First lady of Syria Asma al-Assad attends an official dinner at Elysee Palace in Paris, on Jun 25, 2001. She grew up in London and has been married to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for 13 years. She worked for JP Morgan as an investment banker before marrying Bashar in 2000, six months after he became president.
(CNN) -- As saber rattling grows over the Syrian president's alleged use of chemical weapons against his own people, Bashar al-Assad's once high-profile wife, Asma, has kept a low profile.
"She's just hunkered down in Damascus," said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of "In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria." "She's standing by her man."
That's where she can be seen in photographs of the al-Assads posted this week on Instagram.
No images of bloody battle fields mar the view of the president caught in the middle of the civil war. Instead, photo after photo of the couple show a picture of caring. In one, the first lady -- who majored in computer science and French literature at King's College London -- wipes away a boy's tear. In another, she is listening intently to a group of women.
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The photos appeared after the president announced this month that he was adding Instagram to his social media blitz. He also has his own Facebook page and a YouTube channel.
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And, judging from the comments, he has fans in Syria, Russia and Turkey.
"God bless you," "We love you," and "We want you to win this war" are common comments posted on the images.
But not all the remarks are positive.
"This is not the real Syria," one writer posts. "Show as the actual Syria, please."
The only reference to the war that has killed more than 100,000 Syrians, according to the United Nations, comes in captions beneath photos of the president shaking hands with soldiers "protecting civilians" and "regaining security and stability" in Darraya.
The rest of August, according to the account, has been packed with diplomatic functions, awards ceremonies and Asma tossing salad, stirring pots and filling bowls as Muslims broke fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Some of the president's almost 34,000 Instagram followers seem to sense spin in the postings, with one asking of the fashion-conscious first lady, "So she managed to find time to stop shopping for shoes?" and another demanding photos of her Christian Louboutins, the brand of French shoes that can command $1,000 a pair.
Almost as common as the comments asserting, "What a load of BS this account is" are followers offering warm wishes of "God bless you," "We love you" and "We want you to win this war." Some supporters used a "#LongLiveBasharAlAssad" hashtag.
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The president, who also has a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, began posting the photos July 24.
"They're pretty standard," Tabler said Wednesday in a telephone interview about the propaganda tools. "I don't think there are any surprises there."
But Tabler, who once lived in Syria and interacted with the first family, said he had little insight into her current doings. "We broke relations a long time ago," he said about the 38-year-old former investment banker with J.P. Morgan, who was born in Britain to a family of Syrian descent.
When Asma al-Akhras met Bashar al-Assad during the 1990s, he was studying in London to be an eye doctor. After the death of her beau's father, Syrian President Hafez Assad, in June 2000, the ophthalmologist became president and, that December, the couple married.
Since then, they have had at least three children. She was reported last spring to be pregnant with a fourth.
Before the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in March 2011, the first lady had projected an image of a reformer.
Local merchants routinely praised the secular "modern image" of al-Assad and his wife, particularly in contrast to Turkey's pious Sunni prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose wife wears an Islamic headscarf.
A 2011 Vogue magazine article described her as "a rose in the desert."
The story, which was published after the uprising had begun, was ridiculed for being tone-deaf to suffering in the country.
Though the European Union placed Asma al-Assad and members of her family under sanctions shortly after the article was published, the story presented her as she had worked to be perceived -- as an exceptionally modern woman in the Arab world, Tabler and other experts have said. Unlike other first ladies in the region, she seemed intent on speaking from a position of power and influence. Her focus, she said, was protecting children.
Afterward, the writer of the Vogue article told CNN she felt duped by the first lady when she learned that the Syrian president's forces had killed children. "I wondered how this English woman I had met who so believed in the youth of Syria could stand by and not do anything," said Joan Juliet Buck. "I fell for the line this woman fed me."
Throughout her years as first lady, Asma al-Assad has focused on children. In a 2009 CNN interview, she spoke about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, saying that she would not tolerate an oppressive and violent regime. She spoke at length about how it broke her heart that children on either side would be caught in the crossfire.
That led many observers to expect her to condemn the attacks on civilians, many of them children. But no such response has emerged.
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In February 2012, an article published in The Times of London said Asma al-Assad appeared to support her husband, while also seeking dialogue and comfort for the bereaved in the country.
According to an e-mail sent through an intermediary from Asma al-Assad's office, "The president is the president of Syria, not a faction of Syrians, and the first lady supports him in that role," The Times reported.
Meanwhile, the little that has emerged about her life has contrasted sharply with the brutality of the civil war that has engulfed the country: Leaked e-mails between the president and the first lady showed that she was shopping online for jewelry, art and furniture.
On the day of a massive anti-Assad rally in Hama, Asma al-Assad e-mailed a London art dealer about buying tens of thousands of dollars' worth of art.
Analysis: For U.S., Syria is truly a problem from hell
CNN's Eliott McLaughlin and Ashley Fantz contributed to this report
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, and wife Amsa al-Assad, second from left, speak with the Spanish Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos as they inaugurate the show "El Esplendor de los Omeyas Cordobeses," on May 3, 2001, in Cordoba, Spain.
The first lady arrives at No. 10 Downing Street in London to urge a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis, on December 16, 2002.
Asma al-Assad visits her former school, Queens College in central London, on December 17, 2002.
The first couple meets with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in London, on December 17, 2002.
Bashar al-Assad and Asma al-Assad pose for photographers during their visit to Acropolis archaeological site in Athens, Greece, on December 15, 2003.
Al-Assad attends the first national childhood conference on February 8, 2004, in Aleppo, Syria. The first lady opened the conference with a speech on the status of children and called on parents to listen to their offspring and help them develop their full potential.
The first lady walks in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, on March 8, 2004.
Duchess Camilla speaks with Asma al-Assad in Damascus, Syria, on March 22, 2004.
The first lady attends an Arab women and war conference on March 8, 2004, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Al-Assad gets an honorary doctorate from Roberto Antonelli, the president of Rome's La Sapienza University, on October 20, 2004, in the Syrian city of Ebla.
Asma al-Assad and husband tour the Old City in Damascus with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Amina on December 22, 2004.
During a visit to Moscow's New Names Foundation, Asma al-Assad was awarded with an honorary doctorate on January 25, 2005.
The Syrian first lady waves under a portrait of her husband, right, and his late father, former President Hafez al-Assad, during the opening ceremony of the Syrian Special Olympics in Damascus, Syria, on May 15, 2006.
The Syrian first couple plant a jasmine bush in old Damascus on April 27, 2007.
In a ride for peace, Asma al-Assad, right, leads a pack of female bicyclists in the Ras Shamra area of Latakia in Syria on April 8, 2007.
Al-Assad smiles as she leaves the Istanbul Modern Museum in Turkey, on October 18, 2007. The day before her husband told reporters that the capital of Syria, Damascus, would back a possible Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to crack down "against terrorist activities" there. "We support the decisions the Turkish government has put on its agenda against terrorism and terrorist activities."
On the first day of the Eid al-Adha, Asma al-Assad visits a resident at a home for the elderly in Damascus, on December 19, 2007.
The Syrian first couple celebrate Orthodox Easter with orphans at the Mar Taqla convent in the village of Ma'loula, Syria, on April 27, 2008.
Asma al-Assad, left, chats with French Culture Minister Christine Albanel and Syrian artist Mustafa Ali on July 12, 2008, in Paris.
The first lady attends the opening of the Syrian abstract art exhibition in Damascus on July 21, 2008.
Al-Assad stands in the hull of a replica of a Phoenician ship being build on the Syrian island of Arwad, on July 19, 2008. The ship is handmade and is being constructed using the first materials utilized by Phoenicians who lived in the region. The ship was launched in August 2008, and carried historians and geographers from all over the world following the ancient trade route which started in Arwad. The ship then sailed across to Africa ending its trip in 2009 in Britain where she was put on display at a museum.
The first lady visits the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, on October, 21, 2008.
Al-Assad plants trees with children during a tree planting campaign in Yafour, Syria, on December 5, 2009. Over 3,000 trees, including pine, cypress, linden and wild pear, were planted.
The first couple arrive in the capital of Tunis, Tunisia, on July 12, 2010.
During an athletics gathering in Damascus, al-Assad watches as a young person paints on September 5, 2010.
Syrian's first couple, left, and Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov review an honor guard on November 9, 2010, during an official welcoming ceremony in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is the first visit to Bulgaria by a Syrian leader in 24 years.
Asma al-Assad, right, and husband Bashar sit at the Coupole restaurant in Paris on December 10, 2010.
The couple depart a Claude Monet exhibition on December 11, 2010, in Paris.
The first lady listens to a speech by her husband, during a rare public appearance in Damascus on January 11, 2012. Al-Assad vowed to defeat a "conspiracy" against Syria, a day after he blamed foreign interests for stoking months of deadly violence.
Asma al-Assad talks with families of the country's armed and security forces who were killed during the civil war in the capital. Her husband, Bashar al-Assad, set up a committee that will be in charge of taking care of all legal measures regarding families of Syrian troops killed in the fighting against rebels. According to a Syrian Presidency Facebook post on July 11, 2013.
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