Mother of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, the former first lady, dead at 86

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Anisa Ahmed Makhlouf, Syria’s former first lady and the mother of President Bashar al-Assad, has died at the age of 86, state-run Syrian television reported on Saturday.

The death was also confirmed in an official government statement.

Makhlouf was born in 1930 in the city of Latakia. She married the late President Hafez Al- Assad in 1960 and had six children.