It's not a military dictatorship, Assad is a civilian. Besides, the Syrian government (or "Assad regime", if you like) is a secular entity, there's no use of bringing up religion here. But if you want to go down this road, Assad's secular regime might be the reason he still has support among a lot of Syrians (whether Sunni, Shia, Druze, or Christian), because they know what the alternative is and they've seen it run the show in Eastern Aleppo.