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His father, born into a poor family, rose through the Ba'ath Party ranks to take control of the Syrian branch of the Party in the 1970 Corrective Revolution, culminating in his rise to the Syrian presidency.
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Syrian President Hafez Assad dies of a heart attack after 29 years in office. July 10, 2000 - Bashar al-Assad is elected unopposed as president of Syria. January 2006 - Al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hold a summit meeting in Damascus
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During the visit of Pope John Paul II to Syria in 2001, Assad requested an apology to Muslims for the medieval Crusades and criticised Israeli treatment of Palestinians
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Bashar was once again elected into office for another seven-year term.
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Several sources have claimed that ISIS prisoners were strategically released from Syrian prisons at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.
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In February 2011, Bashar backed an initiative to restore 10 synagogues in Syria, which had a Jewish community numbering 30,000 in 1947 but has only 200 Jews today.[87]
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On 24 May 2011, Canada imposed sanctions on Syrian leaders, including Assad
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a $50 million mall opened in Tartous provoked criticism from regime supports, and was seen as part of the Assad regime's policy of attempting to project a sense of normalcy throughout the civil war.
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In November 2014, the Quilliam Foundation reported that a propaganda campaign launched "with the full backing of Assad" spread false reports of European jihadist deaths in order to draw attention away from Assad regime war crimes.
