Олексій Дзюба Історії 10 December 2024, 09:02

Bashar Assad's wife is a "technofury". This is how she raised money for the dictatorial regime thanks to her knowledge of the investor, "squeezed" the mobile operator from a relative and used social networks for the PR of "measured life"

Recently, the rebels in Syria overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad. After suppressing the internal revolution of his people in 2011 (using, in particular, poison gas), almost 12 million people left the country and another 300,000 civilians died due to his years of repression and dictatorship.

Now Assad and his family have found political asylum in Russia. The dictator's family includes his 49-year-old wife Asma Asad, who bore him 3 children. They got married way back in 2000, and shortly before that, the girl received a prestigious education in London and built a career in investment banking.

How the sophisticated Asma Assad, who was called the "Rose of the desert", turned into the henchman of her dictator husband and what knowledge and technologies helped her turn Syria into a real corruption empire, read further in the article.

Western education and a fairy-tale prince

Asma Akhras was born in 1975 in a nondescript part of west London, which borders on wealthier areas. Her parents are from Syria. Fawaz Akhras is a cardiologist at a private hospital and Sahar Arhaz, a Syrian diplomat. In British life, Asma called herself "Emma" (we will return to this story later) and seemed to want nothing to do with Syria. Also, she did not know Arabic well.

The future wife of Bashar al-Assad received an excellent education: she graduated from King's College in London, where the tuition fee is 9,000 pounds per semester. There she studied computer science and French literature. After that, she started working first as an analyst at Deutsche Bank with clients in Europe and East Asia. And in 1998, she joined the investment banking department of JP Morgan, where she worked in a team specializing in cooperation with biotechnological and pharmaceutical companies. According to Asma, the banking experience gave her "analytical thinking and the ability to understand the business side of running a company."

In 2000, she enrolled at Harvard Business School and was expecting a generous annual performance bonus. And then she suddenly disappeared for several weeks. This was unexpected for a company where it was required to always be in touch. When she returned in November, Asma said she was resigning immediately without waiting for annual bonuses. After a short time, she married Bashar al-Assad.

They met in London in the 1990s. At that time, Assad was a student and at the behest of his father, the president of Syria, was studying to become an ophthalmologist. The couple married in 2000, when Assad, after the death of his father, took his place at the head of the country. In the first years of their life together, Asad's family did not even call Asma the first lady. All because Asma was a Sunni Muslim and not an Alawite like the Assad family. Asma was told that her main task was to give birth to heirs. One by one, she gave birth to three children - two sons and a daughter.

Advertisement of a man

After his father's death in 2000, Syria's parliament amended the constitution to allow anyone under the age of 40 to become president. At that time, Assad was 34 years old. He won the presidential election with 99.74% of the vote. His last name was the only one on the ballots.

Bashar began to build the image of a reformer: he closed the country's largest prison, emphasized the importance of democracy, and improved relations with the opposition. However, such "weakening" led to the decline of the president's influence, so soon the repression returned to the country, as it was during the reign of his father. In 2005, Assad withdrew Syrian troops from neighboring Lebanon under Western pressure. This infuriates local nationalists. The dictator was actively looking for a way out of the situation — and found it in Asma. An intelligent, well-educated and stylish wife from Britain should make it easier for him to communicate with democratic countries. So Asma became a public figure and began promoting her husband.

Photo — In the West, Asma was called the "Rose of the Desert"

In this she was helped by the international agency Bell Pottinger (which at one time advised Margaret Thatcher during several of her election campaigns). According to the agency, Asma had to look like a "sophisticated" woman interested in culture and charity. As an unofficial diplomat, she presented Syria at various international platforms and hosted star guests, such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who visited Syria as UN goodwill ambassadors in 2007.

The wife also helped Bashar to improve his reputation inside the country. She thoroughly studied Arabic, forgotten in Britain, founded the Syrian Development Fund, which was engaged in educational and cultural projects. In general, Asma coped well with the role of a representative of soft power both domestically and for foreign audiences. Back in December 2010, she told French diplomats in Paris about how Syria is being renewed. And in three months, her country plunged into the abyss of civil war.

Louboutins during the revolution

"A Rose in the Desert" was the title of an article about Asma in American Vogue. It came out in 2011, at the height of the "Arab Spring", when Syrian government forces began fighting the opposition and Syrians demanding democratic changes in the country. During the 10 years of Assad's rule, there was no talk of reforms. Asma was urged to influence the president to stop the war, but she supported Assad.

"Will she show her position or stand up for her husband?" asked the mass media at the time. At that time, thousands of civilians had already died at the hands of the military in Syria, and the army was besieging the city of Homs, home to Asma's family. Nothing was known about the first lady at that time. Later, Asma appeared in public - at a rally in support of the authorities. Soon after, she issued a separate statement. "Bashar Assad is the president of all of Syria, not of any part of it." And that she supports him in this role.

In 2012, it became known that Asma spent tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, "jewelry with gold and precious stones, chandeliers, expensive curtains and paintings." A vase for $2,802 in one of London's most prestigious stores, Harrods, and a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes with crystals for $4,000 were mentioned. When Bashar starts using chemical weapons against protesters, Asma seeks out a gardener at the estate. She does not condemn Bashar's actions and writes that "if we stay strong together, we can overcome all this."

With the start of hostilities, the Syria Development Fund became one of the few ways for international humanitarian aid to enter the country, in particular from the UN. Due to the fact that the president's wife was taking care of him, there were at least some hopes that the help would reach the needy and the government would not interfere with it. As a result, the 2010s were the years when most foreign aid to Syria went through the Assad family. This is where Asma's knowledge in the field of finance was needed.

Big business

Syria's economy (what is left of it) is divided between Bashar, his younger brother Maher and Asma. Syria now ranks second on the index of the most corrupt countries in the world. The Assads run Syria like a family business. And it is the corrupt classes that ensure the functioning of this business.

The main brainchild of Asma is the Syrian Development Fund, a charitable organization that she created back in 2007. Charity organizations have no other option to send financial and food aid to Syria. This system allows the regime to divert aid away from those it is intended for, such as giving food to soldiers instead of civilians.

The foundation has been repeatedly accused of misuse of funds received from the UN, and after the devastating earthquake last year, the organization was accused of only helping those loyal to the regime. The Syrian Development Fund is considered one of the key sources of income for the Assad family. Using the help of the UN, it created a large network of patronage, which included Syrian military commanders.

Asma Asad also headed the so-called economic council of the country. It determined access to resources, including food and fuel subsidies. It was impossible to develop business in Syria without cooperating with the Assad couple. Special services worked for them, constantly looking for excuses to collect large fines from businessmen.

"Squeeze" from relatives

Another business of Asma is Syriatel, one of the largest mobile operators in Syria. The Assad family took him from the richest Syrian and Bashar's cousin, Rami Makhtouf. For decades, he controlled the largest companies in the country, including the mobile operator Syriatel. At the end of the 2010s, its main assets came under the control of the Syrian Development Fund.

Asma also opened a chain of Emmatel appliances stores, named after her "British" name. It works with an adjustment for the material condition of most Syrians: it sells cheap Chinese smartphones or smart watches that have already been used. But business is going well: Emmatel stores were in those regions of Syria that Bashar al-Assad does not control.

Asma Assad was also involved in real estate, arms and oil trade, including with terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State. Another method of "running the affairs" of the spouses is by demanding money from Syrian businessmen. For example, in 2019, they were gathered in one of the Damascus hotels and ordered to deposit millions of sums into the accounts of the country's central bank in order to stabilize the lira exchange rate. To understand: the Syrian lira has depreciated considerably during Assad's rule. Before the war in 2011, the dollar was sold at the rate of 47 Syrian liras, and in 2023, this indicator was 14,000 liras.

In 2020, the US called Asma "one of the most famous military speculators" in Syria and, together with the EU, imposed sanctions on her. Michael Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, said at the time that it was profiting from the war in Syria "in the most unscrupulous way".

Heirs to the throne and social networks

Bashar and Asma have three children, but very little is known about them. The eldest, Hafez (born in 2001), graduated with honors from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University (Moscow State University) in 2023 with a master's degree in mathematics. He defended his thesis on number theory. He speaks Russian and English. He also sided with his father in the war, saying that "the people and the government are united against the invaders who are taking over the country."

Not much is known about Zain Asad (born in 2003). In 2020, opposition media reported that a young Syrian army soldier had disappeared after posting a video on social media in which he confessed his love for her. She also appeared in public several times as a volunteer from the Syrian Development Fund, which was supervised by her mother. About the youngest, Karim, we only know that he was born in 2004 and appeared several times in the photo together with his parents.

After "moving" to Moscow, it is not yet known how the Assad couple will continue to use their official social networks. Previously, Asma used them quite actively. For example, the Instagram of the "Syrian Presidency", which was launched in 2013, has 349,000 followers, and the YouTube channel has more than 45,000 followers. On Instagram and YouTube, Asma often talked about the country's humanitarian sphere, showing how she participates in public life: from the presentation of diplomas at a Syrian university to walking around the capital with her husband.

Before being expelled from the country, Asma tried to be quite a public figure. Five years ago, she got breast cancer — and she didn't keep it a secret. Then the hashtag #brave even appeared under her Instagram posts. Asma gradually recovered. In May of this year, a new message appeared: the first lady of Syria has leukemia. She recorded a video about how she will fight this disease as well. But he will already do it while living in Russia.

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