Major General Maher Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: مَاهِرُ ٱلْأَسَدِ, romanized: Māhir al-ʾAsad, born 8 December 1967) is a Syrian former military officer who served as commander of the Syrian Army's elite 4th Armoured Division, which, together with Syria's Military Intelligence, formed the core of the Ba'athist regime's security forces until its collapse in 2024. He is the younger brother of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and also was a member of the Central Committee of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. At the onset of the Syrian Revolution, Maher was thought by some to be the second-most powerful man in Syria after his brother Bashar, the president. Maher is considered a regime hardliner, who reportedly favored the crackdown against the Damascus Spring movement and has been implicated in UN reports of orchestrating the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Maher oversaw the crackdown against Syrian protestors at Daraa, which led to the US and the European Union announcing sanctions against him. Maher is described by analysts as preferring Iran (as opposed to Russia) to play the largest role as the Syrian Government's main ally during the Syrian Civil War and subsequent post-war reconstruction. This is in contrast to the position of Major General Suheil al-Hassan, commander of the 25th Special Mission Forces Division who has gained much influence as a result of his activities during the Syrian Civil War, who was reported as preferring Russia. However, it was reported in 2021 that Maher was part of the Ba'athist faction that demanded the end of Iranian presence in Syria, so as to promote regional rapprochement with neighboring Arab countries. Maher al-Assad also supervised operations of the Shabiha squads, pro-Assad Alawite paramilitaries known for sectarian attacks against Sunni civilians. As the commander of Fourth Armoured Division, Maher is directly involved in the production, trafficking and export operations of Syria's multi-billion dollar drug empire, which mostly smuggles an illegal drug known as Captagon. In the aftermath of the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, which led to the fall of the Assad regime and the exile of his brother Bashar, Reuters reported that Maher had fled to Russia via Iraq. Source: Wikipedia (en)