Transcript of From doctor to dictator - the rise and fall of Syria’s President Assad | BBC News

Well, the Assad family controlled Syria with an iron fist for 53 years. Bashar al Assad took power in 2000 after his father Hafez had been in control since 19 seventies. Jeremy Bowen has more on the family dynasty that was once all powerful and ruthless against its enemies. Inherited the regime when his father Hafez died in

2,000, who in 30 bloody years since seizing power had jailed and killed tens of 1,000, anyone who threatened his rule. After he buried Hafez al Assad, Syrians hoped Bashar, trained as a doctor in London, would reform and modernize the country. So did Tony Blair and other Western leaders. Blair went to Damascus in 2,001. The president of Syria and missus al Assad A year later, Bashar al Assad and his wife, Asma, who grew up in London, paid a call on the queen.

Assad never delivered change. And even when 1,000 and then millions of Syrians demanded the fall of the regime after 2011, the year of the Arab uprisings, he might still have saved the country from war by embracing reform. But instead of that, Bashar al Assad went to his rubber stamp parliament in March 2011, declared foreigners were conspiring to destroy Syria, and effectively declared war on any Syrian who opposed it. In the first few years of the war, we were able to cross into the large rebel held areas of the Damascus suburbs from the regime side. The rebels were in range of central Damascus but could never break through.

The regime survived those years because some Syrians supported it in Damascus. These were Alawites from the same sect as the Assad's. Despite their loyalty, Assad also needed Iran and the fighters of Lebanese Hezbollah. Syrian Christian militias fought for the regime against Al Qaeda rebels in the ancient town of Malula in 2013, augmenting the Syrian Arab Army. For some Syrians, especially minorities, it seemed like a choice between Assad and the Jihadist killers of Islamic State and other extremist groups.

By August 2013, losing ground, Assad used chemical weapons against rebel held suburbs of Damascus. It was a turning point in the war. The Americans backed down from a threat to bomb the regime. The Russians, sensing an opportunity, intervened to save it, and Assad believed he'd made the Americans blink first. In February 2015, I had an exclusive interview with Bashar al Assad.

I asked him about bombing civilians. He was defiant, denied it, and even tried a joke.

What about barrel bombs? You don't deny that your forces use them? I know about the army. They use bullets, missiles, and bombs. I haven't heard of army using barrels or maybe cooking for Large, large barrels full of explosives and projectiles, which are dropped from helicopters and explode with devastating effect.

They're called There's been a lot of testimony about these things. They're called bombs. We have bombs, missiles, and bullets.

A year later, the Russian air force had flattened the side of Aleppo held by rebels, a display of destructive power that sharpened president Putin's appetite to absorb Ukraine. Many of the rebels who lived here and in other enclaves were permitted to leave for Idlib province. In Idlib, they created the fighting force that has finally destroyed the Assad regime. In Saudi Arabia in May last year, Bashar al Assad was embraced by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the most powerful Arab leader, and readmitted to the Arab League. Assad repeated the regime's old boast that Syria was the beating heart of Arabism.

He must have hoped that rehabilitation was sealing his victory. Instead, when the rebels pushed out of Idlib, his regime collapsed in less than a fortnight. Jeremy Bowen, BBC News.