Bashar Assad

Bashar al-Assad was born on September 11, 1965 in Damascus, in the family of Brigadier General, Commander of the Syrian Air Force and Air Defense Hafez al-Assad. In 1971, the father of Bashar al-Assad became president of Syria.

Assad graduated from the elite of the Arab-French lycee Hurriyat, he served in the Army, received medical education at Damascus University, "ophthalmologist". He worked as an ophthalmologist in the biggest military hospital "Tishrin". In 1991 he went on probation at the UK - in Ophthalmic Center Western Eye Hospital in London.

. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel died in a car crash, Assad became the official successor of his father's public posts
. Assad entered the military academy in the Syrian city of Homs, and was enrolled in the Republican Guard in the rank of captain. In 1997 he became commander of the Republican Guard, in 1999 he was awarded the rank of "colonel". Asad headed the Bureau for complaints and appeals of citizens and has launched a campaign against corruption initiated by his father in order to get rid of potential challengers to his son to the presidency. Until 1999, Assad has not engaged in foreign policy, but was in charge of the Syrian-Lebanese relations are considered an internal affair of Syria. In 1999, Assad went to his first diplomatic tour of Arab countries.

In the summer of 2000, after his father's death, Bashar Assad, was almost unanimously elected president of Syria and the secretary general of the regional leadership of the Baath party. Parliament of the country specifically for Assad has lowered the minimum age for presidential candidates from 40 to 34 years. Getting up at the head of the country, Assad began to moderate reforms aimed at easing the state of emergency in the state and to update the political elite of Syria. In the reshuffle, 2001-2004, the government of predominantly civil war has been dismissed many senior officers. In March 2005, after the Lebanese "Cedar Revolution" Assad withdrew from Lebanon, Syrian troops.

In May 2007, Assad was re-elected president of Syria. The next presidential election should take place in 2014.