Syrian President Hafez Assad: biography, family

Hafez al-Assad (October 6, 1930 - June 10, 2000, Damascus) is a Syrian politician, general secretary 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 Kardaje, in the province of Latakia, was born into a family belonging to the religious community of the Alawites. His parents were Nasa and Ali Suleiman al-Assad. Hafez was the ninth son of Ali and the fourth from his second marriage. Father had only eleven children and was known for his strength and marksmanship.

The Assad family comes from Suleiman al-Wahhish, the grandfather of Hafez Assad, who also lived in the northern Syrian mountains in the village of Kardakh. The locals nicknamed him Wahhish, which means "wild beast" in Arabic. During the First World War, the Ottoman governor of Vilayet Aleppo sent troops to the Kardaha area 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 locals, he opposed the French occupation of Syria after the end of the First World War. His nickname Assad, which means "lion", he made his name in 1927. Having lived until 1963, he had the opportunity to see the gradual approach of his son to the supreme power in the country.

Childhood and years of study

The Alawites initially opposed a single Syrian state, because they thought that their status as a religious minority would not allow them to occupy a worthy position in it. And Hafez's father supported these sentiments. When the French left Syria, many Syrians did not trust the Alawites for their former support of France. Hafez Assad left his native Alawi village, starting his education at the age of nine in Sunni Latakia (the Sunnis are the main religious community among all Muslims, the second largest is the Shiite community, to which Alawites are also associated religiously). He was the first in his family attending secondary school, but in Latakia Assad faced with manifestations of religious hostility from the Sunnis. Hafez Assad was an excellent student, won several prizes for academic achievements at the age of about 14 years.

Formation of political views

Assad lived in the poor, mostly Alawite part of Latakia. To fit into the prevailing moods, he needed to choose to support the political party, which was traditionally welcomed by the Alawites. These parties were the Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Social-Nationalist Party (SPSP) and the Arab Baath Party. Assad joined the latter in 1946, although some of his friends belonged to the SNPP. The Baath Party ("revival") united the idea of creating a single Arab state with socialist ideology.

Beginning of activities in the Baath Party

Assad was an activist of the party, organizer of the student cells of the "Baath" and agitator for the ideas of the Baathists in the poor layers of Latakia and the surrounding Alawite villages. He opposed the Muslim brothers, who were supported by rich and conservative Muslim families. In his high school students from both the rich and the poor were studying. Hafez Asad quite naturally joined the poor, to Sunni Muslim youth from the Baath party, which was opposed by members of the Muslim brotherhood. At that time, many young Sunnis became his friends. Some of them will later be his political allies.

Being still very young, Assad became quite prominent in the party as an organizer and recruiter, he was the head of the Baathist committee of pupils of his school 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 for 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 in the city of Homs. He agreed, but was soon transferred to a flight school in Aleppo, which he graduated in 1955, receiving the first rank of Lieutenant of the Syrian Air Force. This year his marriage to Anis Mahluf, which became his only companion of life, also applies.

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

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

After a series of military coups, the union of Syria with Egypt was first terminated in 1961, and then a coup took place on March 8, 1963. According to its results, the Baath party formed the government that initiated the socialist transformation, and Captain Assad, who was an active participant in those events, quickly went on promotion.

He received the rank of major, and then a lieutenant-colonel and by the end of 1963 headed the Syrian Air Force. By the end of 1964, he was appointed commander of the Air Force in the rank of major general. Assad gave privileges to the officers of the Air Force, appointed his proxies to all important posts and created an effective intelligence service of the Air Force, which became independent from other intelligence agencies of Syria. She was given tasks outside the jurisdiction of the Air Force. Assad prepared himself for an active struggle for power.

Ascent to the presidency

In 1966, after another military coup that did not introduce any noticeable changes in the country's political course, a new Syrian defense minister was appointed, which was Hafez Assad. After the defeat in the six-day war of 1967 against Israel, the Syrian government was discredited. At that time, the actual ruler of Syria was Salah Jadid, who only formally held the post of deputy secretary general of the Baath party.

In his quest for power, Assad first forced the resignation of Jadid-controlled prime minister Yusuf al-Zuain in 1968, and in 1970 overthrew Jadid himself, who was arrested and remained in prison until his death in 1993.

In 1970, the new Prime Minister of Syria, Hafez Assad, and since 1971 the president (re-elected in 1978, 1985 and 1991). In foreign policy, he continued the old policy of rapprochement with the USSR and confrontation with the United States and Israel. But in the Doomsday war in 1973, Syria managed to regain only a small part of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.

Hafez Assad - President

The main support 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 confrontation with most Arab countries in the region and to international isolation. But Assad has given political stability to Syria for the first time since gaining independence. Under the Assad government in Lebanon, since 1976, virtually Syrian rule was established, which ended the brutal civil war and attacks by Israel. Islamists and Muslim brothers fiercely resisted the Assad regime, but were suppressed in 1982 during their uprising, known as the Massacre in Hama.

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

In the first war in the Persian Gulf between Iraq and Iran 1980-1988. He supported Iran, in the Persian Gulf War from 1990 to 1991, he participated in the anti-Iraqi coalition. In the 1990s, Assad turned to the West and the conservative states of Arabia in order to facilitate peace talks with Israel, which, however, failed.

Family and Continuity

Hafez and Anisa Asadov had five children, four sons and a daughter. The fate of the three sons was tragic: two of them died, and the third became disabled in the civil war. In the same war, the husband of the daughter of Assad was killed.

The only one who survived from his direct descendants is the second son Bashar al-Assad. Since the eldest son and successor Bassel died in 1994 in a car crash, it was he who succeeded his father as president of Syria. To the 34-year-old Bashar al-Assad could enter on this post, in 2000 the constitution was specially changed so that the minimum age for the president decreased from 40 to 34 years.