TUNIS, April 28. /TASS/. A group of unidentified individuals has stolen the remains of Syria’s former president Hafez Assad, who ruled the country between 1971 and 2000, from a mausoleum in the town of Al Qardahah in the province of Latakia, Syria TV reported.
According to the report, which is based on information circulating on social networks, the remains were exhumed by people "wearing military uniforms." People who posted these messages blame "armed groups active in the region" for this act of vandalism.
The channel also published a video clip, and a photograph showing the empty tomb.
The town of Al Qardahah, where Hafez Assad was born, is considered the home town of the Assad clan. The mausoleum in Al Qardahah is also the final resting place of Hafez Assad’s spouse Anisa Makhlouf, and son Bassel, who died in a car crash in 1994. It was not reported whether their tombs were also vandalized.
In early December 2024, immediately after the change of power in Syria, the An-Nahar newspaper reported that unidentified individuals had broken into the mausoleum and set fire to Hafez Assad’s tomb.
In late November 2024, Syria’s armed opposition forces started a large-scale offensive on government troops in the Aleppo and Idlib governorates. By the evening of December 7, they seized several large cities, including Aleppo, Hama, Deir ez-Zor, Daraa, and Homs. On December 8, they entered Damascus. Bashar Assad stepped down as Syrian president and left the country. Head of the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham group (outlawed in Russia) Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, became the country’s actual leader.