Middle East Journal | Syria | Dec 2024
Recalling a Regime - Bashar al-Assad
It seems surreal, witnessing Bashar al-Assad’s regime fall to rebels headed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham mere weeks after my visit to the then government-controlled Syria. I remember driving along the highway up to Aleppo and seeing the front line with rebel controlled Idlib, were a ceasefire between Türkiye and Russia had held for a few years. The line stayed quiet yet tense, with tanks and shelters sporadically dotted along the makeshift border, with a wall comprised of corrugated iron sheets and the burnt remains of trucks.
During my time in Syria, I spoke to many, both young and old, about their thoughts on the future of Syria, it was usually not optimistic. Nobody I spoke to had any idea that within weeks the government would be toppled, Assad would flee to Moscow and that the opposition would take Damascus. Yet in these strange and volatile times we find ourselves in, the future of Syria is now at the most important crossroad it has been at in 50 years. As of December 2024, nobody knows what the state of Syria will even be in tomorrow, whether a new era of democracy is coming or another violent civil war.
Travelling through Syria, one could not escape the face of Bashar al-Assad. His portrait was in the window of every shop, at every military or police checkpoint, and on billboards and posters in every government-controlled city and highway. Wherever you went his eyes were watching you, it projected a sense of totalitarian control and power but paired with a sense of somewhat stability. As the events of the last week have shown however, these posters and portraits were just posters and portraits, as within 11 days his grip had disappeared as even his own military is reported to have deserted, and his face vandalised and burnt.
Below is a photo journal I put together whilst seeing the situation evolve on the news in front of me. The photographs are of the omnipresent of Assad and Syrian national symbolism in day-to-day life. And how absurd they seem now after the collapse of his regime.
As soon as you stepped foot within Syria you began to see Assad. Pictured above is a service station toilet building located just outside of Damascus. I am told many shop owners put his portrait in the window to avoid harassment by the secret police, who may accuse them of being disloyal to the regime if they didn’t.
Walking around the streets of central Damascus, portraits and propaganda could be seen on most large walls and buildings.
Even the maze of backstreets in the old part of Damascus, which could only be explored with a local due to its complex system of windy alley ways and narrow passages, was not free of state propaganda. The city of Damascus is the oldest capital city on Earth, being continuously inhabited since 2500 BC.
Much of the propaganda displayed other members of the Assad family, including his brother and his Father - former president Hafez al-Assad. Hafez came to power in 1971 after launching an internal coup against the de facto Ba’ath party leader at the time Salah Jadid and ruled Syria much like his son with an iron fist. He died in 2000 from a heart attack, leaving Bashar to continue his father’s regime.
Initially, Bashar al-Assad was not meant to be president. His brother, the eldest son of Hafez, Bassal al-Assad was meant to take over from his father as the president of Syria but was killed in 1994 in a car crash in Damascus. Bashar was working as an eye doctor in London at the time, with no ambition to be the next leader, but following the death of his brother, he was recalled to Syria to begin training as colonel in the military. Upon the death of Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian parliament lowered the mandatory age of president to 34 from 40, allowing Bashar to take power.
Much of the propaganda was old and bleached from exposure to the sun, such as this board near The Great Umayyad Mosque in central Damascus, showing Assad in military uniform.
Before being recalled to Syria and working in London, Assad’s only duty to his homeland was head of the Syrian Computer Society. He studied medicine at Damascus University and was described as being ‘soft spoken’ and ‘timid’, with very little interest in politics and the military.
Shops and businesses in Damascus displayed Assad’s portrait.
When Assad took power back in 2000, many hoped he would be a reformist, and bring Syria into the future. His presidency started off with hope when he made promises such as allowing more media freedom, release of political prisoners and tackling corruption. People could talk about things that would have gotten them arrested under Hafez such as politics and culture. He even removed many economic restrictions, and allowed foreign companies and banks into Syria, with western shops and brands even appearing in cities.
In 2005, following an order from the UN security council, Assad ended Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and withdrew troops, who had been stationed there since 1976 following Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War.
All around Syria, portraits of soldiers who had been killed in combat are used as state propaganda, especially in areas that had been liberated from the opposition or ISIS. Many of these portraits were pictured with mosques, Mecca or Hezbollah flags.
In 2011, with the Arab spring spreading across much of the Arab world, Assad resorted to the brutality many Syrians were familiar with during his father’s time in power, showing the world he was no reformist. In the city of Daraa south of Damascus, anti-Assad protesters were met with a ten-day siege of the city, killing more than two hundred civilians and injuring many more. It was these events that’s triggered uprisings against the regime across Syria, dissatisfied with the Ba’ath government and calling for democracy, the revolution turned into an insurgency with many factions and militant groups taking up arms, plunging Syria into a brutal Civil War.
A sun damaged mural showing Hafez and Bashar al-Assad in military uniforms on the road leaving Damascus to Homs.
Following the breakout of the Civil War, Assad’s regime was accused of various war crimes and atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons on anti-government forces and civilians. In August 2013, East and West Ghouta, suburbs southeast of Damascus, were hit with a series of chemical attacks using Sarin gas, and extremely toxic nerve agent. The death toll is still unknown, but estimates range from 300-1700+. Over 300 separate chemical attacks have been committed by Assad’s regime, a UN investigation concluded some of these attacks specifically targeted civilian populations. Rape, torture and executions have also been reported to have been used by government forces during the Civil War on a mass scale.
All along the main highway from Damascus to Aleppo, the road is littered either side by destruction from the conflict, military checkpoints and guard posts that can be spotted all throughout the otherwise deserted landscape. There isn’t a single building not covered in bullet or artillery holes along the road, and the (now old) Syrian flag had been painted on many of them. The checkpoints that line the road were covered in portraits of Assad and other propaganda posters. Pictured above is an outpost near the front line with Idlib, likely an old house being used by the Syrian Army.
A military checkpoint outside of Palmyra, which was occupied by ISIS twice.
The Russian military had a large presence in Palmyra, like many other parts of the country. Russia was an ally of Bashar al-Assad since the start of the conflict in 2011, supplying Syria with military and political aid. It was in 2015 however that Russia became militarily involved in the conflict, beginning with an airstrike campaign against anti-government factions. Russia has been criticised for civilian deaths in relation to the airstrikes. Iran has been the other key ally Assad has turned to for military help, with Iran committing thousands of troops as well logistic and financial aid to support his regime. Iran’s Islamic revolutionary Guard was key in training many of Syria’s soldiers. The Lebanese Shia paramilitary group Hezbollah, backed by the Iranian government, helped the Syrian army on the battlefield and were key in recapturing occupied areas of the country, including territory of the Islamic State.
An active Iranian military outpost near the frontline with Idlib. I took this photo from a bus travelling to Aleppo between checkpoints.
Above is Hama town hall, with a he poster of Assad towering above those on the pavement below. Hama is a city about 40km north of Homs, and a place where the Assad family is bitterly remembered for the massacre that happened in the 80s. There had been an uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamic organisation founded in Egypt in 1928, within the city against the Ba’athist government. Seeing this as a threat, Hafez al-Assad cut off Hama from the rest of Syria, imposing a blackout on communications, and stopped electricity and food supplies. In February of 1982, Hafez ordered the city to be sieged, and what followed was 27 days of shelling, indiscriminate bombings and violence, killing mostly civilians. The Syrian Human Rights Committee put the number of those killed as high as 40,000, two thirds of the city was destroyed by the siege and many tens of thousands were left injured and without shelter. The massacre remains the single most deadly act inflicted on a population by its own state in the modern Middle East, and is often described as genocidal, as most the casualties were Hama’s Sunni population. Many to this day have memories of the massacre.
Although many have hostile sentiment in Hama, fear of Assad’s totalitarian regime ran just as high as any other place that was under his control. Pictured above is a café near the ancient Hama waterwheel, the signs for the café picture Bashar al-Assad, likely to avoid harassment by the secret police.
Aleppo is the second largest city in Syria, located around 50km away from Idlib and close to the front line where Russia and Türkiye signed an agreement back in 2020 which kept the frontline where it was until December 2024. The city itself is one of the world’s oldest cities and had a prewar population of almost 5 million people, it is often referred to as the commercial capital of Syria and is home to the Aleppo citadel. It was the first major city captured by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and opposition rebels in December 2024, from here they spearheaded their campaign to Damascus toppling the regime. Aleppo was occupied by opposition forces during the Civil War between 2012 to 2016 but came back under the Syrian Government’s control at a turning point in the war, the presence of Assad’s face and state propaganda was heavy in the city.
Around the citadel, most buildings lay in rubble, but authorities were quick to start putting up flags and propaganda on the ruins.
Inside the main hall of the Aleppo Citadel, propaganda hang on the ancient walls. The text roughly reads ‘As for the steadfast Aleppo and it’s heroic people, we will not rest until it returns safe and secure - Bashar al-Assad’.
Most garages and business shutters were painted with the Syrian flag after the city was recaptured. Most buildings suffered heavy damage.
Standing like a monolith in the middle of the city, near Bab al-Faraj within the ancient walls, the Sheraton hotel displays the face of Assad waving over Aleppo. The Sheraton hotel was opened in 2007 and operated until January 2012 when Sheraton pulled out of Syria to comply with new US sanctions against the country. The hotel was briefly used as a military barracks, falling just within the area of the city the Syrian Government controlled during the fighting. Aleppo was recaptured in 2016, and the ‘Sheraton’ reopened as a hotel in 2018, still using all Sheraton logos and branding despite having no connection or permission from the company. Inside the lobby the painting of Assad watches everybody checking in at the reception desk.
Since 2011, around 14 million people have been displaced by the conflict, both internally and externally, with almost 5 million sheltering in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Türkiye and many making the often-fatal journey to Europe. A proportion of the refugees are Syrians that fled to escape the brutality of Bashar al-Assads totalitarian regime, fearing prison, torture and death at the hands of the authorities.
Assad certainly tried to create the illusion of his control over Syria, but with his two largest allies engaged with their own conflicts, unable to back his weak and unmotivated military, it cannot come as a surprise the speed the rebels were able to topple his government. As of December 2024, millions of Syrians across the world are parading in celebration of the end of the regime, waving the opposition flag with the hope of returning to their homeland soon. Many European nations, including the UK, have already put a freeze on Syrian asylum applications.
It remains to be seen however which path Syria will take, and whether the country millions of refugees will be returning to can offer the safety and stability they will have longed for. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has been convincing with his ideas for a post-Assad Syria, but his previous links to Al-Qaeda along with protesters and critics calling his opposition government in Idlib ‘authoritarian’, could Syria be swapping one dictator for another?