Maher al-Assad

Major General Maher al-Assad (, born 8 December 1967) is a Syrian former military officer who served as commander of the Syrian Army's elite 4th Armoured Division, which, together with Syria's Military Intelligence, formed the core of the Assad regime's security forces until its collapse in 2024. He is the younger brother of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and also was a member of the Central Committee of the Syrian Ba'ath Party.

At the onset of the Syrian Revolution, Maher was thought by some to be the second-most powerful man in Syria after his brother Bashar, the president. Maher is considered a regime hardliner, who reportedly favored the crackdown against the Damascus Spring movement and has been implicated in UN reports of orchestrating the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. However, it was reported in 2021 that Maher was part of the Ba'athist faction that demanded the end of Iranian presence in Syria, so as to promote regional rapprochement with neighboring Arab countries.

Maher al-Assad also supervised operations of the Shabiha squads, pro-Assad Alawite paramilitaries known for sectarian attacks against Sunni civilians. As the commander of Fourth Armoured Division, Maher was likely involved in the production, trafficking and export operations of Syria's multi-billion dollar drug empire, which mostly smuggles an illegal drug known as Captagon.

On December 8, 2024, during the Syrian opposition offensive, Maher Assad, along with his brother Bashar Assad and his sons, left Damascus, moving to Latakia, and from there evacuated to Moscow.

On 11 August 2026, Maher, along with his brother Bashar, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a Syrian court and sentenced to death in absentia.

Early life and education Maher al-Assad was born on 8 December 1967, the youngest child of Anisa Makhlouf and Hafez al-Assad. He was just two years old when his father became President of Syria. Like the other children in the Assad family, he was raised out of the public spotlight and trained in Syria. Following university, he pursued a career in the military like his older brother Bassel.

After Bassel died in a car crash in 1994, Maher was mentioned as a possible successor to Hafez, but in the end, Bashar succeeded his father even though he lacked both military experience and political ambition. It was speculated that Maher's hot-tempered reputation influenced his father's decision in favour of Bashar.

Business activities Maher al-Assad operated a number of different business projects in Lebanon with his cousin Rami Makhlouf. Shmuel Bar argues that there was a split between the two of them, because the Makhloufs were worried that they were going to be made the scapegoats of an anti-corruption propaganda campaign. Maher for a while controlled online media site Cham Press.

Money laundering On 23 May 2011, the EU placed sanctions for providing funding to the government which allowed violence against demonstrators during the Syrian civil war.

Al Madina bank records indicate that Maher's office manager, Khalid Qaddur, was transferred at no cost a Beirut apartment valued at $2.5 million, a transfer that investigators believe was intended to put it under Maher's control. The entire file on the Madina bank collapse is at the Lebanese Ministry of Justice, except for key parts that implicate Maher, which are still at the Lebanese Central Bank because people fear being killed over it.

Military career After Bassel's death in 1994, Maher assumed command of a brigade in the Republican Guard. After the death of his father in 2000, he was promoted from major to lieutenant-colonel.

In June 2000, Maher was elected to the Central Committee of the Ba'ath Party's Syrian Regional Branch and subsequently was influential in persuading his brother Bashar during the first few months of his rule to put an end to the political openness of the short lived Damascus Spring. Three years later Maher Assad met in Jordan with Israeli businessman Eitan Bentzur, a former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and offered to reopen peace negotiations with Israel without preconditions. The offer was rejected by Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel.

Maher often appeared in public with Bashar and is said to be one of his closest advisers. He competed with Assef Shawkat, who was married to his sister Bushra al-Assad and was head of military intelligence, for influence in the Assad government. Maher was opposed to Shawkat's marriage to his sister Bushra, and had Shawkat imprisoned on several occasions to keep them apart. In October 1999, he was rumoured to have shot Shawkat in the stomach during an argument.

In 2008, Maher was in charge of putting down a prison revolt in Sednaya Prison, where 400 soldiers had been kidnapped by the prisoners. Around 25 people out of 10,000 inmates were killed during the crackdown. Human rights groups had unverified video footage that purportedly shows Maher taking photographs with his mobile phone of the dismembered bodies of prisoners after the riot. Maher's sister-in-law, Majd al-Jadaan, who lives in exile in Washington DC, claims that the individual in the video footage is Maher.

Syrian civil war

Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in mid-March 2011, Maher's troops played a key role in violently suppressing protests in the southern city of Daraa, the coastal city of Banias, the central province of Homs and the northern province of Idlib. The Los Angeles Times reported that video footage existed, which activists and observers claimed showing Maher personally shooting at unarmed protesters, who were demanding the fall of the Assad government in the Barzeh suburb of Damascus. Defecting soldiers under Maher's command reported they were given orders by him to use deadly force against unarmed protesters. One defecting sniper reported that during the protests in Deraa: "We were ordered to aim for the head or heart from the beginning. We were not given specific numbers but told to kill as many as possible as long as there were protests."

Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stated that Maher's actions during the Syrian uprising approached "savagery", and he pressured Bashar al-Assad to remove Maher from command of the military and to send him into exile. Two weeks later, on 10 May 2011, the EU sanctioned Maher for being the principal overseer of violence against demonstrators during the Syrian uprising.

On 2 December 2011, Maher was also placed on an international travel ban.

Maher al-Assad's role became more significant following the assassination of the Syrian defense minister, high-ranking security officials and Assef Shawkat on 18 July 2012. After a four-day siege by the opposition forces from 18 to 22 July 2012, the 4th Armoured Division, commanded by Maher, swept through three rebel-held districts of Damascus.

In August 2012, Saudi newspaper Al-Watan claimed that Assad was willing to step down and that his brother Maher had lost his legs in the 18 July 2012 Damascus bombing, allegedly quoting the Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov. The information was immediately denied in Russian media. The daily then released an audio of the claimed conversation, but the voice reportedly did not sound like Bogdanov's. Other sources, including a Western diplomat, said they had heard Maher lost a leg.

A July 2013 report by a pro-government website stated that Maher was commanding troops in the Aleppo and Homs theatre of operations.

On September 30, 2024, the Israeli Defense Forces launched an airstrike with high-explosive missiles on Maher's villa in a Damascus suburb. It was reported that members of Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps frequently visited the villa. It was soon reported that Maher was unharmed because he was not in the villa at the time of the attack.

On November 30, a new rebel coalition, spearheaded by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), carried out a surprise attack across Syria over 11 days, sweeping through major cities to conquer Syria and overthrow the Assad regime. This significant development faced minimal resistance from the Syrian army.

On December 8, 2024, during the Syrian opposition offensive, Maher Assad, along with his brother Bashar Assad and his sons, left Damascus, moving to Latakia, and from there evacuated to Moscow.

Controversies As commander of both the elite Republican Guard and Fourth Armoured Division, Maher is reputed as the most "thuggish" and ruthless person within the Assad family. Dominic Waghorn of Sky News described him as the “psychotic, deranged brother who has personally overseen much of the regime's reign of terror”.

A 2005 UN report accused Maher of being personally involved in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Maher's infamous Fourth Armoured Division was responsible for launching brutal crackdowns on the protestors of Daraa, killing many civilians, which led to the spread of anti-government demonstrations across the country during the events of the Syrian Revolution.

Sanctions In April 2011, United States President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13572 blocking property of Maher al-Assad with respect to human rights abuses and brutal crackdown on protestors in Syria.

In March 2023, United States and United Kingdom issued further sanctions against Maher al-Assad and his associates, alongside other drug barons, for their involvement in Syria's narcotics industry and trafficking of Captagon. US Department of Treasury accused Maher al-Assad and his Fourth Division for financing "illicit revenue-generation schemes, which range from smuggling cigarettes and mobile phones to facilitating the production and trafficking of Captagon".

In April 2023, European Union imposed sanctions on individuals and firms associated with Maher and his Fourth Armoured Division for its war crimes, torture and facilitation of Syria's illicit drug trade. The Assad regime was designated as the main actor that facilitated the trafficking of Captagon to European ports. The sanctions document published by Council of the European Union stated:

Rumoured death On 20 August 2012, rumours surfaced that Maher, who had not been seen since 18 July 2012 Damascus bombing, succumbed to his injuries after RT reported that a senior Syrian military official died in a hospital in Moscow. After the report was released, Syrian state media denied it was true.

A photo of Maher Al-Assad with singer George Wassouf from June 2014 was published by a Lebanese TV presenter, confirming that he is alive.

International arrest warrant On 15 November 2023, France issued an arrest warrant for Maher al-Assad on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes. The charges are related to chemical attacks in the town of Douma and the district of Eastern Ghouta in August 2013 which killed more than 1,000 people. More warrants were issued in September 2025 by the French government for the deaths of journalists Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik.

Death sentence in absentia On 11 August 2026, a Syrian court sentenced Maher al-Assad and his brother, Bashar al-Assad, to death in absentia as part of a ruling against several former regime officials.

Personal life The Assad family is affiliated with the Alawite syncretic Muslim sect which splintered off from early Shi'ism. Maher is married to Manal al-Jadaan, a Sunni woman with whom he has two daughters and one son. His marriage to a Sunni woman, like his brother Bashar,

Maher Asad has a wife and her name is Manal Al Jadaan, she was born on 02.02.1970

According to the GlobalPost, Maher is considered by those who know him to be too hot-tempered to be an effective ruler. In addition, The GlobalPost said that Maher caused his sister-in-law, Majd al-Jadaan, to leave Syria in August 2008 due to ongoing disagreements.