Together with President Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad, Shawkat was a principal architect of the crackdown that followed in response to the Syrian uprising that began in March 2011 [REF].
In May 2012, the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Damascus council claimed that one of their operatives from its Al Sahabeh battalion had poisoned the eight members of Bashar Assad's military crisis unit, including Assef Shawkat, who was inaccurately reported to have died [REF].