Syrian President Hafez al-Assad: biography, family

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Hafez al-Assad (October 6, 1930 - June 10, 2000, Damascus) - Syrian politician, Secretary General of the Baath Party, Prime Minister of Syria (1970-1971) and its President (1971- 2000).

Origin

Hafez Assad, whose biography began in the village of Kardah, in the province of Latakia, was born into a family belonging to the Alawite religious community. His parents were Nasa and Ali Suleiman al-Assad. Hafez was Ali's ninth son and fourth from his second marriage. The father had only eleven children and was known for his strength and marksmanship.

The Assad family is descended from Suleiman al-Wahhish, the grandfather of Hafez Assad, who also lived in the northern Syrian mountains in the village of Qardah. The locals called him Wahhish, which means "wild beast" in Arabic. During World War I, the Ottoman governor of the Vilayet of Aleppo sent troops to the Qardakhi region to collect taxes and recruit recruits. They were defeated by a detachment of peasants led by Suleiman al-Wahhish, although the rebels were armed only with sabers and old muskets.

Hafez Assad could also be proud of his father Ali Suleiman, who was born in 1875. Being highly respected among the localsinhabitants, he opposed the French occupation of Syria after the end of the First World War. He adopted his nickname Assad, which means "lion", as his surname in 1927. Having survived until 1963, he had the opportunity to see the gradual approach of his son to the highest power in the country.

Childhood and years of study

Alawites initially opposed a unified Syrian state, as they thought that their status as a religious minority would not allow them to take a worthy position in it. And the father of Hafez supported these sentiments. When the French left Syria, many Syrians distrusted the Alawites for their previous support for France. Hafez Assad left his native Alawite village, starting his education at the age of nine in Sunni Latakia (Sunnis are the main religious community among all Muslims, the second largest is the Shia community, to which the Alawites adjoin religiously). He was the first in his family to attend high school, but in Latakia, Assad faces religious strife from Sunnis. Hafez al-Assad was an honors student, winning several academic excellence awards around the age of 14.

Shaping political views

Assad lived in a poor, predominantly Alawite part of Latakia. To fit in with the prevailing mood around him, he had to choose to support a political party that was traditionally welcomed by the Alawites. These parties were the Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Arab Party"Baas". Assad joined last in 1946, although some of his friends belonged to the SSNP. The Ba'ath (Renaissance) party united the idea of creating a unified Arab state with socialist ideology.

Beginning of activities in the Ba'ath Party

Assad was a party activist, an organizer of Ba'ath student cells and an agitator for Ba'athist ideas in the poor of Latakia and the surrounding Alawite villages. He opposed the Muslim Brotherhood, who were supported by we althy and conservative Muslim families. His high school was attended by people from both rich and poor backgrounds. Hafez al-Assad, quite naturally for him, joined the poor, the Sunni Muslim youth from the Ba'ath Party, who were opposed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. During that period, many young Sunnis became his friends. Some of them would later become his political allies.

While still very young, Assad became quite prominent in the party as an organizer and recruiter, he was the leader of his school's Baathist student committee from 1949 to 1950. During his political activities at school, he met many people who will serve him when he becomes president.

Military career

In 1950, Hafez Assad graduated from high school. He dreams of becoming a doctor, but for the ninth son in the family there is no money to study. Just at this time, the young Syrian Republic began to form its armed forces, and the young politician was offered to enter the military academy inthe city of Homs. He agreed, but soon transferred to a flight school in Aleppo, from which he graduated in 1955 with the first rank of lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force. His marriage to Anisa Makhlouf, who became his only life partner, also belongs to this year.

During the Suez crisis, Assad went to Egypt as part of a group of military pilots to support President Nasser in his confrontation with Britain and the United States. In 1957, he was sent to the USSR for a nine-month training in MiG-17 aerobatics.

In 1958, under the influence of nationalist pan-Arabists, the UAR was formed as part of Syria and Egypt under the general leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Assad opposed this confederation because he believed that the interests of Syria were infringed upon in it. However, despite the fact that many Ba'athists were removed from civil service during this period, Assad remained in the army and continued to make a career.

After a series of military coups, Syria's alliance with Egypt was first dissolved in 1961, and then there was a coup on March 8, 1963. As a result, the Ba'ath Party formed a government that launched socialist transformations, and Captain Assad, who was an active participant in those events, quickly went to the promotion.

He was promoted to major and then to lieutenant colonel, and by the end of 1963 he was in charge of the Syrian Air Force. By the end of 1964, he was appointed commander of the Air Force with the rank of major general. Assad gave privileges to the Air Force officers, appointed his proxies to all important posts and created an effective Air Force intelligence service that became independent fromother intelligence agencies of Syria. She was given assignments outside the jurisdiction of the Air Force. Assad was preparing himself for an active struggle for power.

Rise to the presidency

In 1966, after another military coup, which did not make any noticeable changes in the country's political course, a new Syrian defense minister was appointed, who became Hafez Assad. After losing the 1967 Six Day War against Israel, the Syrian government was discredited. At that time, the de facto ruler of Syria was Salah Jadid, who formally held only the post of Deputy Secretary General of the Baath Party.

In his quest for power, Assad first forced Jadid-controlled Prime Minister Yusuf al-Zuayin to resign in 1968, and in 1970 he overthrew Jadid himself, who was arrested and remained imprisoned until his death in 1993.

In 1970, a new prime minister of Syria appeared - Hafez Assad, and since 1971 the president (he was re-elected in 1978, 1985 and 1991). In foreign policy, he continued his previous course of rapprochement with the USSR and confrontation with the United States and Israel. But in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Syria managed to retake only a small part of the Golan Heights, which had been occupied by Israel since 1967.

Hafez al-Assad is President

The main pillar of his power was the army and intelligence services. He tried to reform the country and strengthen its military power. However, his efforts led to a confrontation with most of the Arab countries in the region and tointernational isolation. But in doing so, Assad brought political stability to Syria for the first time since its independence. Under the Assad government in Lebanon since 1976, a virtual Syrian dominance was established, which ended a brutal civil war and attacks from Israel. The Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood fiercely resisted the Assad regime, but were crushed in 1982 during their uprising, known as the Hama Massacre.

There was a pronounced personality cult of the president in the country, his bronze statues were installed in the central squares of the country's major cities. Posters with his portrait flaunted on the facades of buildings.

In the first Gulf War between Iraq and Iran 1980-1988. he supported Iran, in the Persian Gulf War from 1990 to 1991 he took part in the anti-Iraq coalition. In the 1990s, Assad turned to the West and the conservative states of Arabia to promote peace talks with Israel, which failed.

Family and Succession

Hafez and Anisa Assad had five children, four sons and a daughter. The fates of three sons were tragic: two of them died, and the third became an invalid in the civil war. In the same war, the husband of Assad's daughter was also killed.

The only one who survived from his direct descendants is the second son of Bashar al-Assad. Since Bassel's eldest son and successor died in a car accident in 1994, it was he who succeeded his father as president of Syria. To a 34 year oldBashar al-Assad could have assumed this post, in 2000 the constitution was specifically changed so that the minimum age for the president was reduced from 40 to 34.