Life of Syria’s Assad revealed in private photos found in abandoned mansions

Personal photos of ousted Syrian President Bashar a-Assad have surfaced from his abandoned residences, sparking ridicule among Syrians who until days ago were persecuted for criticising his carefully crafted public image.

The intimate and candid photos, reportedly discovered in albums from Assad’s mansions in the hills of Damascus and Aleppo, offer a stark contrast to the polished, glamorous image that Assad and his father projected as they led Syria for half a century.

Syrians have been fascinated by the background glimpses of a seemingly normal family that held the country in an iron grip and bombed some their fellow citizens regarded as a threat.

The sharing of photos has become an extension of the dazed first hours after Assad’s ouster a week ago, when everyday Syrians wandered the presidential palace and its dishevelled signs of a rapid departure. Assad has been granted asylum in Russia.

For many Syrians who had endured forced imprisonment, displacement and oppression under the Assads, the photos serve as both a spectacle and a chance to exhale, even laugh.

One photo shows Assad’s father, Hafez, in his underwear, striking a bodybuilder-like pose. Other images show Bashar al-Assad in a Speedo flexing his biceps, astride a motorcycle in his briefs and staring blankly in a kitchen, wearing underwear and a sleeveless undershirt.