Syrian revolutionaries obtained thousands of e-mails from the personal accounts of embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his wife. The e-mails show a cavalier attitude toward the unrest in the country, which has resulted in the deaths of about 8,000 people over the past year due to brutal government crackdowns on civilians protesting Assad's rule.

The Guardian obtained more than 3,000 documents that activists claim to be the private e-mails of ruling couple Bashar and Asma al-Assad, sam@alshahba.com and ak@alshahba.com. The activists obtained access to the presidential couple's accounts in June 2011 after a mole, allegedly with links to the inner circle of the Syrian government, provided opposition group "Supreme Council of the Revolution" with the usernames and passwords for each. Activists claimed that they used the information to stay a step ahead of regime moves in Damascus.

However, their access was cut short earlier this month. Hacker group Anonymous broke into a Syrian government server in a separate attack in January, accessing e-mail addresses most likely including the two allegedly belonging to the Assads. On February 7, Bashar al-Assad received a threatening message from an unknown sender, and both accounts were shut down.

While there has been no official statement concerning the breach, The Guardian claims it has verified the e-mails as best as it could by cross-checking events and attempting to follow up with correspondents in many of the emails.

A presidency detached

Within the e-mails, Assad occasionally makes light of reforms he promised in order to control the civil crises breaking out in Syria, at one point referencing “rubbish laws of parties, elections, media...” in an e-mail with his wife, and another time forwarding a YouTube video of a parody re-enactment of the siege of Homs with toy cars and cookies to his media adviser with the response, "Hahahahahahaha, OMG!!! This is amazing!"

As Syrians were struggling with hunger and political turmoil, the president and his wife also spent more than $15,000 on a chandelier, candlesticks, and a table from Paris. And, according to The Guardian, Assad got around US sanctions to purchase Apple products—using a third party with a US address, Assad made personal purchases of music and apps from the iTunes store.

More surprisingly, the e-mails reveal that a senior aide to Asma Assad appealed to Twitter to remove at least 11 “fraudulent” Twitter accounts. The social media company conceded, removing “half of the accounts using the first lady's name and all but one of those using the president's name,” according to The Guardian. Twitter claimed it would suspend accounts that were blatant attempts at impersonation, but would allow parody accounts. One of the accounts was called @Syrianpresident, and claimed it had 2,500 followers and openly identified itself as a parody account. While the account is obviously no longer available on Twitter, Favstar.fm, a “Best of Twitter” curation site, shows @SyrianPresident's former profile as “Parody account of #Syria president #Bashar al-#Assad. I am not really the president of #Syria, but you wish I were.”

A secret ring of advisers

Assad seems to have formed a network of advisers outside of the traditional government circles, and hears advice from Hussein Mortada, a Lebanese businessman with strong ties to Iran to, “stop blaming al-Qaida” for two car bombings that happened in December in Damascus.

It is not in our interest to say that Al-Qaida is behind the operation because such statements clear the US administration and the Syrian opposition of any responsibility; America is fighting Al-Qaida and it will condemn the operation. Based on what we saw from events on the ground yesterday, we have to acknowledge how well orchestrated it was, and we have to say that the US administration, the opposition and the states which infiltrated weapons are behind the operation so that we can start the attack.

As the situation got worse in Syria, e-mail exchanges between Asma al-Assad and the Qatar emir's daughter, Mayassa al-Thani, reveal some frank discussion of the ruling couple's future in Syria. "I only pray that you will convince the president to take this an opportunity to exit without having to face charges,” Thani writes to Mrs. Assad, “The region needs to stabilise, but not more than you need peace of mind. I am sure you have many places to turn to, including Doha,” suggesting the presidential couple might seek exile in the capital city of Qatar.

Editor's note: the original headline of this story pointed out that Assad’s emails indicate that he has a proclivity for Apple products. However, many readers have reacted negatively to our drawing attention to this fact. We've retracted the headline and apologize to those who felt it inappropriate.