Assef Shawkat

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Assef Shawkat (Arabic: آصف شوكت, romanized: ʾĀṣif Šawkat‎; 15 January 1950 – 18 July 2012) was a Syrian military officer and intelligence chief who was the Deputy Minister of Defense of Syria from September 2011 until his death in July 2012. He was the brother-in-law of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, having married his older sister Bushra. He and three other top Syrian government officials were killed on 18 July 2012 in Damascus during a deadly bomb attack allegedly organized by the Free Syrian Army, a coalition of Syrian opposition rebel groups. Shawkat was a key suspect in a terrorist attack in Beirut that killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri on 14 February 2005. US Department of Treasury had sanctioned Shawkat in 2006 for orchestrating the assassination, describing him as "a key architect" of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

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