with his role as President of Syria, he was also appointed the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and Regional Secretary of the Ba’ath Party.
• Assad is an outspoken critic of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
• On 27 May 2007, Assad was approved for another seven-year term in a referendum on his presidency, with 97.6% of the votes supporting his continued leadership.

CIVIL WAR

• Mass protests in Syria began on 26 January 2011. Protesters called for political reforms and the reinstatement of civil rights, as well as an end to the state of emergency which had been in place since 1963.
• On 20 June, in response to the demands of protesters and foreign pressure, Assad promised a national dialogue involving movement toward reform, new parliamentary elections, and greater freedoms.
• Since October 2011, Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, repeatedly vetoed Western-sponsored draft resolutions in the UN Security Council of UN sanctions, or even military intervention, against the Assad government.

CIVIL WAR

• On 15 July 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross declared Syria to be in a state of civil war, as the nationwide death toll for all sides was reported to have neared 20,000.
• In early September 2015, against the backdrop of reports that Russia was deploying troops in Syria ready for combat.
• Shortly after the start of direct military intervention by Russia on 30 September 2015 at the formal request of the Syrian government, Putin stated the military operation had been thoroughly prepared in advance.

CIVIL WAR

• It was reported in December 2016 that Assad’s forces had retaken half of rebel-held Aleppo ending a 6-year stalemate in the city.
• Following the missile strikes on a Syrian airbase on the orders of President Trump, Assad’s spokesperson described the United States’ behaviour as “unjust and arrogant aggression“.
• On 7 November 2017, the Syrian government announced that it had signed the Paris Climate Agreement.

Biography Free PDF

Sharing is caring!