Where is assads wife and children

Published On 25 Jan He is learning Chinese. The posts have drawn criticism from their opponents and praise from their supporters. More from News. Mexico raises interest rates for the fourth consecutive time. At US-Mexico border, asylum seekers maintain hope amid hardships. In June last year Russia dismissed as "rumours" speculation on the internet she had taken refuge in the country amid the escalating violence in Syria.

Bushra's husband General Assef Shawkat, an army deputy chief of staff, was killed along with three other high-ranking Syrian officials in a July 18, bombing at the National Security headquarters in Damascus. Last September, Syrian residents in the Gulf emirate said that Bushra had enrolled her five children at a private school in Dubai where she had moved.

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. Posted 17 Mar 17 Mar Sun 17 Mar at pm. Britain, France push to end Syria arms embargo. US 'training Syrian rebels in Jordan'. Fears Syrian refugee numbers could triple in More on:.

Thai sex workers call for billion-dollar industry to be recognised. Her stilettos and earrings grew a few inches; her nails were manicured and painted.

Though neither she nor Bashar wore a wedding ring, regal agates hung at her neck. Syrian diplomats dubbed her Imelda Marcos, after the Filipina first lady with an addiction to shoes. The charm offensive worked.

He looks modern and sophisticated. After the decades of central planning and import restrictions, she wanted to rejuvenate Syria. Asma blinded her husband with financial jargon and pushed for the banking sector to open up to private and foreign-run companies. Her plans for the Syrian economy would have to wait. Asma soon found a new way to extend her influence. She had toyed with charity work early in her marriage, and now sought to unify her projects within a single organisation, the Syria Trust for Development.

With its rugged landscape and archaeological riches, Asma reckoned Syria ought to be a desirable tourism destination. She recruited curators from the Louvre and British Museum to redesign central Damascus. The banks of a dirty river running through the city were to be regenerated as a cultural park. A new railway line was planned to connect Damascus to the ancient Assyrian cities in the underdeveloped north-east. Her colleagues saw a different side. She would shout and vent.

She was also effective. Officials knew to consult Asma, not the culture minister, on major questions. Asma hired public relations firms in Britain and America to buff her image. They flew in parliamentarians from around the world to admire her good deeds. The grand mufti invited Syrian Jews who had fled persecution decades earlier. Such boundaries were hard to police. Educators toured Syria with a large inflatable igloo designed as a storytelling space, built with the help of a former executive of the Science Museum in London.

One former associate maintains that Asma was genuinely committed to liberalising Syria. Others are unconvinced. Soon after Asma married Bashar, Akhras established the British-Syrian Society, an organisation in London that drummed up political and financial support for Syria. Patients say he asked for cash payment in advance. His defenders point out that for decades he has lived in the same, modest semi-detached house near a busy motorway in west London: weeds wriggle through the paving stones in the front garden; the paint on the porch is peeling.

But a long history of violent politics has taught Syrians to hide their wealth. American officials began to visit Damascus again, particularly after Barack Obama was elected in An invitation to Washington was rumoured to be pending. The French were even more sympathetic. Paparazzi stalked the Assads when they visited Paris. A few days later, a Tunisian vegetable seller set himself on fire, sparking uprisings across north Africa and the Middle East that came to be known as the Arab Spring.

Soft power and sharp heels were not going to be enough for the Assads to survive it. In the first two months of , the mood in the Middle East was electric.

After decades of stasis and repression, demonstrations erupted from Tunisia to Libya, Algeria to Bahrain, Jordan to Yemen. Mass protests in Cairo toppled Hosni Mubarak, dictator of Egypt for nearly 30 years. The tide of revolution seemed unstoppable.

Many Syrians were intoxicated by what they saw, but fear inhibited most from coming onto the streets. His men rounded up the children and tortured them. When their fathers pleaded for their release, the security chief offered to give them more children if they sent their wives over.

Troops opened fire. One of his generals counselled him to imprison the local security chief and apologise for the bloodshed in Deraa. Asma, too, seems to have been expecting a crowd-pleaser. Bashar and Asma talk with artists in in one of the tunnels that were dug by rebels near Damascus. The image was released on the official Facebook page of the Syrian presidency. He dismissed calls for reform, saying they were cover for an unspecified foreign plot.

When I met Bashar he would talk about reform. It was devastating to discover it was just a sham. After the speech, demonstrations grew in number and size each week, usually massing after Friday prayers.

So began an escalating cycle of funerals, protests and violence. Now they were back with a vengeance. What would your father have done, she taunted Bashar. When an uprising broke out against his rule in he had brutally suppressed it. Thousands of deaths in Hama bought us three decades of stability. A gala marking the relaunch of the national museum was cancelled. Her cultural regeneration projects never materialised.

After seven years of planning, the Museum of Discovery, modelled on the Science Museum in London, remained a concrete shell. Funding dried up and consultants left the country, expunging the Syria Trust from their CVs. The most prominent Western visitors were pariahs like Nick Griffin, then head of the far-right British National Party.

Wafic Said says he pleaded with Bashar to pursue a moderate course. Just give them some rights, a bit of dignity and you could be loved for ever. A dark chapter was about to begin.

Soldiers defected to the rebels and about civilians had already died across the country. Asma had barely appeared in public since the protests started, provoking speculation. Perhaps she had even fled abroad. People who spoke with her in private in the early days of the crisis say she stuck rigidly to the official line: the uprising was a foreign conspiracy.

One former friend left a coffee morning with her wiping away tears. Who could watch the fate of Muammar Gaddafi, whose mutilated body was dragged through the streets of Libya in October , without flinching? In theory, Asma could have gone to London. There were offers of safe passage, apparently accompanied by handsome rewards from Gulf states. Even in London, the atmosphere was uninviting. Protesters gathered outside her family home in Acton and smeared red paint on the door. There were rumours that Asma had gone.

An official who worked in the Syrian embassy in London at the time remembers security officials preparing to receive or dispatch a VIP at the end of though this may not have been Asma. Others say she was stopped on her way to Damascus airport by henchmen who took her children — and she baulked against travelling without them.

Asma was diagnosed with breast cancer in For months, Asma stopped giving interviews. Former friends describe her as looking emaciated on a rare public outing to a pro-government rally in January Without a public role, Asma focused instead on home refurbishments. To circumvent sanctions she sent her hairdresser shopping in Dubai and used an alias when ordering from Harrods.

The messages also suggest that Asma may have been wavering. In December she exchanged emails with the daughter of the then emir of Qatar, a friend of hers until the Qataris aligned themselves with Syrian rebels.