“This is Bashar al-Assad”… laughing and thanking the militias among the rubble

Although “laughters and smiles” did not leave all of his appearance during the 11 years of war in the country, especially in his first speech after the outbreak of the protests, he did not imagine that they would be present on the features of the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, while time was running out to survive. In front of the victims of the devastating earthquake, and the numbers of the victims, the injured and the homeless in the streets continue, hour after hour.

Al-Assad arrived in the city of Aleppo, already afflicted by his barrel bombs and bombing, on Friday, and while he toured in a limited way in the vicinity of the disaster-stricken areas, he distributed smiles here and there, according to what video recordings showed. “Take a selfie and receive ululation,” and then met the commander of the “Popular Mobilization Forces” militia, thanking them for their role in working during the war as the “right wing” of his forces in the eastern region.

He was not the first to arrive in Aleppo, a city among the four provinces affected by the earthquake. Rather, he was preceded there by the commander of the Iranian “Revolutionary Guard”, Ismail Qaani, and leaders of other Iranian militias, who also went to Latakia, to be followed by Assad, on Saturday.

According to what was published by official media and loyal journalists, al-Assad’s expressions in the affected areas focused on “patriotism” on the one hand, and on “the humanitarian situation that does not exist in the West,” as he put it, indicating in one of his statements that “the politicization of the situation in Syria is a natural matter for them.” , referring to the West.

These words were repeated by his officials from the first day of the earthquake disaster, as his foreign minister, Faisal Al-Miqdad, tended to play on the chord of “Western and American sanctions” and that they impede the arrival of humanitarian aid to the country, and the same applies to the media advisor, Buthaina Shaaban, as she tended to repeat the same story on the media. foreign media.

“happy from the first minute”

Analysts say that the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, is seeking to achieve political gains from the earthquake that destroyed large parts of Syria and Turkey, and is pressing for foreign aid to be sent through Syrian territory to gradually liberate himself from the international isolation imposed on him.

He refers to the aforementioned, the special method of dealing that he followed over the past five days, focusing on the issue of Western sanctions, in a move that largely overshadowed the information related to the conditions of the survivors, the displaced, and the afflicted in the various regions, whether those under his control or in the northwest of the country.

Meanwhile, Syrians did not find any explanation for the behavior of “distributing laughter” that appeared on the features of the head of the Syrian regime, and while some of them considered on social media that he was “really happy about the earthquake that might gain political gains from behind the disaster that left behind,” others considered him “president.” The Syrian regime has been addicted for years to celebrating the tragedies of the Syrians.

Writer and political activist Hassan al-Nifi believes that “Assad did not show any interest in the first four days of the earthquake, but his media choir was focused on exploiting the disaster, and his media talked about the need to lift the sanctions more than the earthquake victims.”

Al-Nifi says, “From day one, he tried to invest in the Syrian catastrophe in order to open windows on the regional and international environment.” His visit to Aleppo bore “more than a paradox.”

The writer explains to Al-Hurra: “The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrived before him, while a number of members of the Popular Mobilization Forces received him. This gives an indication that Iran has more guardianship over Aleppo than Bashar al-Assad.”

The writer and political activist, Hafez Qarqout, considered that “Syria has been afflicted with this model,” and in reference to the “behavior of distributing smiles,” he says that “al-Assad, in the aftermath of the revolution, entered Parliament laughing and mocking what happened in Daraa.”

He repeated this many times after 2011, and Karkout added to Al-Hurra: “This behavior is also related to the elements of his forces. It is an approach and his method in Aleppo carries a kind of gloating, not solidarity. It is a way of healing the victims.”

For her part, the Syrian writer and activist, Alia Mansour, points out that “Bashar al-Assad, in fact, appeared from the first hours of the disaster smiling and happy. From his first meeting with the government to his visit to Aleppo.”

Mansour told Al-Hurra: “We have seen countries mourning the earthquake victims and others lowering their flags. Except for Assad’s Syria, there is neither mourning nor desecration. The regime is celebrating from the first minute.”

“The Syrian regime and its head al-Assad sees the earthquake as an opportunity. Many world leaders communicated with him and offered condolences, yet he did not offer any word of consolation to the Syrian people.”

And the writer adds: “When the rubble is removed and the victims are compensated, the regime will seize the reconstruction funds. An opportunity came to it, and so it was considered, and it is trying to confuse the effects of what it bombed with the current destruction.”

This is Bashar al-Assad.

4 days after the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, and thousands of deaths and injuries were recorded, the government of the Syrian regime declared 4 Syrian governorates “affected” on Friday, in a move that lawyers and observers considered “late” and that it had “no clear legal content,” while it is related With “certain settlements to exploit the disaster to achieve political goals.”

Aref al-Shaal, a Syrian lawyer residing in Damascus, believes that the settlements may be related to “the Syrian government’s agreement to facilitate the access of relief organizations to areas not under its control in exchange for international aid, and a temporary suspension of sanctions in accordance with the international mechanism for the affected areas.”

Regarding the consequences of this announcement, the lawyer adds: “International aid will flow with great facilitation from the government, which we have seen with the central bank calculating the parallel price of currencies that is very close to the black market price for international organizations’ transfers of foreign exchange.”

According to the Syrian legal system, declaring some affected areas in some governorates as disaster areas (i.e. areas of general or natural disasters) requires the activation of either: a state of emergency or a state of general or partial mobilization, which did not happen.

The government of the Syrian regime has not yet mentioned the procedures resulting from declaring the four areas “disasters”, and the legal points related to their basis.

On the other hand, it is not known exactly what plans the United Nations organizations will follow regarding the affected areas, whether those under the control of the Syrian regime or those outside its control in the north and west of the country.

And when he arrived in Aleppo, this city had been subjected to air strikes and barrel bombs by the regime forces, during the years of the war it lived through, until it took control of it in 2017.

The bombing left completely destroyed neighborhoods, especially in the eastern region, in which many houses collapsed, due to the earthquake, while their foundations were already shaky, during the years of the bombing.

The political activist al-Nifi says: “What Bashar al-Assad did with his barrels in Aleppo exceeds what the earthquake did. He looks at the ruins of Aleppo and distributes fake laughter, without feeling belonging to the homeland or the people.”

On the other hand, the writer Hafez Qarqout adds: “When his army occupied Lebanon under the title of deterrence forces, its officers and members were gloating about the Lebanese brothers, saying: Any assistant in the army could insult any Lebanese figure. He was looking at the mentality of gloating.”

The Syrian writer does not see that the behavior imposed by Assad in Aleppo is limited to him, but rather he withdraws to the rest of the ruling authority, including his uncle Rifaat al-Assad, who “had a wide laugh while fleeing from France, less than a year ago.”

“When he met the popular crowd in Aleppo, he was cheering for their victories, and also when he met Putin and when he thanked Hezbollah. He thanks the dead Syrian people, and now he thanks the earthquake because he had a hand in killing the Syrian people.”

Karkout continues, “This is Bashar al-Assad. His approach is to heal. The Syrian people are living in an earthquake when he took power. We are in an earthquake headed by Bashar al-Assad, and the Syrian people are living through the disaster among the ruins of their homes.”

The Syrian writer, Alia Mansour, points out that “the regime’s government is only working on counting the numbers of the areas under its control. This is a militia that controls an area, and it does not consider the Syrian who died in Turkey to be Syrian in the first place.”