In for the kill

摘要

Bashar assad likes to be seen. In Damascus, the Syrian President is often spotted dining at a smart restaurant with his wife Asma or driving his family to their weekend retreat in the mountains. Since succeeding his father Hafez as President in 2000, Assad has left the dirty work of running Syria's ruthless intelligence and security organs to two members of his clan—his brother Maher, 37, commander of the Presidential Guard, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, 55, chief of Syrian military intelligence. They haven't always got along. About five years ago, Maher shot Shawkat in the stomach during a family dispute. Assad played the conciliator and eventually brought Shawkat, who is married to Assad's sister, into the family's ruling troika. Since then Maher and Shawkat have become a feared and shadowy duo, their lives bound together by a shared aversion to publicity and a willingness to use violence to settle scores. "The best way to understand Syria," says a veteran foreign-policy hand in Washington, "is to check out the season collection of The Sopranos."