As the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria was announced, the residents of Qardaha — the president’s birthplace — poured into the streets. Their target was a statue of Assad that stood near the Naisa Mosque, named after his grandmother, the mother of his father Hafez. That day marked the beginning of a series of dramatic and symbolic acts. After members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) stormed Qardaha, the mausoleum that was the final resting place of both Bassel al-Assad, Bashar’s elder brother, and Hafez al-Assad was damaged and its contents set ablaze.
The destruction of the Assad family shrines was a shocking moment in Syria’s history, not merely for its political implications but for the raw rage it revealed. The burning of these sites — along with their furniture and green casket coverings — was accompanied by actions that went beyond the country’s norms and the sanctity accorded to death. Civilians, militants and journalists alike cursed, set fire to and, in some cases, urinated on Hafez’s tomb.
While early reports attributed the acts solely to “rebels,” later videos told a more complex story. Alongside HTS fighters, many Qardaha residents themselves participated in dismantling symbols of the Assad regime, from destroying statues to setting fire to the shrines.
The locals’ reaction to the destruction of Assad family symbols sparked astonishment and fierce criticism on social media. Accusations of hypocrisy and “chameleonism” were leveled at Qardaha’s residents, whose town has long been a stronghold of regime loyalty. With a population of 50,000, Qardaha has been a key reservoir of manpower for the regime, supplying soldiers, officers and security leaders for over 50 years. Over time, it evolved into a symbol of the regime’s power, so much so that even the distinctive use of the Arabic letter “qaf” in the local dialect became synonymous with the Alawite sect and the inner circle of Syria’s ruling elite.
Given this history, many expected unwavering loyalty from Qardaha’s residents — especially toward a regime that had counted on their public and steadfast support for decades. The apparent hospitality extended by some locals to members of HTS — an organization born from the al Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front and designated internationally as a terrorist group — was all the more jarring. Both HTS and the Islamic State group have previously perpetrated massacres against Alawite soldiers and civilians during the war, making the locals’ cooperation with HTS shocking to many observers.
In his book “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind,” Gustave Le Bon suggests that masses can rapidly shift emotions under the sway of a prevailing instigator. In Qardaha, however, these transformations have deeper and more personal roots. Far from being mere reactions to the regime’s corruption, they represent a response to decades of domination by an authority that viewed itself as entitled to everything — land, resources and even dreams. This mindset was famously articulated by Fawaz al-Assad, son of Hafez’s brother Jamil, who in 1995 declared that “Syria belongs to the Assad family and every inch of it is ours” as he seized a public park in Latakia’s al-Ziraa neighborhood for his personal use.
Latakia is littered with landmarks named after Baathist symbols, reflecting the regime’s unrelenting desire to dominate the public sphere. From the “Baath Youth Roundabout” to the “Revolution School” and countless facilities bearing the Assad name — such as the Assad Academy for Military Sciences — the city is a testament to the regime’s control. One such location is the “Revolution Roundabout,” situated on the eastern edge of Latakia, on a hill that forms part of the highway connecting the city to the tourist areas of Kessab and Turkey. Built during the Mediterranean Games in 1995, this square became known for its breathtaking views of the coastal plain, where the mountains meet the sea.
Thanks to its location, the roundabout became a key hub for international goods transport, because the only international road out of Latakia passes through it. Land prices in the area soared, turning plots around it into highly sought-after real estate. One such plot belonged to a poor farming family whose fortunes seemed to improve overnight when the highway was built. The land, no more than one-quarter of an acre in size, was valued at $100,000 in the real estate market of the 1990s.
Saad, a lawyer and son of the landowner, recounted the family’s story to me: “After the highway was completed, we received many offers to sell the land. My brothers and I considered starting a real estate project but lacked the capital to fund it. We decided to partner with construction contractors and were preparing to move forward when trouble arrived.”
Before the project could begin, Saad explained, three men showed up in a station wagon. “They asked to see my father. When they found him on the street, they said, ‘The boss wants to meet you.’ My father, a farmer raised on traditional values, replied, ‘If the boss wants to see me, he should come here.’ The men didn’t like his response but left. They returned later, this time armed, and forced him at gunpoint to come with them. My father had no choice. When he approached the car, one of the men stopped him, saying, ‘Your place isn’t here, uncle.’ They shoved him into the trunk and drove off.”
The men took Saad’s father to an undisclosed location. Six hours later, he returned home, distraught and clutching a piece of paper — a contract for the “mutual sale” of the land.
Saad described what happened during those hours: “They took him to Jamil al-Assad’s office and threw him to the ground. Jamil walked over, lifted my father’s face and sneered, ‘You wanted me to come to you? Since when do masters visit slaves? Have you forgotten that we are the ones who let people breathe in this country?’ My father tried to protest, saying he hadn’t agreed to sell the land or signed anything. Jamil laughed and ordered his men, ‘Take him to the basement and teach him how to deal with his masters.’”
What followed was a brutal ordeal.
“They dragged him to a dark, narrow basement. My father heard screams echoing through the walls and realized he wasn’t alone. Without asking any questions, the men began beating him mercilessly. He tried to explain that he didn’t want to sell the land, but they didn’t listen. This was not a negotiation — it was a lesson.”
Saad continued: “When he finally emerged from the basement, hours after enduring relentless psychological and physical torture, he was barely able to stand. Exhausted from the ordeal, he faced ‘Hajj Jamil,’ who forced him to sign a contract to sell the land for 1 million Syrian pounds — worth just $20,000 at the time. After signing, Jamil threw a bundle of cash — 100,000 Syrian pounds (about $2,000) — at my father’s face and shouted, ‘Get out!’ Moments later, the ‘mules’ reappeared, dragging my father out of Jamil’s office and tossing him onto the street like trash. This from a man who had performed the pilgrimage to the Holy House of Allah seven times. As my father finally returned home, he was utterly broken. He couldn’t process what had happened to him. The stress and humiliation took a severe toll on his health. Just a week later, he suffered a heart attack that nearly killed him, though he miraculously survived. In the following days, his condition worsened — his bodily functions began to fail. Kidney damage from the severe chest beating caused him to lose control of his bladder. For six months, he lived in misery, battling the effects of his injuries. Then he passed on, to a more just place.”
This story is not unique. It is but one chapter in a long history of land seizures that have plagued all of Syria’s governorates, not just Latakia. In the Alawite countryside of Haffeh, similar atrocities were committed by other members of the Assad family, who confiscated forests and agricultural land from poor families powerless to resist their “masters.”
Now, Saad and his brothers are determined to reclaim their land. With the Assad regime’s grip weakening, they have begun working with new de facto authorities in the region, hoping these forces will bring justice. Encouragingly, some property owners in Latakia have already seen their confiscated assets returned. For example, Al-Karmel High School was recently handed back to the Christian Presbyterian Monastery, and the Al-Dar restaurant was returned to its original Christian owners.
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has opened the door for ordinary people to revisit long-buried records of land theft — land that was often their only source of livelihood. These stories span the entire country but in Qardaha they hold particular significance because the regime’s stronghold — the Syrian coast, and especially Qardaha — played a vital role in sustaining Assad’s rule. The region provided a steady supply of volunteers for the army, military colleges and security branches. Qardaha itself became the symbolic capital of the coast during the Assad era.
The regime had employed a range of methods to seize land, from outright force and fraud to intimidation via phone calls from high-ranking security officials. Once the land was taken, ownership was “legitimized” through real estate and legal authorities, presenting the theft as a sale made by mutual consent. In many cases, the so-called compensation for the seized land was negligible — or nonexistent.
This pattern of land appropriation was not confined to Qardaha; it reflected the regime’s modus operandi across Syria. Hundreds of acres were forcibly transferred from their rightful owners to new “owners” who represented the visible face of the authorities. Often, the new titleholder was someone linked to the Assad family’s inner circle: The merchant of Mrs. Asma (Bashar’s wife), the trader of Mr. Maher (Bashar’s brother) or a representative of Bashar himself. Occasionally, properties were transferred to proxies for other members of the Assad clan.
Many Syrians are aware that the Assad family originally bore the name “al-Wahsh,” a word meaning “the savage,” “the untamable beast” or “the monster.” This name was changed for the first time by the esteemed Alawite cleric Sheikh Ahmad Deeb al-Khayyir, who served as the chief justice of the Alawite sect for decades, and who bestowed the title “al-Assad” (“the lion”) upon Hafez al-Assad’s grandfather, Sulayman al-Wahsh, following tribal tensions in the mid-1920s. By the 1930s, official documents from the Alawite sect bore the signature of Hafez’s father under the name “Ali Sulayman al-Assad.”
Sheikh Ahmad Deeb al-Khayyir hailed from the prominent al-Khayyir family, one of the most influential families in the Qardaha region. The family played a vital role in the history of the Alawite sect, contributing a legacy of prominent figures including clerics, doctors, engineers and innovators. Their economic and social influence was further solidified by their status as a feudal family owning vast tracts of land in the region. It is noteworthy that the family name “Khayyir,” which means a generous and giving man, is the antithesis of “Wahsh” — the monster.
Unlike the influential al-Khayyirs, the Assads did not originate from a wealthy or prestigious social class. They were neither landowners nor religious leaders; instead, they worked for prominent landowners in the region, particularly the al-Khayyirs. This subordinate status left a deep imprint on the Assads, shaping their approach to power when Hafez rose to the presidency in 1970. Once in power, the Assads sought revenge, confiscating land from the al-Khayyirs and sidelining them from public life. Only a few members of the family, typically those with significant academic credentials, escaped this systematic marginalization.
One of the Assads’ primary efforts after consolidating power was the seizure of land owned by Qardaha’s residents, particularly plots belonging to the al-Khayyirs. Much of this confiscated land was later repurposed for official state buildings, such as the civil registry office, the local Baath Party branch and the municipality headquarters. Among these appropriated plots was the site of Hafez al-Assad’s statue, a location with a peculiar history.
This plot of land had long been a communal area where the residents of Qardaha gathered their livestock — cows, donkeys and mules — for agricultural work. It also served as a dumping ground for garbage and animal waste, as well as human refuse, remaining in this state for many years. During Assad’s rule, the Military Housing Establishment bulldozed the area and erected a statue of Hafez atop the reclaimed site. Assad himself was to inaugurate the monument.
Yet the choice of location deeply unsettled him. At the unveiling ceremony, overcome by anger, Assad summoned the governor of Qardaha — the official responsible for the project — and slapped him in front of the assembled crowd. “You couldn’t find another place to erect the statue?” he scolded.
The statue remained in its place, quietly mocked by the people of Qardaha, who ridiculed it in hushed tones for years. Then, on Dec. 8, 2024, everything changed. In an act charged with both anger and humor, residents gathered around the monument and brought it down, laughing as they did so. History, it seems, is often written in the dual language of outrage and irony.
What was once intended as a symbol of strength and authority became, instead, a target of derision. The toppled statue came to embody the contradictions of power and the bitterness of the people’s reality. Crowds exchanged jokes about Assad, the lion — a supposed emblem of might — choosing to stand in a place so steeped in failure and neglect.
This story, like many others from Qardaha, remains largely unknown.
In 1984, after narrowly escaping an attempted coup by his brother Rifaat while undergoing treatment in a Damascus hospital, Hafez al-Assad began contemplating an appropriate burial site for himself. He decided on the land where Sheikh Ali al-Khayyir’s house stood, a location steeped in symbolism because of Sheikh Ali’s revered status among the local population as an ascetic miracle worker.
Acquiring this land became a priority for Assad’s aides, who viewed the act as more than just securing a burial site — it was a calculated gesture of defiance. The choice carried echoes of a long-simmering, unspoken rivalry between the socially ascendant Assad family and the historically prominent al-Khayyirs. Now, with power firmly in Hafez’s hands, the acquisition of Sheikh Ali’s property became a symbolic act of triumph over a legacy of feudal dominance.
The land, spanning 3 acres, was forcibly sold to the Assad regime at an insultingly low price — less than $200 per acre. At the time, the value of one-quarter of an acre in that area was enough to purchase an apartment in one of Latakia’s upscale neighborhoods. Despite their resistance, the al-Khayyirs were powerless against the machinery of the regime. They refused to accept payment, hoping to retain some claim to the land in the future, but their hopes were in vain. The sale was finalized through forced expropriation orchestrated by Jamil al-Assad and Jaber Shalish.
Shalish, the long-serving governor of Qardaha, was a key figure in facilitating the confiscation. He was the brother of Dhu al-Himma Shalish, commander of Assad’s presidential convoy, and his residence was strategically located near Assad’s in Qardaha. The al-Khayyirs had no opportunity to challenge the presidential decree or negotiate the terms of the sale.
The shrine on Sheikh Ali al-Khayyir’s land was built without graves initially, its construction entrusted to the Military Housing Establishment. Millions of Syrian pounds were poured into the project at a time when Qardaha itself was struggling. Thousands of families in the town could not afford basic necessities and hundreds of homes were in disrepair. Yet the construction of the shrine dragged on for nearly two decades, involving hundreds of workers.
Fate intervened when the shrine’s first grave became that of Bassel al-Assad, Hafez’s eldest son. Known as the “Golden Knight,” Bassel died in a car accident in January 1994 in Damascus while reportedly on his way to a private trip to Germany. His sudden death not only devastated his father but also paved the way for his younger brother Bashar to ascend to power.
Bassel’s grave quickly became a mandatory pilgrimage site for official delegations visiting Latakia and Syria. Authorities renamed numerous streets, schools and landmarks in his honor, including the sports city in Latakia. The effort to immortalize Bassel further cemented the Assad family’s symbolic dominance over Syria’s cultural and public spaces.
In June 2000, Hafez passed away shortly after returning from an Arab summit in Jordan. His death triggered a rapid chain of political maneuvers in Damascus to ensure Bashar’s succession. In an extraordinary session of the People’s Assembly, Article 83 of the Syrian Constitution was amended to lower the minimum age for presidential candidates from 40 to 34 — Bashar’s age at the time. Unsurprisingly, the proposal, submitted by the regional leadership of the ruling Baath Party, was unanimously approved.
After Bashar’s succession was secured — a transition that met with no objections from international or regional powers — Hafez’s body was transported to Qardaha for burial. He was laid to rest beside his son Bassel in the mausoleum built on land seized from the al-Khayyirs.
And in 2016, Anisa Makhlouf, Hafez’s widow and the matriarch of the Assad family, passed away and was buried in the Naisa Mosque in Qardaha. But even Anisa’s story carries its share of controversy. A member of the influential Makhlouf family, Anisa spent her later years in Qardaha, grieving the death of her son Bassel. According to whispered tales among the residents, she was unable to see her son’s grave from her balcony due to a dense pine forest obstructing the view. To rectify this, the municipality ordered the forest’s destruction.
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