From doctor to brutal dictator: the rise and fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad
2024-12-08 19:00:04 - From: The Guardian
Toppled president came to power keen to show he was different to his father but proved to be as repressive
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On the face of it at least, the Bashar al-Assad of 2002 presented a starkly different figure to the brutal autocrat he would become, presiding over a fragile state founded on torture, imprisonment and industrial murder.
He had been president then for just two years, succeeding his father, Hafez, whose own name was a byword for brutality.
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