After sharing escape plan, Hafez Bashar al-Assad's alleged X account suspended

An account bearing the name of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s son, Hafez Bashar al-Assad, has been suspended from X after describing the family’s final days in the country before the rebel takeover.

The page for @HafezBAlAssad read “Account suspended” on Tuesday, saying it had violated the social media site’s rules. The rules of X — formerly known as Twitter — include a ban on accounts run by “perpetrators of terrorist, violent extremist or mass violent attacks,” as well as violent and hateful content, among other stipulations.

X did not immediately respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment.

What happened: Syrians on X posted on Monday that an account with Assad's name had appeared on the platform.

Arabic media outlets, including Al-Arabiya and Asharq, reported on Tuesday that the account belonged to Assad.

On Monday, X users — including pro-Syrian regime accounts — shared images of a post from the account detailing the Assad family's final days in Damascus. Assad stated that he and his family had not initially planned to leave Syria when the rebel offensive began in late November.

"There was never a plan, not even a backup, to leave Damascus, let alone Syria,” he said in the post.

The Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began a major offensive against the Syrian army in late November 2024, capturing the city of Aleppo by the end of the month. The rebels then took the strategic cities of Hama and Homs in early December before fully seizing control of the capital, Damascus, on Dec. 8. HTS is now leading a transitional government in the country. The Assad family fled to Moscow shortly before the rebel takeover and have been granted asylum by Russia.

According to Assad, there was nothing “out of the ordinary” in Damascus on Dec. 7 until news broke of the Syrian army’s withdrawal from Homs, which he described as “surprising.” The decision to leave occurred when a Russian official visited the Assad family after midnight.

“There were no preparations of anything suggesting that we would leave until a Russian official arrived at our house in the al-Maliki neighborhood after midnight, on Sunday morning (Dec. 8), and requested the president move to Latakia for a few days due to the severity of the situation in Damascus,” Assad wrote.

The family arrived at the Damascus airport at around 3 a.m. local time on Dec. 8 and met the president’s brother, Maher al-Assad, there. They flew on a Russian military plane to Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Latakia province. The family then intended to move to a presidential property in the Burj Islam area about 40 kilometers (24 miles) north of the base, according to Assad.

“Attempts to communicate with any of the workers there failed, as all the phones that were called were off and information began to come in about the withdrawal of the forces from the front with the terrorists and the fall of the last military positions,” he wrote.

Assad said the base sustained “drone attacks” and the rebel advance rendered it impossible to leave the area on the ground, prompting Russia to offer the family a flight out of the country. 

“Moscow asked them (the Hmeimim base leadership) to secure our transfer to Moscow,” said Assad. The family arrived in the city via a Russian military plane on the evening of Dec. 8, according to him.

Who is Hafez Bashar al-Assad? Assad, 23, is the eldest son of the toppled president and former first lady Asma al-Assad. He graduated from Moscow State University in 2023 and later pursued a Ph.D. in mathematics at the institution. He reportedly defended his dissertation last November.

Assad competed in math competitions earlier in his youth and received an “honorable mention” at the 2016 International Mathematical Olympiad, per the Olympiad’s official website. The competition is for pre-university math students.

In 2020, the US Treasury Department sanctioned then 18-year-old Assad, arguing that the family uses its members as conduits for their businesses.

Assad defended his father in a 2017 interview with the Brazilian news outlet O Globo.

“I know what kind of man my father is. As president, people say a lot of things. Many are blind,” he said. "The population and the government are united against the invaders that are taking the country.

Assad was in Brazil for an International Mathematic Olympiad competition at the time.