Did Syria's Assad Just Start An Instagram Account?

What do you do when you’re the leader of a country that hates you and has been actively and violently trying to overthrow you for two and a half years? Why, join Instagram, of course!

Last week, an account claiming to be the official account of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began posting under the username “syrianpresidency.”

Instagram does not verify its users, and it could not immediately be reached for comment.

If the account is real, that makes Assad one of Istagram’s 130 million monthly active users and one of the 50 percent of users posting from outside the United States.

Comments expressing both support and condemnation appear on the photos, which thus far consist mostly of images of Bashar looking official and presidential and his wife Asma looking motherly and comforting.

The account, which the Telegraph reports was launched last week, has already attracted more than 3,500 followers and uploaded 69 photos as of this writing.

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