<b>EXCLUSIVE
By Doug Trench
Defence Editor

Embattled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was educated at a posh English private school, the Suffolk Gazette can reveal today.</b>

He spent four enjoyable years at Woodbridge School where he became a prominent member of the school's Army Cadet Force, and took a particular interest in chemistry lessons.

But fellow pupils recalled how the young Assad was so intent on getting his own way that he was expelled from the school's debating society.

And he got into more trouble for fighting, leading a gang of ruffians dubbed the Bashar Street Kids against state-educated pupils from the nearby Farlingaye High School.

<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bashar-al-assad-e1458294044491.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-3116"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bashar-al-assad-e1458294044491.jpg" alt="bashar-al-assad" width="777" height="437" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3116" /></a><i>Bashar al-Assad enjoyed his time at Woodbridge</center></i><br><br>

"When President Assad first arrived he liked to park his toy tanks in the school quad - but he exploded in anger if any other boys turned up to play with their own toy tanks or planes," a former school pal from 1981 said.

"As he got a bit older he was into sport - he loved his rugby, and was very strong in the tackle, but excelled at watersports, forming the school's Revolutionary Socialist Bath Party in the swimming pool."

Woodbridge School was founded in 1577, and has educated many notable worthies such as musician Nick Lowe, BBC director Wayne Garvie and more controversially former British National Partly leader Nick Griffin, who attended the school in the 1970s.

But the discovery of Assad on historical school rolls raises questions that the shadowy Old Woodbridgians organisation, a private club for former pupils, may be helping him to cling on to power in Syria.

A former resident of Grundisburgh, near Woodbridge Assad's father was in the tractor export business before moving the family back to Syria, where Assad soon rose to power, taking over as President in 2000.

He is currently fighting a bloody war on several fronts and relying on the Russians to keep him in power, a conflict that is driving hundreds of thousands of refugees out of the country.

Like The Suffolk Gazette on Facebook now! <iframe style="border: none; overflow: hidden; height: 21px;" src="//www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsuffolkgazette&amp;width&amp;layout=button_count&amp;action=like&amp;show_faces=false&amp;share=true&amp;height=21" width="300" height="150" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

<a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/buy-us-a-beer/">Please support my running costs by clicking here and buying me a beer!</a>
[olimometer id=1]