For 54 years Syria was under the rule of the Assads after Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970. After his death in 2000, he was succeeded by his son, Bashar, who was toppled early on Sunday as rebel forces entered Damascus at the end of their whirlwind assault and while the Syrian military laid down its arms without a fight.
Hafez Assad was born October 6, 1930 in a remote village to a family from the Muslim Alawite sect. He was educated in boarding school in Latakia and led a modest life far away from his family.
Rebels announce the fall of the Assad regime
He joined a military academy in Hama at the age of 19 and worked himself up the ranks until he became commander of the Syrian air force in 1965. A year later he was already the minister of defense, a position he held in the 1967 Six-Day War when Syria suffered a crushing defeat. Still he managed to rise to the leadership of the Ba'ath Party and stage a coup, becoming president of Syria with the support of the military.
In 1982, Hafez Assad massacred tens of thousands of his people in Hama to prevent an uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood against him and ordered mass executions and torture of prisoners. That same year, and after the civil war in neighboring Lebanon, the Syrian ruler moved troops across the border to assist the Palestinian's fight against Israel and forced a government that had to agree to a constitutional change that gave Lebanese Muslims a greater role in governing.
Human rights groups have for years reported on mass arrests of political prisoners in Assad's Syria, jailed without trial. He held on to his power by violent force that included purges and assassination of his opponents.
Assad entered peace negotiations with Israel for the first time in 1991, soon after the first Gulf war. The talks continued during the governments of Izhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and included a possible Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. They finally ended after a disagreement over a few hundred meters along the Sea of Galilee during the Barak term.
The third son of Hafaz Assad, Bashar, who was born in 1965, became Syria's leader after his brother, Basel, who was designated to succeed his father, was killed in a car crash. Bashar, who had been trained as an ophthalmologist in the UK, was called to take his brother's place.
Bashar Assad began his preparation for leadership by first joining the Syrian Medical Corps as a captain in 1994. He was quickly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and, after a short period of combat training, was assigned to head the elite Republican Guard Battalion, a position Basel held when he was killed, while his father purged middle level military officers who would pose any possible opposition to his son's rule.
Bashar was given more senior positions between 1998 and his father's death in 2000, primarily overseeing Syria's role in Lebanon and its negotiations with Israel.
When Hafez died, Bashar took power at the young age of 34, bringing with him the hope of Syrians for a more pro-Western regime under a Western educated leader who promised reforms. But those hopes quickly ended after Bashar began his own purge of possible opponents. A few months into his rule, he married Asma, who was from a Sunni family in Homs, but was raised in the UK. They couple have three children.
Bashar was implicated in the murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 by members of Hezbollah. An international investigation five years later revealed the Syrian government's involvement in the assassination. After large protests in Lebanon, Syria was forced to remove its troops from Lebanese soil dealing the regime the first in a number of blows.
The uprising that began in Syria in 2011 and was fought for over a decade ultimately led to the end of the Assad rule. By some estimations, over 600,000 Syrians died in the civil war.
During the first years, Bashar Assad lost control of most of the Syrian territory, including to the hands of ISIS, that conquered vast areas in both Syria and Iraq. In 2015, with the active military involvement of Russia, he was able to regain control of most of the land that had been lost.
Over six million Syrians were displaced from their homes. Many became refugees who sought safety in Europe, leading to a crisis that has altered the political face of many of the continent's countries. It was the largest migration of refugees since World War II.
Assad and his enemies were both accused of war crimes and the Syrian dictator was said to have used chemical weapons, numerous times against the forces fighting his regime and the civilians in the areas that they controlled.
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His dictatorship was said to be on the brink of collapse in 2015 after over 40,000 members of his military had been killed and many had deserted but Bashar Assad survived thanks to his Russian and Iranian allies who joined the fight.
Syria held an election in 2021, where Assad received 95.1% of the vote. His term in office however did not last and on Sunday he was reported to have left Syria by plane to an unknown destination. The plane disappeared from the radar and his fate remains unknown.