The fall of Bashar Assad after 14 years of war in Syria ends decades of rule.

BEIRUT (AP) – Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country Sunday, bringing to a dramatic end his nearly 14-year struggle for power as his country unravels in a brutal civil war that has become a battleground for regional and international powers.

Assad’s exit is a stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unexpected president in 2000, when many hoped he would become a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. Only 34 years old, the Western-educated ophthalmologist appeared to be a tech-savvy computer fan with a gentle spirit.

But in the face of protests against his regime that erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to his father’s brutal tactics in an attempt to quell the differences. As the uprising bled into an outright civil war, he let his troops bomb rebel-held cities, with the support of allies Iran and Russia.

Human rights groups and prosecutors have accused the widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in detention centers run by the Syrian government. The war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s 23 million people.

The conflict has been seen to intensify in recent years, with Assad’s government regaining control of most of Syria’s territory while the north-west is still controlled by opposition groups and the north-east under Kurdish control.

Although Damascus remains under Western sanctions, neighboring countries have begun to back down to allow Assad to continue in power. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership last year, and Saudi Arabia in May announced the appointment of its first ambassador since cutting ties with Damascus 12 years ago.

However, the geopolitical situation changed rapidly when opposition groups in northwestern Syria in late November launched a surprise offensive. Government forces quickly fell while Assad’s supporters, preoccupied with other conflicts – Russia’s war in Ukraine and years of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas – appeared reluctant to intervene forcefully.

The end of decades of family rule

Assad came to power in 2000 in a twist of fate. His father was grooming Bashar’s older brother, Basil, as his successor, but in 1994, Basil died in a car accident in Damascus. Bashar was brought home from his ophthalmology practice in London, trained in the military and promoted to the rank of colonel to earn his credentials so that he could rule one day.

When Hafez Assad died in 2000, parliament quickly lowered the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34.

Hafez, a lifelong military man, ruled the country for nearly 30 years in which he established a Soviet-style centralized economy and kept such an oppressive hand over dissent that Syrians were afraid to even make political jokes to their friends.

He pursued a worldview that sought to hide sectarianism under Arab nationalism and an image of heroic resistance to Israel. He formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, ended Syrian rule over Lebanon and established a network of militant groups in Palestine and Lebanon.

Bashar at first seemed not at all like his powerful father.

He was tall and thin and soft-spoken, with a quiet, gentle spirit. His only official position before the presidency was the head of the Syrian Computer Society. His wife, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married a few months after taking office, was good-looking, stylish and British-born.

This young couple, who ended up having three children, seemed to avoid being abused. They lived in an apartment on the Abu Rummaneh hilltop in Damascus, unlike the royal palace like other Arab leaders.

When he first came to power, Assad released political prisoners and allowed free speech. In the “Damascus Spring,” intellectual hotbeds emerged where Syrians could discuss art, culture and politics to a degree impossible under their father.

But after 1,000 intellectuals signed a public petition calling for multi-party democracy and more freedom in 2001, and others tried to form a political party, the salons were raided by the dreaded secret police, who arrested scores of activists.

Tested by the Arab Spring, Assad is relying on old alliances to stay in power

Instead of political opening, Assad turned to economic reforms. He gradually removed economic restrictions, allowed foreign banks, opened the doors to imports and empowered the private sector. Damascus and other long-troubled cities are seeing a boom in shopping malls, new restaurants and consumer goods. Tourism swelled.

Abroad, he stuck to the line his father had set, based on the alliance with Iran and the policy of insisting on the full return of the Golan Heights annexed to Israel, although in reality Assad has never faced Israel militarily.

In 2005, he suffered a major setback when the Syrian government lost its decade-long control over neighboring Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. As many in Lebanon blamed Damascus for the killings, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from the country and a pro-American government came to power.

At the same time, the Arab world split into two camps – one of the countries allied with the US, led by Sunnis like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other is Syria and Iran led by Shiites and their relations with Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.

Across the board, Assad relied heavily on the same power base at home as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that comprises about 10% of the population. Many positions in his government went to younger generations of the same families that worked for his father. Also drawn were members of the new middle class created by his reforms, including prominent Sunni merchant families.

Assad also turned to his family. His younger brother Maher led the elite Presidential Guard and was to lead the counter-insurgency campaign. Her sister Bushra was a strong voice between her and her husband, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, until she was killed in a bomb attack in 2012. Bashar’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, was the country’s biggest businessman, leading the financial empire before the two had a disagreement that led to Makhlouf being sidelined.

Assad also increasingly entrusted his wife, Asma, with important roles before he announced in May that he was being treated for leukemia and stepped out of the limelight.

When protests broke out in 2011 in Tunisia and Egypt, eventually toppling their rulers, Assad dismissed the possibility of the same happening in his country, insisting that his regime is more in tune with its people. After the wave of the Arab Spring hit Syria, its security forces were brutally disbanded while Assad always denied that he was leading an uprising. Instead he accused “foreign-backed terrorists” of trying to undermine his regime.

His speech resonated with many in Syria’s minority groups – including Christians, Druze and Shiites – as well as some Sunnis who fear the rule of Sunni extremists more than they dislike Assad’s rule.

As the rebellion escalated into a civil war, millions of Syrians fled to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Lebanon for Europe.

Ironically, on February 26, 2011, two days after Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak fell to protesters and a few days before the wave of Arab Spring protests hit his country, Assad sent an e-mail joke in which he mocked the stubbornness of the Egyptian leader. refusing to step down.