In Syria, the Assads leave a bitter legacy after a half-century of repressive rule

President Bashar Al-Assad and his father, Hafez Al-Assad, combined to rule Syria for more than a half-century, always with an iron fist that crushed all dissent and relied heavily on the country’s feared security forces.

In the end, those security forces melted away as rebel groups swept across the Mideast nation. With opposition forces entering the capital Damascus, Assad flew out of the city early Sunday morning, though there was no word on his exact whereabouts, according to Reuters.

The Syrian Emergency Task Force, an opposition group, said on X that “the Assad regime, Russia and Iran have been officially defeated in Syria by the Syrian people.”

In power since 2000, Bashar Assad’s legacy is that of an autocrat who attempted suppress all challenges to his rule and make Syria a land of relative stability in the tumultuous region. However, the Arab Spring of 2011 ignited rebellions across the Middle East, including a devastating civil war in Syria.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed, many of them civilians, and mostly by the Syrian military. The U.S. and the United Nations blamed Assad for a chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds, and perhaps more than 1,000 people in 2013. Millions of Syrians fled abroad and millions more have been displaced inside the country. Overall, roughly half the country’s 23 million people have been driven from their homes in one of the worst humanitarian crises of this century.

With considerable help from Russia and Iran, Assad clung to power and held the major cities in a war where the fighting had largely subsided in recent years. But he never re-established control over all of Syria, and the remaining areas under his rule crumbled swiftly when as rebels launched a surprise offensive on Nov. 27.

For now, the capital Damascus will likely be led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. The group was previously linked to al-Qaida, but has disavowed those ties in 2016 and has sought to present itself as a more moderate organization willing to work with all Syrians. However, the U.S. still considers HTS a terrorist group, and it’s far from clear whether the multiple opposition factions in Syria will be able to work together or descend into a chaotic free-for-all.

Family rule in Syria

Multiple Middle East nations are run by monarchies stretching back generations. Syria was rare in having extended rule by one family that did not claim royal status.

Hafez Assad was an air force officer who seized power in a 1970 coup. Syria had already endured repeated coups, most them short-lived. But Hafez Assad ruthlessly suppressed any potential challengers and established a large military and a feared secret police that kept close tabs on everyone from potential rivals to ordinary citizens.

In a defining moment of his rule, Hafez Assad’s security forces killed an estimated 20,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982 as they crushed an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group. The brutal crackdown extinguished the rebellion and also served as a warning to anyone else who dared challenge his authority.

Hafez Assad planned for his eldest son Basil to eventually take over as Syria’s leader. But Basil was killed when he crashed his car while driving at high speed in Damascus in 1994. Hafez Assad then turned to Bashar, who was in London, training to be an ophthalmologist.

When Hafez Assad died of chronic heart trouble in 2000, Bashar Assad was the heir apparent. There was just one problem. The Syrian constitution set the minimum age for the president at 40, and Bashar Assad was just 34. The Syrian parliament swiftly changed the constitution, lowering the minimum age to 34.

Given Assad’s youth, his medical training and his time in Britain, there was speculation the younger Assad would pursue more moderate policies than his father.

Assad did introduce limited economic reforms. Syrians were given greater access to the Internet. Other cosmetic changes followed.

But many of the same senior officials remained in place under Bashar Assad, as did the strict control over all aspects of public life.

Under Bashar Assad, Syria maintained its dominance over Lebanon, its smaller, weaker neighbor. When Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafik Hariri began to push back against Syrian control, he was killed in a massive truck bomb in 2005.

The attack was ultimately traced back to the Syrian leadership. And the operation ultimately backfired — outrage over the attack led Lebanon to largely free itself from Syria’s grip.

More than a decade of civil war

Despite missteps, Assad’s rule appeared secure until the 2011 Arab Spring that set off uprisings in multiple Mideast nations.

In Syria, opposition to Assad began with peaceful street protests. The government responded with violent crackdowns and soon several factions were battling the Syrian security forces. Rebels seized a number of cities, towns and rural areas, particularly in the northwest, including Aleppo, the country’s second largest city.

With Assad’s security forces struggling to put down the uprising, his allies provided considerable assistance. Russia, which has a naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, supplied air power. Iran which sent advisers and weapons. The Lebanese group Hezbollah supplied large numbers of fighters.

Assad even received indirect help from the United States. When the Islamic State rose up to claim large parts of eastern Syria and northern Iraq, the U.S. feared the extremist group would entrench itself in the region.

U.S. forces battled for several years to dismantle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, thereby removing one of the threats to Assad’s rule, even if that was not the U.S. aim.

To this day, the U.S. still has some 900 troops in Syria. Most are in the far northeast where they help protect the Kurdish population. The Americans have not been directly involved in the recent fighting, though they do come under periodic attack from militia groups in the region.