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World

‘Bashar was my friend’: the former Assad minister on why he didn’t flee Syria

25 January 2025

4:30 PM

25 January 2025

4:30 PM

Amr Salem mingles cheerfully with foreign investors and members of Syria’s interim government in a five-star hotel in Damascus, and why not? Salem’s disposition, clothing, and manners fit the scene. Yet Salem was, in fact, a minister in Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the officials he warmly greets are members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), with whom the regime fought a brutal 14-year-long civil war.

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