Bashar al-Assad is the President of Syria as of 2007. He is the son of Hafez al-Assad, the previous President, and is the Regional Secretary for the Baath Party.
Bashar al-Assad was born in Damascus, Syria on September 11th, 1965. Although he was not interested in politics growing up, the death of his older brother, whom his father had been preparing to become the next President of Syria, made him the next option. Many members of Bashar al-Assad's family are involved in Syrian national politics.
Bashar al-Assad has not had much political experience - before becoming President of Syria, he had only been the head of the Syrian Computer Society, a government body responsible for bringing the Internet to the country. Bashar al-Assad has not make any significant changes to the state of politics in Syria, as the Baath Party has stayed in control of the country and the reforms that he promised at the beginning of his rule have not occurred.
Bashar al-Assad has been accused of supporting terrorist groups by Israel and by the State Department of the United States of America. He has criticized Israel and Zionists in speeches and opposed the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. There has also been friction between Syria and Lebanon over the influence of Syria on Lebanese politics and economy. Though Syria has pulled out the troops that they had stationed in Lebanon over the years between 2000 and 2005, a crisis occurred in 2005 where Syria was blamed for the death of the Lebanese Prime Minister. Bashar al-Assad has been blamed for being involved in the Prime Minister's assassination by his former Vice President, Abdul Halim Khaddam. Bashar al-Assad has denied these allegations and stated his opposition to those who were involved in the Lebanese Prime Minister's death. As of early 2007, the controversy remains unresolved.