Assad’s uncle: ‘terrorist’ rebels behind chemical attack

President Bashar al-Assad‘s uncle doesn’t know what to say about his nephew these days.  On the one hand, they fell out long ago and haven’t spoken for 12 years.

On the other, after trying to insert himself into the opposition back in 2011, he now describes the rebels as terrorists.

They return the compliment: Rifaat al-Assad, younger brother of President Bashar’s father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, is regarded as one of the most brutal and corrupt of the Assad clan.

Known as “the Butcher of Hama,” for his role in the crushing of a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in 1982, he’s been in exile for nearly 30 years after a failed coup attempt.

Yet, as he put it to me “family is the most important thing,” and he more than anyone understands how the Syrian regime operates.

Read more: Russia urges Syria to hand over its chemical weapons

For a start, he doesn’t believe German intelligence reports that President Bashar’s younger brother Maher, who commands the republican guard, ordered chemical weapons strikes without the president’s knowledge.

Such a decision would have to follow the hierarchy, he said.

“Maher in particular cannot do that. He doesn’t know how to use chemical weapons and he doesn’t think that way. I know the truth very well.

“All this talk about Maher is far from the truth. It’s not logical. Above him is the president, the vice-president, prime minister, government, head of the army, reconnaissance.”

He gave the impression that President al-Assad controls the regime, but cannot act without the agreement of others in the inner circle.

But Rifaat believes the rebels are more likely than the regime to have used chemical weapons.

“If the regime wanted to use such weapons it wouldn’t use them in such a restricted way but more extensively,” he said.

He should know: in Hama the regime showed no mercy, even destroying the central Sunni mosque, and killing an estimated 20,000 people, mostly civilians.

I met Rifaat in his Paris home just near the Arc de Triomphe. He denied recent newspaper reports that said he had sold it for 100 million euros.

We were in a walnut-panelled ante-room lined with renaissance style paintings (I don’t think they were originals).

A cabinet featured antique Syrian dark red glass and silver jugs – I made the mistake of admiring one, and had to insist very firmly that I didn’t want to take it away.

Read more: Inside the Assad regime

 Rifaat is a very wealthy man, with several properties in Mayfair as well as Paris. He told me he bought his first London property for $5m and sold it for $50m.

One of his children, he said, had made $100m from buying and selling property in London. The British government had been good to him, and so had the French.

“President Mitterand was a great friend,” he said, pointing to the small badge in the shape of a rose he was wearing in his lapel, the emblem of the knighthood he received from the French government in 1986.

He is related by marriage to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia – I put it to him that might make for awkward dinner table conversation as the Saudis are arming and backing the rebels he calls ‘terrorists’.

“I don’t believe the Saudis are dealing with terrorists or the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I think the Saudis are dealing with them on the basis of knowing them and separating the good from the bad, distinguishing between the real opposition and the real defectors and the terrorists, invaders and strangers who come to kill the Syrian people.”

He opposes US air strikes which he fears would harm civilians – a worry that may invoke hollow laughter in Hama. I pointed out that his friends, the Saudis, were in favour.

“Why doesn’t Saudi Arabia itself attack?”

Syria, it seemed to me, is less of a dictatorship and more of a mafia state. To Rifaat al-Assad’s way of thinking, family and clan trumps all other loyalties.

“The regime is with its family and friends,” he said. “These foreigners who come and attack us have no families.”

A fight within the family is the most vicious of all, of course.  But Rifaat lost the fight within the Assad clan long ago.

Now he sits in panelled splendour in Europe, wondering how his lanky nephew got the power he craved, and denying to the end his role in the brutality that the Assads have made their trademark.