Leaked footage shows Bashar al-Assad saying ‘to hell with Ghouta’

In an exclusive video obtained by Al Arabiya, Syria’s ousted president Bashar al-Assad is seen telling his media advisor “to hell with Ghouta.”

In the video, which shows al-Assad driving in an unknown location in Syria, Luna al-Shibl asks the former president: “We are about to leave Ghouta, what will we say,” to which he laughs and says: “to hell with Ghouta.”

In June 2018, UN investigators said forces loyal to Syria’s government committed what amounted to crimes against humanity, including deliberately starving civilians, during the five-year siege of Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of the capital.

While the date of the videos is unclear, one video suggests they have been most likely recorded shortly after Damascus regained control of Ghouta in April 2018. The video shows al-Assad greeting soldiers and congratulating them as some kiss his hand and tell him “May Allah protect you.”

Al-Shibl appears to mock the soldiers, telling al-Assad: “Everyone ends up kissing the hand.”

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Al-Assad and al-Shibl also poke fun at Brigadier General Suheil al-Hassan.

Nicknamed “The Tiger,” al-Hassan led the country’s special forces and was frequently described as al-Assad’s “favorite soldier.”

He was responsible for key military advances by the Syrian government in 2015.

In one of the leaked videos, al-Shibl asks al-Assad if he saw al-Hassan’s photos at Mount Qasioun and calls him “the tiger of Qasioun.”

“He took photos — and he had Russian escorts with him. It wasn’t a nice sight… Standing atop Mount Qasioun, ‘Qasioun’s Tiger.’ We haven’t even finished with the ‘Lion of Diplomacy’,” al-Shibl said.

Al-Assad laughs and tells al-Shibl that if he wants to change his name, “he’d have to look for a new animal,” to which al-Shibl replies: “They are the animals.”

In another leaked video, al-Shibl brags about Syria’s military capabilities and downplays the street tactics of Lebanon’s Hezbollah which sent thousands of fighters to prop up al-Assad and his forces at the start of the uprising in Syria in 2011.

“We also have missiles. The Syrian army has learned and gained expertise that it can now teach to other armies. The Russians have said this. In the beginning, Hezbollah used to say, ‘We are the masters of street warfare; we can do it.’ But now they’re quiet, we no longer hear a sound from them,” she said.

Al-Shibl, who died in July 2024 after being injured in a car crash, also asked al-Assad how he feels when he sees his posters in the streets of Syria.

“Honestly, I don’t feel anything… my eyes don’t see them, and neither does my mind,” al-Assad said.

On December 8, Syria marks a year since a lightning offensive toppled al-Assad.

Following his ouster, al-Assad fled to Russia, following 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s brutal rule.

with agencies

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