About Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad (6 October 1930 – 11 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who served as the president of Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000. He was previously the prime minister from 1970 to 1971 as well as the regional secretary of the regional command of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and secretary general of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1970 until his death. Assad was a key participant in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, which brought the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power. The Ba’ath rule lasted until the ouster of the regime in 2024. The party at the time was led by his son Bashar. After the 1963 coup, the new leadership appointed Assad as the commander of the Syrian Arab Air Force. In February 1966, Assad participated in a second coup, which toppled the leaders of the Ba'ath Party. Assad was appointed defense minister by the new government. Four years later Assad initiated a third coup, which ousted the quasi-marxist regime of Salah Jadid, and appointed himself as leader of Syria. Assad imposed various changes to the Ba'athist foreign policy after seizing power, such as abandoning Salah Jadid's policy of exporting "socialist revolution" and strengthening Syria's foreign relations with countries that his predecessor had deemed reactionary. Assad made alliances with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War in return for among other things, the fight against Israel, while maintaining ties with some Western European & Gulf States. While he officially kept the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one “Arab nation” as he termed it, such as being part of the Federation of Arab Republics, he sought to paint Syria as the defender of the Palestinians against Israel, though his support for the Palestinians, particularly the PLO in Lebanon, was weak. Assad quickly consolidated his power. Following the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of Egypt, Assad sought to reconcile Syrian relations with other Arab countries, that were weakened by Jadid. He also tried to form new ties with countries from both sides in the Cold War. Syria received economic support from OPEC members during the 1973 oil embargo, in part for his hostility toward Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. While Syria remained a one-party system, Ba'athist decision-making authority that had attempted to be collegial was eliminated in favor of absolute Presidential control of the country. To maintain his rule, a cult of personality centered on Assad and his family was created by the president and the Ba'ath party. Assad ordered an Arabization campaign of the Kurdish areas of Syria. Syria then invaded Lebanon with 30,000 troops in 1976, which resulted in the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. The Lebanon Invasion and occupation was an attempt to back the weakened Maronite Christians against the Palestine Liberation Organization (whom he previously claimed to back), and other far left militias. During his rule, his regime crushed an Islamist uprising led by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood through a series of crackdowns that culminated in the Hama massacre, which led to two thirds of the city of Hama being destroyed. His regime committed numerous human rights violations, including the massacres of 30,000 men, women and children in Hama alone. Assad's initial preferred successor as president was his brother Rifaat, but Rifaat attempted to seize power in 1983–1984 when Hafez had a health scare and he was subsequently exiled. Assad's next choice of successor was his eldest son, Bassel. However, Bassel died in a high-speed car crash in 1994, and Assad turned to his third choice—his younger son Bashar, who at that time was a medical student in the UK, with no political experience. The move to appoint a member of his own family as his successor was met with criticism in some quarters of the Syrian ruling class, but Assad persisted with his plan and demoted officials who opposed this succession. Assad died on June 11, 2000 and Bashar succeeded him as president, serving until his overthrow on December 8, 2024. Bashar al-Assad and his family escaped the rebel overthrow of Damascus and prosecution in Syria for similar crimes as his father. He and his family were granted asylum in Moscow by Russia. To maintain his personalistic rule, a cult of personality centred on Assad and his family was created by the president and the Ba'ath party. He became the first in his family to attend high school, but in Latakia, Assad faced anti-Alawite bias from Sunnis.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.