As Syrians gear up to mark the one-year anniversary of the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad's regime on Monday, Al Arabiya television released videos of the toppled leader recorded a few years ago showing him cursing the region of al-Ghouta and mocking his own troops even amid the civil war.
The videos released on Saturday showed Assad as he was driving his car through Damascus with his late media advisor Luna al-Shibl. The videos are undated but suspected to have been recorded around 2018 after opposition fighters were forced out of Ghouta. They were filmed by a third person in the vehicle with Assad and Shibl.
In one video, Assad is heard cursing Ghouta, saying: “To hell with it.” Other shots showed him mocking his own soldiers when they would kiss the president’s hands in a show of loyalty.
At one point, Shibl asked Assad how he feels about seeing posters of himself on the streets of Syria, to which he replied that he feels “nothing” about them.
On the situation in war-torn Syria, Assad said he was “not only ashamed but disgusted.”
Assad at one point mocks even his family name, which translates to “lion” in Arabic, saying maybe he should change it to “some other animal.”
Assad and Shibl even mocked Lebanon's Hezbollah that had sent its fighters to Syria to prop up the regime.
Commenting on the leaks, Syrians dismissed them, while other said they were further evidence of his lack of loyalty to forces that had stood by him during the war.
Journalist Wael Youssef said he did not care about the leaks, saying Assad and Shibl were now part of the past.
He added that he was disturbed even hearing their voices. “Personally, I could never listen to Bashar when he was delivering an allegedly important speech. If it was really important, I would get a copy of it to read. Today they are now behind us, thank God.”
Radwan, a resident of Damascus’ Jobar neighborhood that was destroyed by regime forces during the war, described Assad as an “idiot, which is why we rose up against him”.
“When he would bomb us with planes, we would often wonder how he could possibly call himself Syrian because he has an unnatural animosity to Syria and its people,” he said. “The videos are evidence of this.”
Lawyer Nibal Hamdoun said she was not surprised by Assad’s comments in the leaks. “We had experienced his sentiments during 14 years of killing and destruction during the war,” she remarked.
“If he believes Syria is disgusting, then it is because of his corrupt rule and the corruption of his father (late President Hafez al-Assad),” she stressed, adding that he should be ashamed of himself.
Another Syrian, Badr Rahmeh said he was curious to learn how Assad feels in his Moscow exile as he watches Syria prepare to celebrate a year since his ouster.
“Will he watch as we trample posters of his image that he allegedly didn’t like to see on the streets where we were forced to hang them?” he wondered.
“I want to know how the supporters Shibl had called on to persevere during the war now feel as they watch these videos that mock their loyalty,” he went on to say.
Shibl had died in mysterious circumstance in 2024. The official story was that she died in a car accident, while skeptics say that the accident was deliberate and staged by the regime after she had fallen afoul of it.
She had worked for years as the director of the presidency media office before being promoted to Assad’s media advisor.
