BEIRUT // He is rarely photographed or even quoted in Syria’s media. Wrapped in that blanket of secrecy, Bashar Al Assad’s younger brother has been vital to the family’s survival in power.
Maher Al Assad commands the elite troops that protect the Syrian capital from rebels on its outskirts and is widely believed to have helped orchestrate the regime’s fierce campaign to put down the uprising, now well into its third year. He has also gained a reputation for brutality among opposition activists.
His role underlines the family core of the Assad regime, although he is a stark contrast to his brothers. His eldest brother, Basil, was the family prince, publicly groomed by their father, Hafez, to succeed him as president — until Basil died in a 1994 car crash.
That vaulted Bashar, an eye doctor in London with no military or political experience at the time, into the role of heir, rising to the presidency after his father’s death in 2000. The two brothers – the martyr and the president – often appear together in posters.
But Maher, 45, has resolutely stayed out of the limelight. Friends, military colleagues and even his enemies describe him as a strict military man to the core.
The 15,000 soldiers in the 4th Armoured Division that he leads are largely members of the Assad family’s minority Alawite sect – who see the civil war as a battle for their very survival – and represent the best paid, armed and trained units of the Syrian military. In the past year, his troops have launched repeated offensives against rebels firmly entrenched on Damascus’s outskirts, bombarding and raiding the impoverished suburbs they hold.
