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charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-assad-emails-key-correspondents.live.html", "bytes": 290233 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Assad emails: the key correspondents", "author": "The Guardian", "published": "2012-03-14T18:05:01Z", "description": "A cache of purported emails reveals a small but influential group of people in contact with the Syrian president", "body": "The list of those who corresponded with the sam@alshahba.com email address was small but influential, activists believe. It was used as a primary source of strategic advice by Assad's fledgling media team, especially his hand-chosen advisers, whose access to the president became increasingly regular throughout the second half of last year. Significant people included in the email archive are believed to include: Bashar al-Assad The Syrian president appears in the emails under the pseudonym \"Sam\", the activists say. While the sam@alshahba.com account was being monitored, activists noticed that \"Sam\" was highly conscious of security and deleted emails from his outbox quickly and regularly. His inbox, however, contained more than 1,000 emails, including advice on speeches and security issues. Asma al-Assad The Syrian first lady emailed from the ak@alshahba account. The \"ak\" in the address is believed to refer to the family's confidante Alia Kayali Marouf, but emails to this account are frequently addressed to \"Dear Asma\" and signed Asma or with her initials, as well as with the name Alia. Activists believe the real Alia had no access to the account. Unlike her husband, Asma al-Assad was not in the habit of deleting emails, making them easy pickings for the activists who had the couple's usernames and passwords. The email exchanges between the pair reveal a close marriage under the strain of a heavy workload. However, they do not reflect the violent nature of the battle for Syria going on outside the palace walls. Sheherazad Jaafari In her early 20s, Jaafari is understood to have been an intern at the New-York-based PR firm Brown Lloyd James for three to six months after graduating from a US college. Afterwards she moved to Damascus where she was recruited as one of Assad's top media advisers. \"It seems like she got into the inner circle,\" a former associate told the Guardian. \"She was in the communications office, setting up interviews for the president.\" She soon emerged as the 46-year-old president's key aide, heading a small team of inexperienced personal media advisers all of whom were young and clearly fond of him. Established regime aides, such as the senior acolyte Buthaina Shaaban, were not part of Assad's hand-chosen inner sanctum, a fact that stirred resentment in the information ministry as the new team's influence grew. Jaafari kept in touch with former colleagues at Brown Lloyd James intermittently, on several occasions forwarding emails from Mike Holtzman, the BLJ executive she described as \"my previous boss\", to Assad. A Brown Lloyd James source suggested she was using her connection to the firm to bolster her PR credentials in the eyes of Assad. In one exchange, Jaafari sent Holtzman a YouTube clip of Assad addressing a crowd and Holtzman replied: \"How are [Assad and his wife] doing? Feeling more confident in the outcome?\" Jaafari replied: \"They are doing great and yes the outcome will be shocking to everyone. I have always told you. This man is loved by his people.\" Holtzman replied: \"Great. I'm proud of you. Wish I were there to help.\" A BLJ source confirmed that the emails had been sent by Holtzman but said he was merely trying to encourage a former intern. The firm, which is under separate ownership from Brown Lloyd James, says it has not offered the Assads any advice since helping to organise an interview with Asma al-Assad in December 2010. Jaafari returned to New York in disgrace after the hacking of Syrian emails by Anonymous in February revealed she had given Assad advice on how to \"manipulate\" US public opinion. Hadeel al-Ali A second media adviser who supplemented the work of Jaafari. She took an interest in daily media coverage and developed a close relationship with Assad, giving him regular feedback on how his speeches were being perceived by supporters. She passed on requests for interviews from journalists deemed to be acceptable to the regime. Luna Chebel The third media adviser and a former al-Jazeera anchor. She gives strong support to Assad and takes perhaps the hardest line on how to tackle media dissent. She also offers counsel on how to keep the uprising under control. Khaled Ahmad A key player in the correspondence. He provides a regular overview of the deteriorating situation in Homs, which, as a former senior regional official, he is tasked with supervising. He is believed to have links to the Syrian Socialist Nationalist party, a political party/militia that has remained staunchly supportive of the regime for more than 40 years. He reaffirms the regime narrative that Islamic terrorists backed by foreigners are responsible for the uprising. Hussein Mortada The head of the Iranian-backed al-Alam satellite channel, which gives an Arabic-language Iranian perspective on the Arab world. Boasts of links to Hezbollah and Iran and offers strong advice, which he claims represents them both. A key figure in spreading the regime narrative.", "chars": 4959 } }, { "id": "guardian-how-know-assad-emails-genuine", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/14/how-know-assad-emails-genuine", "category": "source_verification", "why": "Guardian methodology note on why the Assad email cache was treated as likely authentic.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/how-know-assad-emails-genuine", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-how-know-assad-emails-genuine.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/how-know-assad-emails-genuine?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/how-know-assad-emails-genuine?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-how-know-assad-emails-genuine.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 8650 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/how-know-assad-emails-genuine", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/how-know-assad-emails-genuine", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-how-know-assad-emails-genuine.live.html", "bytes": 303921 } ], "extracted": { "title": "How do we know the Assad emails are genuine?", "author": "Robert Booth, Luke Harding, Angelique Chrisafis and Matthew Taylor", "published": "2012-03-14T18:07:43Z", "description": "It is impossible to rule out the possibility of fakes in the email cache, but several pieces of evidence suggest they are authentic", "body": "Why does the Guardian believe the emails are genuine? The cache of 3,000 emails passed on by a source in the Syrian opposition reveals a wealth of private information – including family photographs and videos, a scan of the president's identity card and a birth certificate belonging to a family member – that would be difficult for even the best resourced hoaxer or intelligence agency to gather or fabricate. The sam@alshahba.com and ak@alshahba.com accounts that activists say were used by Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma, communicate regularly and in affectionate terms with the wider family and advisers, some of whose email addresses are easily verified. Events and speeches mentioned in the emails tally with the timings of real events. The \"sam\" and \"ak\" accounts were also monitored contemporaneously by activists who say the protagonists reacted in real time to events on the ground in Syria. What has the Guardian done to verify the emails? The Guardian has contacted 10 people whose emails appear in the cache. All have confirmed the time and content of the emails or refused to deny they are genuine. People contacted include Thomas Nagorski, ABC News's managing director of international coverage, who emailed Sheherazad Jaafari while trying to arrange an Assad interview with Barbara Walters, and Sir Andrew Green, Britain's former ambassador in Syria. Two of Green's messages feature in the email haul: one, dated 6 October 2011, was to Assad's father-in-law; the other, dated 26 June 2011, was to members of the British Syrian Society. Green confirmed that the emails were genuine. Also copied in was Lord Powell, Lady Thatcher's former foreign policy adviser and one of the society's trustees. Asked about the email, Powell said: \"It sounds familiar but no time to search my records.\" Asma al-Assad used the email address ak@alshahba.com and is believed to have used the pseudonym Alia Kayali when ordering expensive designer goods from Britain. All four British suppliers mentioned in the emails and contacted by the Guardian confirmed that the email exchanges were real. The Lebanese businessman Azmi T Mikati – a friend of Asma al-Assad who features in many of the emails – refused to deny the veracity of the emails when contacted by the Guardian despite being offered the opportunity to do so. Only one figure, who asked not to be named, said he did not recognise a mail from himself that appeared in Assad's inbox, though he acknowledged that he had sent a number of emails that appeared in a different string. The Guardian also made attempts to contact Wafic Said, the Syrian-born businessman and philanthropist, who features briefly in the email trail, and Hussein Mortada, a pro-Iranian businessman whose emails appear in the cache, but neither returned calls. The Guardian also consulted Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former interim president of Syria, now in exile in France, who was unable to confirm the authenticity of the emails. In other cases the Guardian has checked facts set out in the cache. In one email, a partner at a law firm suggested to one of the extended Assad family that he demand a published apology over an article about him. The partner informed his client in another email that the apology would be published that day, and the newspaper did so, including much of the exact wording demanded. Does the verification process rule out the possibility that there are fake emails in the cache? No. It would be impossible to contact everyone who is mentioned in the emails, and members of the inner circle have not responded to the Guardian's inquiries. However, none of the checks we have conducted has contradicted activists' claims about the emails. What is the evidence that \"Sam\" is Bashar al-Assad and that \"AK\" is Asma? There are several email conversations in which \"Sam\" and Bashar are clearly identified as the same person. In November, for example, Hadeel al-Ali, Assad's press assistant, emailed sam@alshahba.com about an interview Assad had given to a student activist, Hussam Arian, six months earlier. She attached a picture of Arian with Assad, and screenshots of the student's Facebook page, which featured the article. She said to \"Sam\": \"I took many shots of the page of Hussam Arian and the article he wrote about you.\" Another email to the address from Asma relates: \"Fares closed all your twitter accounts!\" Fares Kallas is Asma al-Assad's assistant, and other emails in the chain show that he had asked Twitter to close several fake accounts purporting to belong to Bashar. In Asma's case, there are a host of emails sent between ak@alshahba.com and Asma al-Assad's family which offer compelling proof. Many emails sent to \"ak\" from her family begin \"Hi Asma\", and one of her family's email header lists ak@alshahba.com as Asma Akhras, Asma al-Assad's maiden name. There are many other examples of family members sending affectionate emails to Asma at the \"ak\" account. On 21 November 2011, one of her brothers sent her photos of their father's recent birthday party, with the subject line \"Dad's birthday 2011\". The photos show Asma together with identifiable family members standing in a kitchen. The brother also circulated the photos to her other brother. Could a third person be using either of the accounts? Emails from the \"ak\" account sometimes sign off with \"Alia\". Syrian opposition activists say this is Asma borrowing the name of a company secretary, Alia Kayali, who works at al-Shahba's London office. They say the real Kayali had no access to the \"ak\" account. The Guardian has been unable to contact the real Alia Kayali to verify this, but it seems unlikely that such an intimate email account would be available to an underling. In a conversation with her friend Sheikha al-Mayassa al-Thani, the daughter of the emir of Qatar, Asma was asked if al-Thani could pass Asma al-Assad's private \"ak\" email address to the wife of Turkey's prime minister, who wanted to get in touch. Asma al-Assad replied four days later: \"I would prefer that she did not get my email – I use this account only for family and friends.\" Asma al-Assad signed herself \"aaa\". It would appear that Asma is shopping under a nom de plume. In correspondence relating to at least two different purchases, mails to suppliers are signed Alia Kayali, but other mails to Asma's associates are unsigned. Bashar also appears to borrow an identity – that of Ayman Mikati of Fifth Avenue, New York – to shop on iTunes. Why does the Guardian believe it is justified in publishing private correspondence? We believe a number of disclosures, including evidence of Assad taking advice from Iran and receiving detailed briefings on the situation in Homs, are of clear public interest. Given the nature of the Assad regime's brutal crackdown on the Syrian people, we believe the more detailed picture of the workings of Assad's inner circle that emerges from the mails, and the extent to which he and his wife have managed to sustain their luxurious lifestyle, are also of public interest. The Guardian did not solicit the material. We have chosen not to publish personal information, including photographs and video footage belonging to the wider Akhras family, that does not relate to the activities of the first family and the way Syria is governed. We have redacted details of third parties in the emails we have published online and in print. What does the Syrian government say? When the passwords to 72 email accounts in the Syrian ministry of presidential affairs were published by hackers in February, state TV dismissed the hack as a joke and a \"childish game\". They denied that sam@alshahba.com was Bashar al-Assad's private email. Syrian officials contacted by the Guardian have refused to comment.", "chars": 7747 } }, { "id": "guardian-asma-signs-off-aaa", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria27", "category": "assad_email_excerpt", "why": "Directly relevant to AAA naming; an email excerpt where Asma signs off as “aaa”.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria27", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-asma-signs-off-aaa.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria27?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria27?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-asma-signs-off-aaa.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 3926 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria27", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria27", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-asma-signs-off-aaa.live.html", "bytes": 281306 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Assad emails: Asma signs off as 'aaa'", "author": "The Guardian", "published": "2012-03-14T18:35:34Z", "description": "From: \tAl Mayassa Al Thani\nSubject: \tRe: hello\nDate: \t14 December 2011 18:08:57 GMT\nTo: \tAK ak@alshahba.com", "body": "how can i help you? i cant imagine you agree with what is going on -- you've done such great work, it can't all be lost on the basis of weeks of bad policy? honestly -- how can we be of help?m On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:32 AM, AK wrote: My Dear Mayassa I don't have a problem with frankness or honesty, in fact to me its like oxygen - I need it to survive. Life is not fair my friend - but ultimately there is a reality we all need to deal with!!! Take care aaa On Dec 11, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Al Mayassa Al Thani wrote: Dear Asma, Thanks for your note. I did not want to give it to her before I asked, I respect your view point. Its a very difficult time now in the Arab world, the Arab Spring has resulted in foundational change of how government operate their day to day duties. Its a shame that Syria did not participate, although the IOC Syrian member was able to reflect the importance of sports at times of conflict. Your last remark i think is unfair. My father regards President Bashar as a friend, despite the current tensions - he always gave him genuine advice; the opportunity for real change and development was lost a long time ago. Nevertheless, one one opportunity closes, others open up -- and I hope its not too late for reflection and coming out of the state of denial. You may find my honesty harsh, but i am only this honest with people I consider friends and family. I think you know me by now, I speak my mind and happy to be corrected if i am misinformed. As you know, being in positions of affluence means that you are often told what you want to hear, and therefore voices of reason are rare and should not be undervalued. We are busy. Always busy -- but it is the boys that keep me on my toes! Hope your children are coping under pressure. To the better times... m On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 7:19 AM, AK wrote: Hi Good to hear from you. I would prefer that she did not get my e-mail - I use this account only for family and friends. It would be difficult for me at this stage to consider her in either category after the insults they have directed towards the president - and I do not mean the typical political accusations, which come with the job. Should she require anything, her team have my office contacts. As for the games, you may not have heard, but Doha is not a popular destination with Syrians at the moment! Too bad since you had a great opportunity to change people's views here of the gulf in general, but like all great opportunities, they are lost if you don't play your cards right. Hope your work is going well and keeping you busy - if it's not, I am sure the boys are! Take care aaa On Dec 7, 2011, at 2:48 PM, Al Mayassa Al Thani wrote: > dear asma, > how are u? i hope u are well. really, hope the kids are good too. > in a recent trip to turkey, the wife of the pm asked for your email address; she would like to write you. > i said id ask you first, please let me know if you would like me to pass on your details. > the arab games are about to begin - wasn't so long ago when we saw the doha asian games, hafez was so young but already brimming with intelligence. > its too bad syria is not going to participate. > best > m", "chars": 3198 } }, { "id": "guardian-to-asma-akhras", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria3", "category": "assad_email_excerpt", "why": "Email excerpt addressed to Asma Akhras and Sam, useful for mapping family/political communications.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria3", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-to-asma-akhras.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria3?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria3?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-to-asma-akhras.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 926 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria3", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria3", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-to-asma-akhras.live.html", "bytes": 274262 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Assad emails: 'To: Asma Akhras'", "author": "The Guardian", "published": "2012-03-15T19:29:51Z", "description": "From: \tfawaz akhras [XXXXXXXXXXXX]\nSubject: \tOmayyad Square Party\nDate: \t21 December 2011 00:45:33 GMT\nTo: \tsam , _Asma Akhras_ ", "body": "Is it true that a big New Year Party is being organised at Omayyad Square? If so is it the right time? Warmest with my respect and love xx", "chars": 138 } }, { "id": "guardian-syria-heritage-foundation-wound-up", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria1", "category": "assad_email_excerpt", "why": "Fawaz Akhras email about Syria Heritage Foundation, useful for Asma-linked institutional context.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria1", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-syria-heritage-foundation-wound-up.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria1?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria1?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-syria-heritage-foundation-wound-up.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 2372 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria1", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/15/bashar-al-assad-syria1", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-syria-heritage-foundation-wound-up.live.html", "bytes": 278945 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Assad emails: 'The Syria Heritage Foundation should be wound up'", "author": "The Guardian", "published": "2012-03-15T19:31:16Z", "description": "From: \tFawaz Akhras [XXXXXXXXXXXX]\nSubject: \tRe: Fwd: FW:\nDate: \t26 June 2011 16:37:00 BST\nTo: \tak@alshahba.com", "body": "No I received a forward xxx Sent from my iPhone On 26 Jun 2011, at 11:09, AK wrote: You were cc'd on this message....did you get it?? From: Wafic Said [XXXXXXXXXXXX] Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2011 11:24 AM To: fares kallas Cc: Lord Powell [XXXXXXXXXXXX]; Fawaz Akhras [XXXXXXXXXXXX]; [XXXXXXXXXXXX] ; [XXXXXXXXXXXX] Subject: FW: Strictly Private and Confidential My dear Fares I hope that you and your family are in the best of health. I am writing to you about the situation of the Syria Heritage Foundation given the sustained crisis in Syria. This matter is of profound concern to me and to other trustees. Indeed, Lord Powell has written to me expressing his concern. He is of the view that there is nothing that the Foundation can do to pursue its aims for the foreseeable future. I share this assessment and have regrettably come to the conclusion that the Foundation cannot carry out its work so long as the current situation persists and for some considerable period afterwards. Moreover, I find that, in my capacity as Chairman of the Syria Heritage Foundation, the media seeks comment from me, which I do not wish to give, on the situation in Syria and even on the whereabouts of HE the First Lady. I have reached the conclusion that, in the circumstances, the Syria Heritage Foundation should be wound up, its aims and objectives being unachievable in the near future. I am seeking legal advice from the Foundation's lawyers on how best to achieve this. I am deeply upset that we have reached this point. I will of course keep you informed of developments. With best wishes Wafic", "chars": 1590 } }, { "id": "guardian-abc-interview", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria26", "category": "media_strategy", "why": "Email excerpt around the ABC interview and Sheherazad Jaafari’s media-access role.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria26", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-abc-interview.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria26?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria26?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-abc-interview.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 1763 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria26", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria26", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-abc-interview.live.html", "bytes": 274516 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Assad emails: ABC interview", "author": "The Guardian", "published": "2012-03-14T18:29:23Z", "description": "From: \"Nagorski, Thomas G.\"\nDate: November 15, 2011 3:57:11 PM GMT+02:00\nTo: Sherry Jaafari <>\nSubject: RE: updates?", "body": "Wonderful to hear from you, Sheherazad. To answer your questions: We hope for an hour-long interview, in the first days of December if possible. The interview will be broadcast across ABC News platforms – including World News, Good Morning America, This Week, ABC Radio, a full edition of Nightline, and full-length treatment across the digital space (for ABC News this now includes Yahoo as well –which means you can reach as many as 100 million people. ABC News and Yahoo recently joined forces – which is another reason why so many people now bring their interviews to us). The exact dates/times for all these broadcasts depends on when the interview is done. When it was scheduled for November 13 we had planned to begin the broadcasts on our return to New York two days later (would have been today, actually), along with release of the full interview. Once again, if you have any follow-up questions you can call me anytime. All the best and please be in touch. Tom Tom Nagorski Managing Editor, International Coverage ABC News", "chars": 1033 } }, { "id": "guardian-worth-concideration", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/14/syria-bashar-al-assad3", "category": "media_strategy", "why": "Sheherazad Jaafari advice email, useful for communications strategy and image-management themes.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/syria-bashar-al-assad3", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-worth-concideration.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/syria-bashar-al-assad3?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/14/syria-bashar-al-assad3?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-worth-concideration.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 2478 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/syria-bashar-al-assad3", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/syria-bashar-al-assad3", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-worth-concideration.live.html", "bytes": 278484 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Assad emails: 'Worth concideration'", "author": "The Guardian", "published": "2012-03-14T18:22:29Z", "description": "From: \t [Sheherazad Jaafari]\nSubject: \tWorth concideration\nDate: \t14 December 2011 19:17:51 GMT\nTo: \tsam@alshahba.com", "body": "Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:20:26 -0800 From: [Bashar Jaafari] Subject: Re: To: [Sheherazad Jaafari] Dear Daughter ! I have just asked to send to you a BBC link related to an interview in English conducted with a so called former Syrian diplomat [XXXXXXXXXXXX], according to the reporter who did the interview with him . the reporter pretended that the syrian diplomat prefered to keep his identity anonymous \" fearing for his life \". the topic of the interview was the meeting of the Security Council before yesterday . the reporter aired what I said at the Steak out addressing the UN reporters , then he asked the \" anonymous diplomat to comment on what the High Commissioner for Human Rights had said as well as on my own comments . the former diplomat harshly criticized his own government ( as you will hear it from the link )accusing it of committing crimes against its own people, and then he said \" I feel sorry for my colleague Jaafari for being at this position at the service of a bloodshed regime.....\" . The BBC World Service in London called on me yesterday and asked me to comment on the defector diplomat's remarkes against his country and against myself .I rejected the offer . i checked the voice of the \" former colleague ' and could identify him beyond any doubt . [XXXXXXXXXXXX] . [XXXXXXXXXXXX] I would advise you to refer this matter to its high destination for consideration. I would recommend to deal with it very seriously because , later on , I'm quiet sure this anonymous diplomat will disclose his identity and will become out of a sudden another \" star of the Satellite channels \", and that would be used as a first prove of defection in the Syrian diplomatic corps, something that it didn't happened till now .", "chars": 1740 } }, { "id": "guardian-asma-mothers-day-speech", "guardianId": "world/2012/mar/23/asma-al-assad-mothers-day-speech", "category": "public_image", "why": "Public appearance/speech by Asma during the violence, useful for propaganda/public-image analysis.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/23/asma-al-assad-mothers-day-speech", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-asma-mothers-day-speech.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/23/asma-al-assad-mothers-day-speech?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/world/2012/mar/23/asma-al-assad-mothers-day-speech?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-asma-mothers-day-speech.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 2816 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/23/asma-al-assad-mothers-day-speech", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/23/asma-al-assad-mothers-day-speech", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-asma-mothers-day-speech.live.html", "bytes": 362780 } ], "extracted": { "title": "Asma al-Assad praises Syria's mothers in TV appearance", "author": "Ian Black, Middle East editor", "published": "2012-03-23T16:41:24Z", "description": "Syria first lady's speech to families of people who died in the violence described as 'classic propaganda' by opposition", "body": "Asma al-Assad stayed well clear of politics and chose a simple grey tunic, trousers and polo-neck sweater for her Mother's Day appearance with families of the martyrs of Syria's year of violence. The clip, broadcast by Syrian state TV, shows the first lady speaking on Wednesday to a small group of people, many of them mothers with children, in an official building in Damascus. It identified them as \"victims of terrorism\". Referring only to the \"difficult conditions\" the country is passing through, Assad maintained a philosophical tone around the theme of the role of the mother in the Syrian family and society. \"If the father goes the foundation of the home is lost, but if the mother goes the heart of the home is lost with her,\" she said. Assad made no mention of her husband but hinting at a possible future amnesty for rebels by the state, she said: \"The mother loves her children and does not distinguish between them, and even if they have made mistakes, she still loves all of them.\" The film shows women gazing emotionally at the president's wife as she speaks and then circulates, talking to guests while children draw pictures and paint their faces with the colours of the Syrian flag. \"When a mother is lost the meaning of life goes and we feel that our souls will break. Nothing can compensate us,\" Speaking in informal Syrian dialect, Assad urged the audience to \"preserve the love which our mothers put inside us and spread it all over the country\". The carefully edited clip ends with a song by the popular Lebanese performer Fairouz and Assad's fervent wish: \"May god protect Syria and all its people.\" Syrian opposition sources said the film gave a rare glimpse of the president's wife performing her official duties and appeared designed to bolster her image after embarrassing revelations in leaked emails published by the Guardian last week. \"They want her to look strong and passionate and emotional,\" one activist said. \"It's classic propaganda.\"", "chars": 1975 } }, { "id": "guardian-media-fooled-assads", "guardianId": "commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad", "category": "retrospective_media_image", "why": "Post-fall reflection on how media narratives glamorised Bashar and Asma, including the Vogue profile.", "originalUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/guardian-media-fooled-assads.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "guardian-api", "url": "https://content.guardianapis.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "resolvedUrl": "https://content.guardianapis.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad?api-key=test&show-fields=headline,trailText,bodyText,byline,firstPublicationDate", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/json", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-media-fooled-assads.guardian-api.json", "bytes": 5204 }, { "kind": "live-html", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad", "resolvedUrl": "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/how-media-was-fooled-bashar-asma-al-assad", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/guardian-media-fooled-assads.live.html", "bytes": 326212 } ], "extracted": { "title": "They ‘didn’t look the type’: how the media was fooled by Bashar and Asma al-Assad", "author": "Zoe Williams", "published": "2024-12-09T17:59:34Z", "description": "Some journalists underestimated the threat of the brutal president, while his first lady was glamorised in a Vogue feature, writes Zoe Williams", "body": "As Bashar al-Assad is ousted as Syria’s brutal president, his wife Asma and children having fled to Russia shortly before, the scenes are too astonishing to settle. We can’t call it a finished revolution, but we can call Assad’s a finished regime and mark the end of the Syrian civil war: 13 years of heinous bloodshed; 580,000 people killed – more than 230,000 of them civilians, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which attributes about 90% of those non-combatant deaths to Assad’s forces. He never looked the type, foreign correspondents say. Adrian Blomfield in the Telegraph calls Assad “awkward and gangly, his mannerisms unassuming”. John Simpson found him “meek and anxious to please”. And who could forget how un-bloodthirsty, how incongruous, Asma al-Assad looked? Neat and understated, like a wife in a miniseries. When the Syrian spring erupted in 2011, Vogue magazine ran a profile of Asma al-Assad titled A Rose in the Desert. Her husband had already killed more than 5,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, when Asma was described as “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies”. The journalist, Joan Juliet Buck, went on to note that “her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment”. It caused uproar at the time. Vogue defended it initially, but later erased it from its archive, and for a long time the only online record of the piece was on a now defunct Assad fan site. Buck disavowed it, saying she had filed the words in January; Assad’s crackdowns, which led to global calls for his resignation, didn’t start until February. The defence was a little weak, given that Assad had been ruling Syria as a totalitarian police state since he took office in 2000, but the uproar wasn’t really about the journalist herself – who later called Asma al-Assad “the first lady of hell” – it was more a collective realisation that the carefree long 90s were over. The world had got serious, and whatever the new job of geopolitical storytelling was, postmodernism wasn’t up to it. You could no longer look at a repressive leader’s wife and note how elegantly she accessorised: “no watch, no jewellery apart from Chanel agates around her neck, not even a wedding ring, but fingernails lacquered a dark blue-green”. Or at least, that’s what it felt like that scandal was about at first. In retrospect, the Asma al-Assad profile wasn’t just closing one chapter of history; it was also opening another. The Assad family, it later emerged, had paid an American PR firm, Brown Lloyd James, $5,000 a month to broker that article. Even if it would be another two years before Assad used chemical weapons against his own people – that was 2013, prompting yet more international outrage, to similar lack of effect – he would already have been well aware that his rule did not constitute anything the wider world would call democratic or laudable. It was basically a provocation to the global liberal establishment, as mediated through its style bible: how far are you prepared to turn a blind eye, for the right kind of access? Of course there was never any suggestion that Vogue had been paid to run the piece; rather, that proximity to the mad wealth of the Assads, being allowed to press its nose against the palace windows, was initially enough to make a magazine overlook the human rights violations and concentrate on the glamour. Vladimir Putin was, around the same time, trying to cast himself as an action hero, releasing photos of himself on horseback, bare-chested, on a Harley, with a tiger. Who needs to have a stick up their arse about kleptocracy when it looks like so much fun? If an autocrat doesn’t look or act like one, if he looks instead like a giraffe (as people said about Bashar al-Assad), or a joker, or a clown, or a reality TV showman, maybe it won’t be such a bad life under him after all. This impunity seems so obvious now – despots were just taunting the international democratic order with how flaky and negotiable its values were. But at the time it was bewildering. • Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist", "chars": 4122 } }, { "id": "vogue-asma-rose-in-the-desert", "category": "public_image_profile", "title": "Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert", "originalUrl": "https://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20110225204927id_/http://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/", "waybackUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20110225204927/http://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/", "archiveTimestamp": "2011-02-25T20:49:27Z", "why": "The infamous Vogue profile that framed Asma as “a rose in the desert”; central to Western image-making around her.", "extractor": "vogue", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/vogue-asma-rose-in-the-desert.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "wayback-html", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20110225204927id_/http://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/", "resolvedUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20110225204927id_/http://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/", "status": 200, "contentType": "text/html; charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/vogue-asma-rose-in-the-desert.archive.html", "bytes": 81333 } ], "extracted": { "title": "VOGUE", "author": "Joan Juliet Buck / Vogue", "published": "2011-02", "chars": 19415 } }, { "id": "eui-role-of-philanthropy-syrian-war", "category": "syria_trust_ngos", "title": "The Role of Philanthropy in the Syrian War: Regime-Sponsored NGOs and Armed Group Charities", "originalUrl": "https://cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e8d2bef-90be-5c3b-be41-d2f4322e5646/content", "archiveUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251114021212id_/https://cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e8d2bef-90be-5c3b-be41-d2f4322e5646/content", "waybackUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251114021212/https://cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e8d2bef-90be-5c3b-be41-d2f4322e5646/content", "archiveTimestamp": "2025-11-14T02:12:12Z", "why": "Open academic source on regime-sponsored NGOs, Syria Trust, and Asma al-Assad’s civil-society/philanthropy network.", "extractedPath": "sources/archived/extracted/eui-role-of-philanthropy-syrian-war.md", "raw": [ { "kind": "wayback-pdf", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251114021212id_/https://cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e8d2bef-90be-5c3b-be41-d2f4322e5646/content", "resolvedUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20251114021212id_/https://cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e8d2bef-90be-5c3b-be41-d2f4322e5646/content", "status": 200, "contentType": "application/pdf;charset=UTF-8", "path": "sources/archived/raw/eui-role-of-philanthropy-syrian-war.archive.pdf", "bytes": 796905 }, { "kind": "pdf-text", "url": 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