Barbarism Mourns Rifaat al-Assad

Rifaat al-Assad, who passed away a few days ago, on January 20, 2026, embodied one of the most revealing faces of Syria’s great transformation toward what may rightly be called a “State of Barbarism”: a state whose claimed legitimacy rested on repression, enforced communal ʿasabiyya, and the relentless pursuit of an “alliance of minorities.”

This transformation effectively began with the Syrian-Egyptian union of 1958, a fleeting experiment that survived barely three years and a few months.

At heart, Rifaat al-Assad was no more than one cog among others within that Syrian State of Barbarism which he defended without reservation, long before the Hama massacre of February 1982 and through the invasion of the countryside into the cities. This enterprise sought to impose archaic values upon urban populations, in retaliation against everything Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Latakia embodied as civilizational values.

That invasion unfolded within Syria itself. But the Syrian State of Barbarism soon overflowed its borders and extended into Lebanon. For years, Rifaat al-Assad maintained a tangible military presence there, through the deployment of forces from the Saraya al-Difaʿ at the al-Nahda Club stadium in Ras Beirut, near the Military Bath. He and his gang were responsible for disgraceful practices, including the kidnapping of the Jordanian chargé d’affaires Hisham al-Muhaysin, who was later released under pressure. Rifaat also sought to mobilize the Alawites of Tripoli, attempting to enlist them in the service of his project based on an alliance of minorities against the Sunni majority, wherever it existed.

The drift toward the Syrian State of Barbarism had already been deeply consolidated with the coup of March 8, 1963, carried out by Baathist and Nasserist officers determined to annihilate any possibility of Syrian renewal. That putsch swept away the last hopes of Syria returning to a normal state after the end, both grotesque and tragic, of the union dissolved on September 28, 1961. The union had produced nothing but economic disaster, opening the way to nationalizations and laying the foundations of the security state, under the direction of the officer Abdelhamid Sarraj.

Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of Hafez al-Assad, fully embodied this Alawite figure driven by a thirst for power and money, incapable of expressing himself in any language other than violence and blackmail. He thus became an organic component of the State of Barbarism established by Hafez al-Assad, who methodically laid its foundations. Until 1984, Rifaat remained one of the instruments of the “elder brother,” founder of the Alawite state that collapsed on December 8, 2024, the day Bashar al-Assad fled headlong to Moscow.

Rifaat al-Assad did not confine himself to crimes against ordinary people. He even went so far as to impose himself by force as a “doctor,” adopting the airs of an intellectual while being incapable of articulating a single sentence correctly.

He played every role the system expected of him, notably by founding the Saraya al-Difaʿ, Alawite military units whose sole mission was to protect the regime and serve as its shield. These forces were later dissolved and replaced by the Republican Guard, itself commanded by Alawite officers.

Rifaat briefly held the post of vice-president of the Republic, before being sidelined when he attempted to seize power during his brother’s serious health crisis in 1984. He believed that all conditions were then ripe for him to appropriate absolute power. But Hafez al-Assad, saved by his doctors, mobilized other senior Alawite officers to block any succession bid. The defense minister at the time, the Sunni Mustafa Tlass, assumed the role of public invective, lifting the final veil of protection from Rifaat. Tlass always knew how to satisfy Hafez al-Assad and mastered perfectly the role assigned to him, while his “master” prepared his eldest son, Bassel, for succession. That was what was supposed to happen in 2000. But Bassel had died in 1994, and the heir to the throne became Bashar.

During the long years he spent outside Syria, Rifaat al-Assad benefited from considerable financial largesse from several Arab sources. He acquired lavish properties and hotels in France, Britain, Spain, and elsewhere. He also attempted to reinvent himself through media ventures. His behavior, shaped by a shabbiha culture, changed little. What did change was his discourse: he began presenting himself as a defender of the Gulf states, claiming to be far removed from any attempt at blackmail through rapprochement with Iran, a practice his brother Hafez and later Bashar had turned into an instrument of power.

Hafez al-Assad possessed a formidable political mind, driven by a desire to conceal his sectarianism and his hatred of urban Sunnis, as well as of all those who still believed in freedom in Syria. He seized power in the autumn of 1970 and acceded to the presidency in 1971, becoming the first Alawite to hold that office. All-powerful… until fate struck him brutally in 1994, when his eldest son, Bassel, was killed in a car accident while on his way to Damascus airport. Hafez received that day the most violent blow of his life.

Rifaat, for his part, remained convinced to the very end that circumstances would eventually allow him to return to Damascus and play a political role, long before Bassel’s death. He did return in 1993, on the occasion of the death of the mater familias, Naissa. But the Syrian president continued to treat him with extreme caution, especially after deciding to groom Bashar as his successor. Hafez al-Assad, who described Rifaat as “stupid,” according to the testimony of a U.S. ambassador who served in Damascus, allowed his younger brother to occupy minor roles while keeping him under close surveillance. Rifaat soon left Syria when he realized that all political activity was definitively closed to him.

Alea jacta est. The most Bashar al-Assad ever did for his uncle was to allow him to flee from Paris to Damascus in order to escape a French prison sentence. Rifaat al-Assad thus avoided incarceration. He remained, until his last day, a fugitive from justice — a justice that, sooner or later, will catch up with Bashar al-Assad and, with him, many others as well.