Syrian rebels are hunting one of the most wanted members of the fallen regime: the sadistic brother of deposed president Bashar Al-Assad, nicknamed ‘The Executioner’, feared throughout the war-torn nation for his brutality.
Maher Hafez al-Assad was abandoned by his brother when the dictator fled the country his family had ruled for decades, and was left to fend for himself as Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters approached the capital .
Assad’s younger brother had clearly been preparing for a quick escape, with a vast network of tunnels found beneath his mansions which the rebels said were ‘Ready with ventilation, living rooms, bedrooms, locks and metal doors.’
He is now presumed to be on the run, with reports that he may have escaped through the tunnels and fled to Iraq by helicopter before heading to Moscow, where his family has invested millions of dollars in property.
The 57-year-old’s new life as a fugitive will be a far cry from the life of luxury he and his wife Manal had become accustomed to as Syria was reduced to poverty by war and corruption.
While their people suffered, the Assads amassed billions during their half-century of despotic rule, and now their vast palaces have been ransacked as Syrians seek to reclaim what they consider rightfully theirs.
Rebels and civilians seeking revenge for the suffering Maher contributed to have now raided his palatial homes, including his mountaintop summer home, uncovering everything from watches, photo albums and DVDs of Jennifer Lopez.
Interestingly, among the discarded possessions found in his office were reported to be Phyto Andro pills, which the package describes as “a powerful 100 percent natural libido and sexual wellness supplement” that “unleashes the stud within you.”
Maher Hafez al-Assad, 57, has been nicknamed ‘The Enforcer’ for his brutal role as the regime’s military commander.
Maher (left) was the youngest son of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. The family appears in the photo in 1985.
Huge tunnel complex discovered in Maher al-Assad’s mansion
A view of a mansion belonging to Maher al-Assad.
Most of the contents of his residences, like those of his brother, were quickly looted by the first people who entered them after the fall of the regime on December 8.
“Maher is like a big scary ghost,” said Hassan Eid, 32, one of those who broke into one of the military commander’s homes north of Damascus.
‘His name is like a horror story. “He was like a big vampire, except he sucked dollars,” he told the Times while kicking empty boxes of Omega watches.
Maher flew by helicopter to Iraq and then to Russia, a source told Reuters. Iraq has denied reports that he escaped to Baghdad.
France issued an arrest warrant for Maher last year for “complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes” for his alleged involvement in chemical weapons attacks.
Maher, along with his brother and two other high-ranking officials, are wanted over the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, in which rockets containing sarin gas were used against civilians in opposition-held suburbs near Damascus.
His younger brother, one of Assad’s closest lieutenants, led the bloody crackdown on protesters in 2011 and is believed to have been responsible for the killing of more than 1,000 civilians in the first gas attack of the war.
He had been considered the most ruthless within the Assad family, a “tough guy” compared to his studious brother Bashar, but too irascible and impetuous to take power from his father.
Syrians have invaded Assad’s residences in the days since the regime fell.
Aerial view of a villa in Al Dimas, identified as a drug production center linked to Maher al-Assad.
Since the collapse of the decades-long Baath regime on December 8, drug manufacturing centers across Syria have been steadily uncovered.
Instead, just as his uncle did with his father, Maher took on the role of “enforcer,” working to keep his older brother in power by any means necessary.
He ran the regime’s lucrative drugs empire (worth a staggering £1.9bn) and headed the Army’s elite 4th Armored Division and Republican Guard, which oversaw the defense of Damascus.
He had been planning to take a final stand in the city of Homs, informing his brother of the plans on the morning of December 7, The Times reports.
She was unable to reach him that afternoon and was able to track him down to al-Mazzeh military airport, where she found her brother ready to board a plane to the Russian-controlled Hmeimim base, from where he would fly to Moscow.
According to unverified accounts, the hot-headed Maher was last seen arguing with his brother as he prepared to board the flight.
A Syrian rebel fighter displays Captagon pills hidden in a fake fruit at a manufacturing factory in the city of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, Syria, on December 14.
When his forces realized they had been abandoned by the president, who reportedly urged his army to hold out just hours before fleeing, the last line of defense collapsed, and with it, the Baathist regime.
In the days since the regime collapsed, raids on residences and facilities owned by Assad have revealed the wealth hoarded by the family.
The rebels late last week discovered a large haul of an addictive amphetamine-like stimulant called Captagon, nicknamed “poor man’s cocaine.”
The pills were found hidden inside electrical components intended for export in a raid on a warehouse in a quarry on the outskirts of Damascus.
An anti-regime fighter tears down a banner depicting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) and his brother Maher at the airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024.
In a cavernous garage beneath the warehouse and loading docks, thousands of dusty beige Captagon tablets were packed into the copper coils of new home voltage stabilizers.
‘We found a large number of devices that were filled with packets of Captagon pills intended to be smuggled out of the country. It is a huge amount. It is impossible to know,” said masked fighter Abu Malek al-Shami.
Upstairs in the warehouse, cardboard boxes were set up to allow traffickers to disguise their cargo as pallets of standard goods, along with bags and bags of caustic soda.
An HTS fighter claimed that they had “destroyed and burned” a huge amount of drugs found on the grounds of the Mazzeh air base and seen by journalists burning in a large bonfire.
Proceeds from the sale of Captagon helped prop up the Assad government during Syria’s 13-year civil war, to the point that Syria has been described as a “narco-state.”
The US State Department estimates that the Assad family is worth $2 billion and their wealth is hidden in numerous accounts, shell companies, offshore tax havens and real estate portfolios.
Photographs have emerged of the Assads’ abandoned homes after a dramatic week in which opposition fighters took over Damascus, sealing the stunning fall of the Syrian dictator’s brutal regime.
Following the capture of Damascus, Hayyet Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group leading the rebel factions, said on Telegram that it was the end of a dark era.
The rebels arrived in the Syrian capital on December 8 for the first time since the region was recaptured by government troops in 2018, and immediately targeted Assad’s official and family residences, where looting was already taking place.
Images emerged showing empty, smoke-blackened rooms around the Tishreen presidential palace, and yesterday rebel fighters sought revenge against late president Hafez Al-Assad by setting fire to his grave.
Hafez’s son and his wider family have left their homeland in disgrace and will begin a new life in exile, most likely without the luxuries to which they have become accustomed.