The Syrian leader has survived seven years of conflict that has devastated much of the country he presides over.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has survived seven years of a devastating war and intense international pressure to step aside.

While Saturday’s US-led air strikes on Syrian government facilities will be a blow to his attempts to unify Syria under his rule, there’s been little suggestion that they are aimed at ending his presidency.

After rapid rebel gains in the early years of the uprising against his authoritarian rule, the possibility that he would join a growing list of deposed Arab rulers was real.
But today, it’s the rebels on the back foot, having lost key strongholds inside the Syrian capital, Damascus, and in the northern city of Aleppo.

Even senior diplomats from states opposed to his government, such as the British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, have said Assad can continue running for Syria’s top office.

Here, Al Jazeera looks at some of the reasons why he has lasted so long:

1. Foreign backing
In the summer of 2012, it was the rebels who had the momentum. A bomb blast in central Damascus had killed senior Syrian officials including the country’s defence minister and Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat.

The rebels thought victory was near.

“The Syrian army had all but collapsed,” the Free Syrian Army Commander, Bashar al-Zoubi, told Al Jazeera.

It was at around this time that Iran stepped up its intervention in the country, providing training, experienced commanders, and foot soldiers in the form of Shia militias.

Iranian media outlets put the number of fighters Tehran has provided to the Syrian government in the tens of thousands.

The Iranian-trained National Defence Forces militia had a peak strength of 90,000 fighters and is widely credited with turning the tide of the war.

For Iran, Assad is a crucial ally and pivotal to protecting its interests in the region.

But while Iran’s contribution has come largely in the form of boots on the ground, it is the Russians who have provided Assad with arguably his biggest boost.

Starting in September 2015, Moscow began air strikes against Syrian rebel targets.

Their aerial campaign helped force Syrian rebels to abandon their strongholds in Aleppo, as well as in Eastern Ghouta.

2. Rebel divisions
Assad has benefited from divisions within the rebel ranks, as the loosely aligned Free Syrian Army broke up into rival factions, and harder line groups took up the anti-government cause.

Opposition groups initially welcomed the support of the fledgling Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS), but soon found themselves fighting it, drawing resources and fighters away from the campaign against Assad.

ISIL won out against the rebels in key cities, such as Raqqa, and forced the opposition from vast tracts of the country.

While rebel groups did regain some territory from ISIL, former rebel territory was recaptured from the group by Kurdish fighters and the government forces.

ISIL was not the only thorn in the rebels’ side, today there are dozens of rebel factions who are divided over regional affiliation, ethnic identity, political stance, and religious affiliation.

3. International stance
While Western countries and regional powers, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, have been vocal in their opposition to Assad, none have taken decisive action to remove the Syrian leader.

Despite rebel appeals, the US has avoided the kind of military intervention that it launched in Libya, which helped rebels there bring down long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

While arms have come through to rebel groups, opposition leaders say they are insufficient to counter the threat of the Syrian government’s air power.

The US decision not to supply weapons capable of doing so is influenced by fears that they could fall into the hands of groups like ISIL and, then later, be used against Western interests.

As the war has dragged on, an increasing number of officials in the West have deprioritised the importance of removing Assad.

In March 2017, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said that getting rid of Assad was no longer the main focus of US policy.

Two months earlier, the British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said Assad could stay as part of a peace deal.

4. Internal support
Despite widespread opposition to his rule, Assad continues to maintain significant levels of support within Syria.

Such support extends beyond his own Alawite community, and also includes members of the Sunni community who have benefited financially during his rule and have little interest in changing the status quo.

ALjazeera

In a combined operation, the US, Britain and France today launched military strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, President Donald Trump announced, as he alleged the war-torn nation of using chemical weapons against its own people.

The US president claimed that the joint action was meant to establish a “strong deterrent” against the production, spread, and use of chemical weapons.

Trump said he has ordered “precision strikes” against Syria, where dozens of people were killed last weekend in a suspected toxic gas attack on Douma, the largest town in a former rebel stronghold outside Damascus.

“These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead,” Trump said in an address to the nation.

Describing the strike as a deterrent, Trump said the US would maintain pressure on Syria until the Assad regime suspends use of chemical weapons.

“America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria,” he said, thanking the UK and France for joining the US in its fight against the Syrian regime.

“Today, the nations of Britain, France, and the United States of America have marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality,” Trump said.

He attacked the Assad regime for “deploying chemical weapons to slaughter innocent civilians”, referring to the alleged atrocity in Douma last Saturday.

“This massacre was a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime,” Trump alleged.

“The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead,” he said.

The US president sought to bring back the vestiges of World War I, after which civilised nations joined together to ban chemical warfare.

He noted that chemical weapons not only inflict gruesome suffering but also even small amounts of them can unleash widespread devastation.

“The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread, and use of chemical weapons. Establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States,” Trump said.

“The combined American, British, and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power — military, economic, and diplomatic. We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” he said.

Trump said he also has a message for the two governments most responsible for supporting, equipping, and financing the criminal Assad regime.

“To Iran, and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children?” he asked.

“The nations of the world can be judged by the friends they keep. No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rogue states, brutal tyrants, and murderous dictators,” he said.

Trump said Assad’s recent attack was a fallout of Russia’s “failure” to keep the promise of eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons.

“In 2013, President Putin and his government promised the world that they would guarantee the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons. Assad’s recent attack are the direct result of Russia’s failure to keep that promise,” Trump said.

“Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path, or if it will join with civilised nations as a force for stability and peace. Hopefully, someday we’ll get along with Russia, and maybe even Iran — but maybe not,” he said.

The US president said America, being the world’s greatest and most powerful economy, has a lot to offer.

“In Syria, the United States — with but a small force being used to eliminate what is left of ISIS — is doing what is necessary to protect the American people. Over the last year, nearly 100 percent of the territory once controlled by the so-called ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq has been liberated and eliminated,” he said.

The US, UK and France launched coordinated strikes against Syrian research, storage and military targets as President Donald Trump sought to “punish” his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad for a suspected chemical attack that killed over 70 people, media reports said.

The strikes on Friday night was intended to show Western resolve in the face of what the leaders of the three nations called persistent violations of international law, reports The New York Times.

“I ordered the US armed forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapon capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,” Trump said from the White House Diplomatic Reception Room.

“The combined American, British and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power: military, economic and diplomatic,” Trump said.

In his speech, Trump deemed the chemical attack in Douma as “Not the actions of a man… They are crimes of a monster instead.”

Trump indicated the strikes would continue until the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons ends, reports CNN.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” he added.

The strikes targeted three facilities associated with Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, including a scientific research facility around Damascus, a chemical weapons storage facility around Homs alleged to be used for sarin gas and a nearby command post, according to the Pentagon.

The Syrian Observatory said the Syrian Army’s 4th Division and Republican Guard were among the targets.

US aircraft including B-1 bombers and ships were used in the attack, US defence officials said.

Witnesses told CNN that they heard explosions in Damascus which began while Trump was making his address.

The capital city’s residents woke to the sounds of multiple explosions shaking the city before the dawn call to prayer.

The city and the hills are surrounded by military facilities, and it appeared that these were among the first targets, reports The New York Times.

Syrian state television said government air defence systems were responding to “the American aggression” and aired video of missiles being fired into a dark night sky.

It was not clear if they hit anything. It reported that 13 missiles had been shot down by Syrian air defences near Al-Kiswa, a town south of Damascus.

The targets were chosen to minimise the risk of accidentally hitting Russian troops stationed in Syria, according to Gen. James F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday night that the strike was completed and was designed as a one-night operation.

“Right now this is a one-time shot and I believe it has sent a very strong message to dissuade him to deter him from doing it again,” he said.

The strikes marked the second time that Trump has attacked Syria to punish the government after it was accused of using chemical weapons.

In April 2017, the US fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation to a chemical attack that killed over 100 people.

While France and Britain joined the US, Germany refused to take part, even though Chancellor Angela Merkel called the use of chemical weapons “unacceptable”, The New York Times reported.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Syria had left the allies no choice.

“This persistent pattern of behaviour must be stopped… Not just to protect innocent people in Syria from the horrific deaths and casualties caused by chemical weapons but also because we cannot allow the erosion of the international norm that prevents the use of these weapons,” she said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah does not believe the latest Syria crisis will spiral into a direct US-Russia conflict or a wider all-out war, its deputy leader said in comments published on Friday.

The heavily armed and Iranian-backed Shia movement has been a vital military ally of President Bashar al-Assad in the seven-year-old Syrian war.

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“The conditions do not point to a total war … unless (US President Donald) Trump and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu completely lose their minds,” he said.

Trump has threatened strikes against Assad’s forces after a suspected gas attack on a rebel town where dozens of people died, and a Russian envoy has voiced fears of a wider conflict between Washington and Moscow.

The threat of confrontation between Russia, the Syrian state’s key ally, and the West loomed after Trump said on Wednesday missiles “will be coming” and lambasted Moscow for standing by Assad.

Trump has tempered those remarks since and even as he consulted allies Britain and France, there were signs of efforts to prevent the crisis from spiralling out of control.

The White House said “no final decision has been made” on Syria after Trump met his national security team on Thursday.

ISRAELI STRIKE

Damascus with its main backers, Russia and Iran, have accused rebels and rescuers of fabricating reports of the Douma attack and Washington of seeking to use it as a pretext for attacking the Syrian army.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress on Thursday he believed there had been a chemical attack, but added shortly after there was no decision on launching military action.

Asked about possible spillover into Lebanon, Qassem said: “If the assault on Syria has a very limited scope, then it’s expected that reactions from the concerned sides in Syria will be tied to the Syrian arena.”

Iran’s expanding power in Syria has caused deep alarm in Israel, which has mounted air strikes in Syria against what it describes as Hezbollah and Iranian targets.

Tehran has threatened to respond to an air strike on a Syrian military base on Monday which it blamed on Israel, as did Damascus and Moscow.

Qassem said the strike, which killed seven Iranians, was an assault “on both Syria and Iran that has consequences which I do not know the limit of now”.

Hezbollah, which last fought a major war with Israel in 2006, would not open a new front against its arch-foe from Lebanon, he said. “But the resistance is ready for surprises.”

Hezbollah does not expect Israel to launch a war for now but is prepared for one, Qassem told Reuters in an interview last month.

Amnesty International has slammed Pakistan’s military courts for violating UN principles and international fair trial standards in imposing death sentences.

Amnesty International’s report — Death Sentences and Executions 2017 — released here on Thursday, expressed concern that Pakistan’s military courts “were run by military officers subordinate to the military chain of command — and who had no formal legal training — in breach of the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary”.

“The charges against the defendants were not made public and those convicted did not have the right to appeal to civilian courts,” it said.

The report said that Pakistani military courts also sentenced civilians to death and added that its special courts “whose proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards imposed death sentences”.

Pakistan’s Field General Court Martial (FGCM) in April 2017 sentenced Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav to death on charges of espionage and sabotage.

India has denied that Jadhav worked for Indian intelligence agencies or that he has worked in Pakistan. The Amnesty report did not specifically mention Jadhav.

“People continued to be sentenced to death or executed for crimes that did not involve intentional killing and therefore did not meet the threshold of ‘most serious crimes’, as prescribed by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights,” the report said.

Amnesty said that Pakistan carried out more than 60 executions in 2017, imposed over 200 death sentences and there were more than 7,000 people on death row.

During 2016, Pakistan executed at least 87 people and imposed more than 360 death sentences, according to the report.

Briefing reporters, Amnesty International Senior Director for Law and Policy Tawanda Mutasah said that death penalties have dropped steeply since a peak in 2015 when 326 people were executed.

Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been barred from holding office for life after the Supreme Court today ruled that disqualification of a lawmaker under the Constitution is for life. The verdict was issued unanimously by all five judges of the bench while hearing a case related to the determination of time duration for disqualification of a lawmaker under the Constitution, the Dawn reported.

The court had grappled with Article 62(1)(f) which only stated that a lawmaker is disqualified under specified conditions but did not set out the duration of the disqualification. Article 62, which sets the precondition for a member of parliament to be “sadiq and ameen” (honest and righteous), is the same provision under which Sharif, 68, was disqualified on July 28, 2017, in the Panama Papers case.

Likewise, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Jahangir Tareen was disqualified on December 15 last year by a separate bench of the apex court under the same provision. Following the verdict, both Sharif and Tareen have become ineligible to ever hold public office.

It has been stated in the decision read out by Justice Umar Ata Bandial that the disqualification of any member of parliament or a public servant under Article 62 in the future will be permanent. Such a person cannot contest elections or become a member of parliament.

British banks must severe ties with Kremlin-linked tycoons if they want continued access to American financial institutions, the US has said as it ratcheted up its efforts to block Russian industrialists from doing business in the West.

Sigal P. Mandelker, a top US Treasury official in London to meet her counterparts, said on Tuesday that British banks could face “consequences” if they continued to carry out significant transactions on behalf of the 24 influential Russians sanctioned by Washington last week, the New York Times reported.

The list included Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law Kirill Shamalov and industrialists Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg.

“These are blocking sanctions,” said Mandelker, Under Secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“There of course would be consequences for UK financial institutions” that continued to do business with the Russians, he warned.

The warning, according to the daily, resonated in London as for decades it has served as a haven for Russia’s wealthiest families. Russian investors own iconic British assets like the Chelsea Football Club and swaths of high-end London real estate and they support thriving networks of lawyers, financial advisers and estate agents.

Mandelker said there had been great unity on Russia among European nations since March 4 when former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was found poisoned in southwestern England.

She said the US was consulting intensively with British financial institutions and oversight agencies as it prepared to impose the latest round of sanctions.

“We have very strong and close allies and partners in the UK,” she said. “They understand clearly what the risks are. We continue to communicate those risks to them.”

The new US sanctions expose financial institutions outside the US to penalties if they “knowingly facilitate significant financial transactions” on behalf of the listed Russian oligarchs.

Malaysia’s closely-watched 14th general elections will fall on May 9, with nomination day on Apr 28, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday (Apr 10).

Polling will fall on a Wednesday, a departure from past elections.

The minimum campaigning period is 11 days.

“The EC has held a meeting and established that polls must be held within 60 days of the date of dissolution,” the commission’s chairman, Mohd Hashim Abdullah, told a news conference.

Early voting will take place on May 5.

Eurocontrol cautions airlines to avoid Syria due to possible launch of air strikes within the next 72 hours.

The international air traffic control agency Eurocontrol has warned airlines to exercise caution in the eastern Mediterranean due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria in the next 72 hours.

Eurocontrol said that air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles could be used within that period and there was a possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment.

US President Donald Trump and Western allies are discussing possible military action after they blamed Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected poison gas attack on Saturday on a rebel-held town that long had held out against government forces.

Trump on Tuesday cancelled a planned trip to Latin America later this week to focus instead on responding to the Syria incident, the White House said. Trump had on Monday warned of a quick, forceful response once responsibility for the Syria attack was established.

“Due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria with air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles within the next 72 hours, and the possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment, due consideration needs to be taken when planning flight operations in the Eastern Mediterranean/Nicosia FIR area,” it said, referring to the designated airspace.

The Eurocontrol warning on its website did not specify the origin of any potential missile threat.

UN deadlock
The statement came after rival draft resolutions by the US and Russia to set up a new expert body to probe chemical weapons attacks in Syria both failed to pass at the United Nations Security Council.

For his part, French President Emmanuel Macaron said on Tuesday that after further discussions with the US and UK, a decision to execute military strikes will be taken within days, stressing that the strikes will target Syrian chemical weapons facilities.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said during a joint press conference with Macaron in Paris that there was a possibility that his country would take part in strikes against the Damascus if necessary.

Aviation regulators in countries including the US, UK, France and Germany have previously issued warnings against airlines entering Syrian airspace leading most carriers to avoid the area.

The only commercial flights above Syria as of 01:15 GMT on Wednesday were being flown by Syrian Air and Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

The Eurocontrol statement included a broader area outside the airspace controlled by Damascus.

Aljazeera

Russia and Syria have invited a probe into the alleged chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma after US President Donald Trump threatened that there would be a “big price to pay”.

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday, Russia’s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia denied that chemical weapons had been used in Douma and said Syrian authorities and Russian troops would provide facilities for experts from the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to visit the attack area.

According to the reports, the chemical attack on Saturday killed at least 49 people and injured 500 others, Thomas Markram, the deputy to the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, told the Council.

During a bitter clash at the Council, US Permanent Representative Nikki Haley said that the hands of the Russian “regime” were “covered in the blood of Syrian children” and warned that Washington would respond to the attacks even if the Council would not.

On Monday night, Trump met defence officials along with his newly appointed National Security Adviser John Bolton after warning that that there would he would decide within 48 hours on a military response to the “barbaric” act.

“If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out and we’ll know the answers quite soon,” he told reporters earlier on Monday.

Haley said those responsible for the attacks were “monsters”, adding: “We must not overlook Russia and Iran’s roles in enabling the Assad regime’s murderous destruction.”

With tensions between Russia and the West rising to Cold War levels, Nebenzia told the West: “We are not begging to be friends with you.”

He objected to Haley referring to his government as a “regime” and warned that he would raise a point of order the next time she did that – a move that could disrupt Council meetings, a frequent happening during the height of the Cold War.

He said the “hawkish rhetoric” in the Council and threats to use force had gone beyond what had prevailed during the Cold War.

Britain’s Permanent Representative Karen Pierce said the situation today was worse than that during the Cold War because then there was no such flagrant disregard of the universal prohibition against chemical weapons.

Nebenzia alleged that the anti-government forces had chemical weapons and could stage an attack.

But France’s Permanent Representative Francois Delattre countered that only the Syrian government and its allies had the capability to developing the chemical and said that there was no doubt about who carried out the attacks.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “While the UN is not in a position to verify these reports, the Secretary-General notes that any use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, is abhorrent, and requires a thorough investigation.”

Guterres’s Speical Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told the Council via a video link from Geneva that the terrorist group Jaish al-Islam that was in control of Douma had asked for UN intervention, but the Syrian government did not respond to it.