Bassel al-Assad (Arabic: بَاسِلُ ٱلْأَسَدِ, romanized: Bāsil al-ʾAsad; 23 March 1962 – 21 January 1994) was a Syrian military officer, engineer and politician.

Bassel al-Assad was born on 23 March 1962 in the national capital city of Damascus, in the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria), into an Alawite family.

[6][7] After his father recovered from a serious illness in 1984, Bassel began to accompany him and he emerged on the national scene in 1987, when he won several equestrian medals at a regional tournament.

[22] On 21 January 1994, Bassel was driving his luxury Mercedes at a high speed (author Paul Theroux reports Bassel was driving at 240 kilometers per hour (150 mph) through fog to Damascus International Airport for a privately chartered flight to Frankfurt, Germany, on his way to a ski vacation in the Alps in the early hours of the morning).

[28] Bassel Assad's death led to his brother Bashar al-Assad, who was then undertaking postgraduate training in ophthalmology in London, assuming the mantle of president-in-waiting.

Bashar became president following the death of his father on 10 June 2000 and would hold the post for 24 years, until the collapse of the Ba'athist regime in December 2024.

[7] A great number of squares and streets, a new international swimming complex, various hospitals, sporting clubs, and a military academy were named after him.

[32] Another prominent equestrian statue of Bassel in Aleppo[33] was toppled by rebels during the city's capture by opposition forces on 30 November 2024.