Bashar al-Assad, 59, is the third of five children of Hafez al-Assad, a member of Syria’s minority Alawite sect who become the nation’s leader in 1971 after ruthlessly rising up the ranks of the Baath Party.
Bashar initially held no political ambitions and studied medicine at Damascus University before moving to the UK in the early 1990s to specialise in ophthalmology at the Western Eye Hospital in London. Contemporaries described him as the “geeky IT guy”.
When his older brother, Bassel, died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar was summoned back to Syria to replace him as heir apparent to the presidency.
Bashar sitting on a swing, with his father, Hafez al-Assad, and his siblings
ALEXANDRA DE BORCHGRAVE/GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY IMAGES
Assad came to power in July 2000 after the death of his father. Within months he married his British-born wife, Asma Akhras,