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Aniseh Makhlouf, Syria's former first lady and the mother of current President Bashar Assad, died Saturday, the presidency announced. She was 86.
A statement on the presidency's official Facebook page says Makhlouf, the wife of the late President Hafez Assad, died in the Syrian capital Damascus.
Makhlouf was born in 1930 to a prominent and wealthy Alawite family from the coastal province of Latakia in the heartland of the religious minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
She married Hafez in 1957 when he was an air force lieutenant and rarely appeared in public after he became president in 1971. Although she kept a low profile, she was known to be the family matriarch and exerted strong influence over her husband and children.
"She was to prove a devoted wife and mother and Assad's closest and most trusted confidante, providing him with a domestic environment of unquestioned respectability," wrote Assad's late biographer Patrick Seale in his book "Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East."
Aniseh Makhlouf, Syria's former first lady and the mother of current President Bashar Assad, died Saturday, the presidency announced. She was 86.
A statement on the presidency's official Facebook page says Makhlouf, the wife of the late President Hafez Assad, died in the Syrian capital Damascus.
Makhlouf was born in 1930 to a prominent and wealthy Alawite family from the coastal province of Latakia in the heartland of the religious minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
She married Hafez in 1957 when he was an air force lieutenant and rarely appeared in public after he became president in 1971. Although she kept a low profile, she was known to be the family matriarch and exerted strong influence over her husband and children.
"She was to prove a devoted wife and mother and Assad's closest and most trusted confidante, providing him with a domestic environment of unquestioned respectability," wrote Assad's late biographer Patrick Seale in his book "Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East."
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