Raised on power, Assad risks all

(Reuters) - His father was a hard, ex-military autocrat and didn't care who knew it. He has a soft gaze and came to power hinting at democracy and reform. But there the dissimilarity ends.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has proved himself as uncompromising as the late Hafez, who ran the Arab republic with an iron fist for 29 years and, on his death in 2000, left his son a formidable apparatus of power, based on single-party rule, repression of opponents and a network of spies and informers.