In Syria, the Assads leave a bitter legacy after a half-century of repressive rule
NPRIn Syria, the Assads leave a bitter legacy after a half-century of repressive rule toggle caption AP/Saudi Press Agency President Bashar Al-Assad and his father, Hafez Al-Assad, combined to rule Syria for more than a half-century, always with an iron fist that crushed all dissent and relied heavily on the country's feared security forces. Sponsor Message In power since 2000, Bashar Assad's legacy is that of an autocrat who attempted suppress all challenges to his rule and make Syria a land of relative stability in the tumultuous region. In a defining moment of his rule, Hafez Assad's security forces killed an estimated 20,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982 as they crushed an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group. U.S. forces battled for several years to dismantle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, thereby removing one of the threats to Assad's rule, even if that was not the U.S. aim.