Bashar Assad: An Intimate Profile Of A Mass Murderer

An Intimate Profile Of A Mass Murderer
FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 file photo, which AP obtained from Syrian official news agency SANA and which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, President Bashar Assad gestures as he speaks during an interview with Lebanon?s Al-Mayadeen TV, at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria. The 48-year-old Assad has led Syria since 2000, taking over as president after the death of his father, Hafez, who ruled the country for some 30 years. Assad, who trained in London as an ophthalmologist, and came to power through a twist of fate: his oldest brother Basil who had been groomed to succeed their father was killed in car accident in 1994, leaving Bashar as the next in line. (AP Photo/SANA, File)
FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 21, 2013 file photo, which AP obtained from Syrian official news agency SANA and which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, President Bashar Assad gestures as he speaks during an interview with Lebanon?s Al-Mayadeen TV, at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria. The 48-year-old Assad has led Syria since 2000, taking over as president after the death of his father, Hafez, who ruled the country for some 30 years. Assad, who trained in London as an ophthalmologist, and came to power through a twist of fate: his oldest brother Basil who had been groomed to succeed their father was killed in car accident in 1994, leaving Bashar as the next in line. (AP Photo/SANA, File)

In 1982, not long after his father's military pulverized a town called Hama, Bashar Al Assad got a jet ski. It was the tail end of one of the bloodiest periods in Syrian history—what one intellectual called “the hunting time.” In Damascus, a white Peugeot 504 idled on every other corner with mukhabarat, or secret police, inside. Corruption and smuggling were ubiquitous; at least 30 percent of the country’s GDP, and probably much more, came from the black market. Everyday goods like bananas and paper tissues were hard to find; jet skis were practically unknown.

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