President Assad's 'ruthless and beautiful' adviser

A close aide to Bashar al-Assad, who advised him on how to present his brutal crackdown to the media in a positive light, studied in the US under a programme sponsored by the American government.

Hadeel al-Ali, a public relations adviser in her twenties, swapped joke emails and political advice with the Syrian president, which came to light after opposition activists discovered Assad's personal passwords.

"She's young, she's beautiful, she's ruthless," one opposition source said. "Her job and her role varies but she is at the heart of Assad's court in Damascus."

Ali is the daughter of a prominent member of Assad's Alawite clan and her family is from Qardaha, the president's ancestral home in western Syria.

Like many wealthy Syrians, she was sent to the West for her education and in 2006 won a place on a US State Department-funded programme to attend Montana State University. Officials at the university confirmed that she was a PLUS student, part of a small group of high-achievers brought to the US on exchange from the Islamic world.

On an alumni page, Ali lists how she studied political science between 2006 and 2008 and says her favourite memory was "attending President Obama's speech and shaking his hand".

She describes finding "a second home in America" and jokes about "wearing my cowboy boots and hat and feeling like a local".

She also mentions being a part-time volunteer with the UNHCR, the United Nations' refugee agency which is currently has the task of aiding those fleeing the violence in Syria.

The US State Department did not return a request for comment.