Assad, Hafez al-

▪ 2001

      Syrian head of state (b. Oct. 6, 1930, Qardaha, Syria—d. June 10, 2000, Damascus, Syria), as president of Syria from 1971 until his death, brought stability to the country and established it as a powerful presence in the Middle East. In 1946 Assad joined the Syrian wing of the Baʿth Party as a student activist. He graduated from the Syrian Military Academy at Hims in 1955 and became an air force pilot. Stationed in Egypt from 1959 to 1961, he and other military officers formed a secret committee and plotted to seize power in Damascus. After the Baʿthists took control of the Syrian government in 1963, Assad became commander of the air force. In 1966, having taken part in a coup that overthrew the civilian leadership of the party and sent its founders into exile, he became minister of defense. After Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the Six-Day War (June 1967), Assad engaged in a protracted power struggle with Salah al-Jadid—chief of staff of the armed forces, Assad's political mentor, and effective leader of Syria. In November 1970 Assad assumed power, arresting Jadid and other members of the government. He became prime minister and in 1971 was elected president. With Soviet aid, Assad set about building up the Syrian military. Political dissenters were eliminated by arrest, torture, and execution. A new alliance with Egypt culminated in a surprise attack on Israel in October 1973, but Egypt's unexpected cessation of hostilities exposed Syria to military defeat. In 1976, with Lebanon racked by a civil war, Assad dispatched several divisions to that country and secured their permanent presence there as part of a peacekeeping force sponsored by the Arab League. After Israel's invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982–85, Assad was able to reassert control of the country, eventually compelling Lebanese Christians to accept constitutional changes granting Muslims equal representation in the government. In the 1980s he supported Iran in its war against Iraq, and he readily joined the U.S.-led alliance against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91. This cooperation resulted in more cordial relations with Western governments, which previously had condemned his alleged sponsorship of radical Palestinian and Muslim terrorist groups based in Lebanon and Syria. Assad sought to establish peaceful relations with Israel in the mid-1990s, but his repeated call for the return of the Golan Heights stalled the talks. In 1998 he cultivated closer ties with Iraq in light of Israel's growing strategic partnership with Turkey. Assad's death from heart failure set off days of national mourning in Syria.

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