Hafez al-assad death

President of Syria Country: Syria

Biography of Hafez al-Assad

Hafez al-Assad was born in Kardaha, northwest Syria, in or He joined the Ba'ath Party, attracted by its pan-Arab socialist ideals. In , he was elected president of the Union of Syrian Students.

Biography hafez assad israeli Iraq [ edit ]. Iran [ edit ]. Prince Abdullah. Assad nonetheless put renewed emphasis on his doctrine of "strategic parity" with Israel.

In , he enrolled in the military academy in Homs and later attended flight school in Aleppo, graduating in He then traveled to the Soviet Union for further studies.

After the formation of the United Arab Republic (), Assad was sent to Cairo, where he served as a commander of a jet fighter squadron. He was dismissed from the armed forces due to his opposition to the union with Egypt.

In Cairo, he formed a secret Military Committee and participated in the Ba'athist movement. Upon his return to Syria, he took part in the coup that brought the Ba'athist government to power in

Before his election as president for a seven-year term in May , Assad held positions as Minister of Defense, Commander of the Air Force (), and Prime Minister ().

Hafez assad biography Penguin Press. Soviet Foreign Ministers Alexander Bessmertnykh and Boris Pankin visited Syria in May and October, but those visits were in connection with the American Middle East peace initiative, accentuating the decline in the status of the Soviet Union in the region. During the Lebanon War , the Soviet Union kept a policy of low profile. Assad consistently extended military and diplomatic assistance to Iran during the Iran—Iraq War in order to secure legitimacy and support for his rule in Syria and his policies in Lebanon.

He regularly ran for re-election and consistently received over 99% of the votes. Simultaneously, he utilized security services to suppress any organized opposition.

In Hama, where a rebellion led by the organization "Muslim Brotherhood" occurred in , troops under the command of Assad's brother Rifat killed tens of thousands of insurgents and virtually destroyed the city.

Assad also participated in the joint war with Egypt against Israel in October Starting from the mids, he frequently intervened in the course of the war in Lebanon, claiming that Lebanon was part of Greater Syria. Israel accused Assad of turning a blind eye to guerrillas based in southern Lebanon who conducted raids against Israel.

Biography hafez assad israeli actor However with broad if nebulous assurances from the Israeli government of Yitzhak Rabin that a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights could be negotiated, Mr. One sign of the economic stagnation was Syria's lack of progress in talks with the EU on the signing of an association agreement. The mountain redoubts were a secure home for his ethnic group, the Alawite sect, a tiny branch of the Shiite school of Islam and a sect often branded as heretical by the Sunni Muslim majority that dominated Syria. Cornell University Press.

The United States, which referred to Syria as a base for international terrorism after , suspected Assad's involvement in terrorist attacks against US citizens in the s.

Due to a lack of internal resources to finance Syria's military ambitions, Assad sought financial assistance from the Soviet Union. However, by the end of the s, when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate, he redirected his policies towards the West and opposed Iraq during the Gulf War ().

In the early s, as the PLO and Jordan reached separate agreements to settle the conflict with Israel, Assad began to show interest in negotiations with Israel but proceeded cautiously, aiming to gain maximum benefits in exchange for supporting the peace process. In , when he started insisting on the return of the Golan Heights under Syrian control, the negotiations reached an impasse.

Towards the end of the s, rumors began circulating about the appointment of a successor amid Assad's deteriorating health.

Hafez al-Assad passed away in Damascus on June 10,