Syrian aide to Bashar al-Assad defends her relationship with Barbara Walters She pointed out that nothing had come of the offers made by Walters and said she was unaware that Walters had emailed a Columbia professor on her behalf. She said she did not know why Walters now regretted the offer of help. In the emails Miss Jaafari referred to Walters as her "adopted mother." Miss Jaafari is understood to have worked for four months as an unpaid intern at the Syrian Mission to the United Nations. She became a close adviser to Mr Assad and was at his side as Syrian troops stepped up their campaign of killing and repression that has left over 13,500 people dead since March 2011. She would speak to him several times a day, sometimes calling him "the Dude" in her adopted American accent, and was sometimes the only official in the room when he did interviews with Western journalists. Miss Jaafari exchanged emails with Walters over a proposed interview with Mr Assad late last year. She arranged the interview which took place in December last year. After the high profile interview, Miss Jaafari and Walters kept in touch. They met for lunch at the Mark Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side in late January. Walters described Miss Jaafari as "brilliant, beautiful, [and] speaks five languages" and asked whether there was "anything you can do to help?."