Assad emails reveal Syrian leader's private life

(Image: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images)
Members of Anonymous regularly publish information gained from its hacking activities in order to rectify perceived injustices. But it seems that the recent leak of several Syrian government emails has actually done more harm than good: it exposed the fact that Syrian rebels had access to the email accounts of President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma.
The secret emails intercepted by members of the Syrian opposition claim to reveal the luxurious lifestyle led by Assad's family. While his regime suppressed protests across the country, killing over 8,000 Syrians in the past year, Assad used iTunes to purchase music and apps for his iPad and his wife spent more than £10,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris.
The Guardian newspaper yesterday published a selection of the 3,000 emails it received from an unnamed Syrian rebel. Activists were given access to two accounts, sam@alshahba.com for Bashar al-Assad and ak@alshahba.com for Asma al-Assad, in March last year by a government worker in Damascus.
For nine months they monitored the private accounts, gathering information on Assad's plans as well as his strategies for dealing with western journalists, while his wife exchanged photos with their family and shopped online. Their surveillance came to an end on February 7 this year however, following the Anonymous leak - it seems the hacktivist group's actions alerted Assad, with correspondence to and from both accounts ceasing on the same day.

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