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Asef Shawkat began his political career as a relative outsider in a government dominated by the Al-Assad family, neither a member of the Assads or one of their influential Makhlouf cousins. Through his marriage to President Bashar Assad’s older sister Bushra, he ascended to the ‘inner circle’ of power in Syria after a turn of events that resembled a combination of The Godfatherand a soap opera plot.
Born into a middle class Alawi family in the town of Tartous in 1950, he joined the Syrian army as an officer in the late 1970s after gaining degrees in law and history at Damascus University. Despite his Alawi background he remained outside the centers of power until he met a fellow graduate of his alma mater in the late 1980s, a woman who would become his second wife.
The woman was Bushra Al-Assad, the oldest child of the Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad, and according to Patrick Seale’s biography of the leader, his favorite. Asef was a decade older than her and a divorced father of five. Bushra, according to Seale, was a “tall, elegant young woman”, known for her good manners (unlike some other children of the elite) and for taking her studies seriously while a student. She graduated with a degree in pharmacy from Damascus University in 1982, and is reputed to have inherited much of her father’s intelligence and ruthlessness.
Reportedly, they were introduced by Bouthaina Shaaban, a friend of Bushra’s who has gone on to enjoy a career as a translator for Hafez and Bashar Assad and subsequently a cabinet minister with responsibility for the Syrian Diaspora. She is currently one of Bashar’s assistants, advising him on relations with the media.
The couple conducted a lengthy and tumultuous courtship, probably not out of choice: Asef was deeply disliked by Bushra’s brothers Basil and Maher. Basil is alleged to have regarded Asef as a lower-class ‘gold digger’ and actually went so far as to jail Asef several times in an attempt to dissuade him from pursuing his sister.
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Nonetheless, the couple’s persistence paid off. Basil died in a car crash in 1994, sparking a succession crisis in Syria as he had been Hafez’s heir apparent. The couple married the following year, apparently without the prior permission of the bride’s father. Bushra’s influence was sufficient to persuade her father to accept the union, and her new husband was brought into the family. Thanks to her, he began to climb the ranks of the state military and security apparatus, beginning with a swift promotion to Major-General. As one observer told the New York Timesin 2005, “Anyone who has the power to go into the home of Hafez Assad and take his daughter away without permission has the power to do anything,” although this may do a disservice to Bushra’s own dogged determination and resolve.
Following his promotion, he was assigned a senior role in negotiations with Israel, but despite his new status, tensions within the family remained. His brother-in-law Maher reportedly shot him in the stomach during an argument at a family gathering. He survived and his star continued to rise, aided in great part by his wife’s influence.
Following Basil’s death, Hafez’s second son, Bashar, was recalled from his medical training in London to prepare him to succeed his father. Asef befriended him, and this link was strengthened on Bashar’s accession to the presidency in 2000, and when Bushra became her brother’s personal secretary.
Bashar appointed his brother-in-law to head of the Syrian Military Intelligence in 2004. In this role he remained largely out of the public eye, a behind-the-scenes figure who has nonetheless wielded great power and influence despite owing his advancement to family connections.
Though his career trajectory has officially been upwards, his lack of an independent power base has meant that his power and influence within the Syrian government has varied. He was named as a suspect by a UN investigation into the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, though his involvement was never proven, and he was sanctioned by the US in 2006, ostensibly for his role in Syrian activities in Lebanon.
The next incident that raised questions about his position was another assassination, this time of senior Hezbollah member Imad Mughniyah in Damascus in 2008. Following this, he was made deputy chief of staff of the army, in what was formally a promotion but in actual fact may have reduced his influence, and he was subsequently advanced to deputy minister of defense in 2011.
Given the scale of the crisis in Syria, his connection to the Assad dynasty and his experience in the military and intelligence services, he is undoubtedly functioning as a key member of the security apparatus. The nature of his influence, however, is as opaque as it has ever been.
