BEIRUT (AP) — Personal photos of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad have surfaced from his abandoned residences, sparking ridicule among Syrians who until days ago were persecuted for criticizing his carefully crafted public image.
The intimate and candid photos, reportedly discovered in albums from Assad’s mansions in the hills of Damascus and Aleppo, offer a stark contrast to the polished, glamorous image that Assad and his father projected as they led Syria for half a century.
Syrians have been fascinated by the background glimpses of a seemingly normal family that held the country in an iron grip and bombed some their fellow citizens regarded as a threat. The sharing of photos has become an extension of the dazed first hours after Assad's ouster a week ago, when everyday Syrians wandered the presidential palace and its disheveled signs of a rapid departure. Assad has been granted asylum in Russia.
For many Syrians who had endured forced imprisonment, displacement and oppression under the Assads, the photos serve as both a spectacle and a chance to exhale, even laugh.
One photo shows Assad’s father, Hafez, in his underwear, striking a bodybuilder-like pose. Other images show Bashar Assad in a Speedo flexing his biceps, astride a motorcycle in his briefs and staring blankly in a kitchen, wearing underwear and a sleeveless undershirt.
“What is it with the Assad family and being photographed in their underwear? Highly interested in knowing the fantasy behind,” journalist Hussam Hammoud wrote on X.
In the photos, Syrians can see the ophthalmologist in Assad and not the leader. In one, he's on a balcony teasing a girl sitting on his shoulders. In another, a young Assad places a ring on his wife's finger. In a third, he's seemingly taking a selfie.
Social media footage also has shown Syrians touring the Assads' opulent estates, revealing extravagant decor and possessions out of reach for many who lived through the country's civil war since 2011. Assad’s wife, once featured in Vogue, epitomized the sophistication and luxury, and Syrians have uncovered jewelry boxes and designer goods.
Fueled by decades of persecution and a desire for vengeance, people have stripped the mansions of valuables and further exposed Assad’s private world.
Follow the AP’s Syria coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/syria
FILE.- A man shows old pictures of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad as civilians ransack the private residence of overthrown President Bashar Assad in the Malkeh district of Damascus, Syria, on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed,File)
FILE.- A man shows old pictures of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad as people search for belongings in the ransacked private residence of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Malkeh district of Damascus, Syria, on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed,File)
It's been a very long time since vendors sold the American chestnut on city sidewalks. It's no longer the variety whose smell some people associate with Christmastime as it wafts from street carts. Because it's virtually extinct.
But memories of the American chestnut's legacy keep resurfacing for the researchers who want to bring it back. They describe its wood that paneled the homes and schoolrooms of their grandparents, or the photographs of men on the street corners of old Baltimore, with hot bags of nuts cooked on charcoal.
“You can feel that connection to a place, and that connection to utility, and the connection to the importance that this tree played in virtually every aspect of the lives of people,” said Sara Fern Fitzsimmons, chief conservation officer with The American Chestnut Foundation, which is working to restore the tree to flourish as it once did.
Fitzsimmons said that will likely take a lot longer than many chestnut enthusiasts had hoped. Researchers have hit roadblocks with attempts to breed or genetically modify a version that can withstand the invasive blight that has hammered the species since the early 1900s. If and when they do find the right variety, they'll need to figure out how to plant it and help it thrive in forests that are under pressure from climate change, globalization and development.
Once a hallmark of forests from Georgia to New England, American chestnuts now exist mostly as a vast network of root systems underground, sending up shoots. They grow for a time, but the fungal blight takes hold when the trees start maturing. East Asian varieties, like those that introduced the blight in the first place, are immune to the blight, and produce most of the edible chestnuts for fall and winter snacking.
Still, American chestnut trees are better suited for timber, they're culturally loved by people all over North America and they used to be an important species for the ecological health of forests, providing a reliable source of nutritious food and shelter for wildlife and humans alike. “It was really a pretty significant species to lose,” said Amy Brunner, an associate professor at Virginia Tech who works on the tree's genetics. “The more diversity you lose, the less resilient that forest ecosystem is.”
The American Chestnut Foundation, among others, has been trying for decades to breed a hybrid that is mostly American in genetics but with the fungus-fighting traits of the Chinese type. Fitzsimmons said breeders have learned just how difficult that is — blight resistance involves several different genes and it has proven hard to separate them from the traits that distinguish Chinese chestnuts.
To speed the process, some scientists have been working on genetically modifying American chestnuts to see if they can boost their immunity that way instead. But progress was delayed by a recent mix-up involving two versions of a genetically modified American chestnut that scientists at State University of New York had hoped could get through the regulatory process as soon as this year.
“It kind of stinks that it happened because now it’s taking a little bit longer than we had hoped," said Linda McGuigan, a research support specialist at the university. But scientists there and elsewhere are continuing to pursue many avenues.
“I don’t think you will get there, to all you desire, without both,” Brunner said, referring to the two main methods of breeding and genetic modification. Breeding is vital for achieving enough genetic diversity for trees to adapt to a changing world, she said, but added that she thinks some genetic manipulation will be needed to get to enough blight resistance for American chestnuts to stand a chance.
Meanwhile, other scientists are working on projects to tackle another big challenge ahead for chestnuts: where to plant them. If a successful tree is cobbled together with genes taken from trees from Tennessee to New York, where would it have the best chance at surviving, given how a warming planet is changing habitat around the world?
A team at Virginia Tech published a paper this summer to try to answer that question. They looked at 32 climate variables and compared them to projected future climates, then calculated the shortest distance that regionally specific American chestnuts would have to move to offset warming. The idea was to one day help them survive a new climate while keeping them as close as possible to where they once thrived.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say it’s revolutionary" for teams at The American Chestnut Foundation, said Fitzsimmons, who contributed data to the project. She said the project will help them better figure out where to collect genes from the immature trees that remain across the country.
Tom Kimmerer, a forest scientist who taught at the University of Kentucky, is working on a book about trees including the American chestnut. Kimmerer, who was not involved in the research, called it “robust and well supported” and “critically important to the success of the chestnut.”
Stacy Clark, a research forester at the U.S. Forest Service, said the findings are useful, but added that they need to be backed up with real-world experiments. “I think with advancements in genetics, they can probably get pretty fast data off of those field trials. But still, all of that takes time and effort, right?"
For now, forest scientists know their work might not pay off in their lifetimes. It's a lesson that became clear for the community when pioneering chestnut restoration experts Bill Powell and Chuck Maynard both died in the past 13 months. McGuigan supported both of their research for years as lab manager at SUNY's college of environmental science and forestry.
“The project moves on, lives on. And we honor their memory,” McGuigan said. “I want to do something good for the future, for my children."
Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
A vender displays chestnuts on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alyssa Goodman)
FILE - Genetically modified chestnuts are labeled, weighed and bagged before being placed into cold storage at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science & Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus, File)
FILE - Andy Newhouse, left, and William Powell harvest genetically modified chestnut samples at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science & Forestry's Lafayette Road Experiment Station in Syracuse, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus, File)
FILE - An unmodified, open-pollinated American chestnut bur grows on a tree at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science & Forestry Lafayette Road Experiment Station in Syracuse, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus, File)
Chestnuts are displayed at a food vendor as a person dressed as Santa Claus offers rides, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alyssa Goodman)
