Syrian chocolate advertisement mocks Bashar al-Assad's escape

Nearly three months after the collapse of his regime, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continues to be ridiculed by Syrians, even on television. A commercial from a local chocolate brand recently aired on TV mocked the hasty escape of the former dictator on the eve of the rebels entering Damascus.

In this advertisement for "Rollana," three men are seen debating on a couch about the different ways Assad could have escaped. "How could he have escaped without disguising himself?" asks one of them, before imagining a series of ridiculous outfits that would have allowed him to pass unnoticed. Assad is believed to have fled through the Russian air base of Hmeimim, near Latakia, from where he would have boarded a plane with his family to Russia, without informing his closest collaborators within the regime.

Assad is then portrayed in multiple costumes: his father, Adolf Hitler, a pirate, a clown, a woman, or "a devil" — which was portrayed as Assad dressed in a normal three-piece suit.

"It would have been impossible for him to flee in a normal car, he must have taken an ambulance... or a hearse!" the discussion continues.

Before this costume scene, the ad features a Bashar al-Assad lookalike in a luxurious palace, sitting in front of a series of portraits of himself, hastily opening a drawer to pull out a folder titled "Private Photo Album" and a collection of white underwear to pack in his suitcase. "But I told them whoever runs away is a coward," he tells a female interlocutor at the other end of a gold phone line.

Intimate photos of the fallen Syrian president in his underwear had widely circulated after rebels and civilians entered and ransacked Assad's residence in the center of Damascus.

"Now imagine how Maher [Assad's brother] escaped... if you want us to talk about Maher ya mo'allem, you'll need four more chocolates," retorts one of the men on the couch, before the commercial ends with a shot showing Bashar al-Assad's head emerging from a manhole saying on the phone to his wife: "Hello? Asma darling, I forgot the photo album."

Another humorous video montage imagines the president in exile, converted to an Uber driver in Moscow, listening to the propaganda song "God, Syria, Bashar," has also garnered amused reactions.

During a recent meeting between Russian officials and Syria's new transitional power in Damascus about maintaining Russian military bases in Syria, the potential extradition of Assad back to Syria was discussed. However, this topic was only touched upon on the sidelines of the discussions, according to a source close to the talks cited by Reuters, suggesting it was not a major obstacle to normalizing relations between the two governments. So far, Moscow has ruled out any extradition of its former ally and says it has not received any request in this regard, a high-level Russian source has stated.