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When Bashar al-Assad took over as President of Syria, he had a glamorous British-born bride and medical training in the U.K., and the popular belief was that he would take a more liberal approach than his father. But his brutal crackdown on the Syrian uprising in the past year has shown that can be just as ruthless as his father. Here are some images from the lives of Bashar and Asma al-Assad

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Reuters

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Queen Elizabeth greets Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma at Buckingham Palace in December, 2002. Assad and his wife visited Buckingham Palace as part of a three-day visit to Britain during which he met with Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street.

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