Opinion | Assad family: Perfecting the art of perversion and abduction 

Syria is a failed state today. The reason for this is rather than addressing the rampant brutality and widespread corruption that provoked Syrians all over the world to call for freedom and justice in their homeland, Assad chose instead to expand his policy of impunity for his supporters and further extend it to foreigners he invited into the country to help him remain seated in his daddy’s chair. Consequently, Syria remains a lawless state that fills its prisons and mass graves with political prisoners while allowing criminals to roam freely as long as they do nothing perceived to threaten the criminal regime.

Far from being a new development, dealing drugs has always been a reliable source of income for the ruling Assad and his gang. 

Yasser Ashkar

Corruption is something innate to the Assads, as well as their extended regime family and gang of friends and acquaintances. Historically speaking, Hafez Assad, the father of Syria’s current president, used to plant hashish in Lebanon with the cooperation of Hezbollah. The trafficking of drugs reached its peak when Hafez Assad was in power as Syrian ports became the epicenter of trade for drug dealers. Despite making a show of thwarting or exposing the drug trafficking operations of neighboring countries, Assad and his gang were, and still are, conducting profitable drug trafficking operations of their own as evidenced by the current Captagon crisis. Far from being a new development, dealing drugs has always been a reliable source of income for the ruling Assad and his gang. 

In addition to the drug trade, kidnapping and extortion have also been part and parcel of this regime. Even before the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Syrian civilians witnessed many kidnappings by Assad thugs with the cooperation of Assad security officers as a means of obtaining money by blackmailing the families of their victims. 

To make matters worse, the current Assad has expanded his policy of impunity to include those foreign militias, Iranians, and Russians he invited into the country to help him remain in power…

Yasser Ashkar

Unlike most developed countries where the trafficking of illegal drugs, kidnapping, and extortion are crimes that are punishable according to the law of the land, the Assads have created an environment in Syria that not only ignores but even encourages, the practicing of the most heinous types of violence and crimes by its favored parties amid the absence of law and criminal accountability. To make matters worse, the current Assad has expanded his policy of impunity to include those foreign militias, Iranians, and Russians he invited into the country to help him remain in power which has added insult to injury for the Syrians who had already grown so weary of living under the despicable conditions that inspired them to rise up against his leadership more than 11 years ago.

…the current Assad’s tools have not differed much from those of his father at all, as both relied on repression, refusal of peace, and brutal bloodshed…

Yasser Ashkar

Bashar’s rule, half of which has been spent in the war being waged against his own people, differs from his father’s rule in some ways. Bashar has held onto power by relying on allies such as Iran and Russia rather than by expressing his affiliation with the idea of ​​Arab nationalism as his father did. But like his father, Assad’s nepotism plundered the country at the expense of the majority of Syrians, even as they made claims of adopting a socialist approach to government. In addition, the current Assad’s tools have not differed much from those of his father at all, as both relied on repression, refusal of peace, and brutal bloodshed as their top strategies for keeping the population of Syria under their self-serving control.