Hafez al-Assad

He married Aniseh Makhlouf (who was the mother of current President Bashar Al-Assad) a member of a powerful Allawite family, while still a young member of the Air Force.

The autocratic ruler had a major heart attack in November 1983 which created a succession crisis in Syria. His brother Rifaat al-Assad announced his candidacy for president at that point. However, Hafez proved that he could still lead and sidelined his brother as well as his supporters.

Hafez suffered another massive heart attack on 10th June 2000, but the President was not lucky enough to recover from the attack this time. The nation observed 40 day mourning on the leader’s death. The cremation took place three days later in Qardaha where he was buried next to his son, Bassel al-Assad.

Hafez Al-Assad was born on October 6th 1930 in Qardaha Syria to an Allawite family. His parents were Na'sa and Ali Sulayman al-Assad. Ali Sulayman was an Allawite noble that was stridently against the French occupation.

Al-Assad had 10 siblings including step brothers and sisters. He attended high-school in Latakia and excelled as a top student. However, he was often discriminated against as an Allawite by the Sunnis.

As a result of discrimination, he began organizing for the Allawite dominated ‘Ba'ath Party’ in 1946.

He served as President of Syrian Students for the party from 1949 to 1951.

Hafez Al-Assad began his career studying and working in the Syrian Air Force in 1950. His family could not afford for him to attend college so he chose the Air Force which paid all of his living expenses.

He seized power as part of a coup in 1966 and took complete control of Syria within the next four years. He formed close ties with the Soviet Union and modeled the Syrian economy after the USSR's state control.

The authoritarian leader de-radicalized the Ba'ath party (similarly to next door neighbor Sadam Hussein) and eliminated all Islamic extremists in the party. As a result, Islamists rose up against his rule but were crushed by his military.

On October 6th 1973 Assad combined with his Egyptian counterparts to launch a surprise attack on Israel. The attack caused tens of thousands of casualties and recaptured some land lost in the ‘6 Day War’ fought in 1966.

However, Israel still controlled the Golan Heights at the end of the conflict, which Syria claims as its own territory.

Assad participated in the ‘6 Day War’, the ‘Yom Kippur War’ and the ‘Lebanon Civil War’. Each war drained resources but projected strength for the country. He formed relationships with Iran, Egypt and Hezbollah among other entities in the Arab world. While he endorsed Pan Arabism, he did not endorse the notion of a singular Arab state.

He achieved many important positions at one time including head of the ‘Syrian Ba'ath Party’, head of the Syrian armed forces, head of the Syrian government and took complete authority of the economy and foreign policy.