"Bashar al-Assad is laughing. Four days after an earthquake devastated northwest Syria, President Assad and his wife Asma visited sites of destruction..."

"... and survivors in regime-held Aleppo. This was Assad’s first public appearance after the natural disaster struck. He was not solemn. He was literally laughing."

From "Basking in adulation, how Assad is exploiting the earthquake/The disaster has let the Syrian dictator erase evidence of the regime’s heinous crimes, while brazenly demanding funds for reconstruction" (London Times).

Assad, 57, was filmed in a destroyed neighbourhood surrounded by cheering men as he shook their hands in the crowd. One man shouts that Aleppo is now no longer devastated because Assad is there. Assad laughs. The man asks for a selfie. The selfie of a laughing Assad is widely shared on social media. Assad and Asma, 47, then visit a hospital, where they exchange kisses with a crowd of women. 

This is Syria’s Assad, the same dictator who has been butchering his people for more than a decade. Until the day of the earthquake, Assad’s air force — with Russian support — continued to bomb the opposition-held northwest, the area which was also worst hit by the natural disaster. Assad had always wanted the area destroyed, its people killed. The earthquake came and gave his deadly mission a tactical gain. His loyalists circulated online messages saying that divine intervention had saved Assad the cost of barrel bombs....