An excoriating FT expose of Asma Assad, wife of the Syrian president, once hailed by western media as a ‘rose of the desert’, turns the spotlight back onto the chilling picture of a greedy profiteer who has amassed billions for herself and her family out of the bloodied ruins of starving country. She appears to control the economic levers consolidating the Assad’s grip on Syria, shaking down the rich merchant class (imprison in hotel and extort a la MBS in Saudi) and even – horrifyingly – crafting a corrupt humanitarian assistance system, monetising NGOs and the aid sector which takes in international money.
The economy is teetering on the brink of collapse and what little still exists appears to be controlled by Asma Assad and family across multiple sectors, including real estate, banking and telecommunications. “For any new business to get done today, Asma [and her people] take a cut,” says a relative.
The other revenue stream to keep the family afloat evidently comes from Bashar’s younger brother Maher, head of the army’s notoriously brutal fourth division, who runs weapons, oil smuggling, alcohol and sales of the illegal amphetamine Captagon.
Asma was born 11 August 1975 in London to Syrian parents, and after graduating in computer science worked with Deutsche Bank as an economic analyst and then JP Morgan. She is a Sun Mercury in Leo square Mars conjunct the destructive Fixed star Algol and conjunct her South Node. Algol on Mars and the South Node does sound terrifyingly brutal and primitive. She also has Saturn in Cancer on the focal point of a T Square to a ‘lucky’ Jupiter opposition Uranus – such a Saturn gives her executive, organising ability but a dislike of sharing the driving seat.
Tr Uranus will square her 18 degree Leo Sun late April/early May for an upset though the heftier jolt will come after mid year 2024 when tr Uranus is conjunct her Mars, North Node – and on Solar Arcs she met hit the buffers come 2027.
The Assad Presidency, 17 July 2000, looks rattled this year with tr Uranus square the Uranus and tr Saturn in Pisces will dent a few high hopes in 2023/24. SA Neptune will square the Saturn in 2024 for uncertainty and instability; with a disruptive 2025 with tr Uranus conjunct the Saturn and more so with SA Sun opposition Uranus in 2026.
[I had hoped it might collapse when tr Pluto was opposing the 25 degree Cancer Sun and Mars 2018 to 2021 but alas not.]
Brother Maher Assad, 8 December 1967, a key player in the family mafia, Sun Sagittarius with Saturn in Aries sextile Mars in Aquarius, is running into the reefs come 2027.
Bashar Assad, 11 September 1965, a Sun, Pluto, Uranus in Virgo is also heading into a load of trouble in coming years as his Solar Arc Sun Uranus Pluto cross over his Mars Neptune in Scorpio with his Solar Arc Saturn in opposition – and that could be terminal for his ambitions and regime.
The most recent modern Syria chart of 1 January 1944 does hint at a degree of relief in 2024/2025 as its Jupiter is activated but it will be a long haul to rebuild the wreck left behind by a brutal civil war and a mafioso regime. Both Asma and Bashar’s relationship charts with Syria have control-freak, destructive Mars Pluto composite aspects. No surprise there.
A spate of negative publicity in 2021 about Asma Assad, describing her as a ‘cheerleader for evil’ led to calls for her to be stripped on British citizenship. She herself was sanctioned in 2020 for accumulating “ill-gotten riches at the expense of the Syrian people”.
Algol has a lot to answer for in its negative manifestation – and hers also squares the Black Moon.
Interesting Mars Algol South Node – if Mars is said to represent the partner in a woman’s chart, it would describe Bashar.
It’s often tempting to believe a spouse, particularly the wife, would somehow reflect a tyrant’s better half, as the saying goes, but in reality we shouldn’t be surprised this is rarely the case. For quite some time observers wanted to believe that public signs of Melania’s unhappiness was proof that she was different, until it was clear that she fully sided with Trump’s attitudes, regardless of the state of their relationship. She was attracted to what he valued, money, power and image.
Think about it. Terrible as it seems, is she any worse than a GW Bush or others who announced to one of the great fonts of world civilisation ‘we will bomb you back to the Stone Age’ based on misrepresented charges. At lot of this has to do with colonialism which has set the stage for the current round of regimes – partnered and then exacerbated by US desire for global dominance.
Let’s not forget what the Soviets have accomplished, post Ww2. And Pol Pot and NKorea.
I’m no friend of the Bush crusaders…but they are no better, no worse than their American successors.
I am no fan of GWB et al. But there does seem to me to be something incrementally worse about knowingly and deliberately ripping off your own starving and battered people – and on top of that doing walkabouts as the compassionate one. In Dante’s Inferno hypocrisy is put in one of the lower reaches of hell – ‘few sins can equal the deliberate cloaking of one’s true character and feelings in a false aspect of piety, tolerance or honesty.’
Born a couple of weeks after Liz Truss, so also Leo Sun, cardinal t-square and Virgo Venus square Sag Neptune. Not quite as robotic as Truss had Sun-Mercury-Saturn conjunction. But the Libra moon conjunct Pluto obviously showing itself up as equally shallow, clueless and ideological about its ideas as Truss’ Aqua/Pisces one.
Not very nice, is it?