WHEN members of the Muslim Brotherhood rose up against the Syrian government in 1982, killing hundreds of soldiers in the city of Hama, the regime’s response was swift and brutal. Under orders from President Hafez al-Assad, government warplanes pounded the city for weeks. By the time the army’s bulldozers had finished flattening entire neighbourhoods, the regime had killed as many as 25,000 people.
Almost 30 years after the Hama massacre, Hafez’s son, Bashar, faced his own revolt when peaceful protests against his rule erupted across Syria in 2011. Some believed the softly-spoken ophthalmologist would show more restraint than his authoritarian father. Some even called the young president a reformer, a ruler prepared to offer concessions to those who opposed him. But after more than five years of war this view has proved to be profoundly misguided. Mr Assad junior has systematically starved, bombed and shot his own people, laying siege to civilians in rebel-held areas while bombing their hospitals, markets and schools. His scorched-earth tactics have killed the vast majority of the war’s 400,000-plus dead and driven millions of...Continue reading
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