Assad, Hafez al- (6 October 1930- 10 June 2000 ), President of Syria (1971-2000). Born in Qardahah, a town in the Lattakia Mountain Range in Western Syria. He was educated in Syrian military colleges and received additional military training in the Soviet Union. He joined the Baath party in 1946 and was one of a handful Baathist officers who took power on March 8, 1963, in a coup that was later known as the March Revolution. He was made head of the Syrian Air Force in 1964. He served as Minister of Defense from 1966 until November 1970, when he led a bloodless coup that he described as a "Correction Movement." He became Prime Minister for a few months before being elected as President in March 1971.
Assad introduced some constitutional and parliamentary reforms, and distanced himself from the hard-line ideologies that influenced the Baath rule during the few years that preceded his "Correction Movement". Assad ended the country’s isolation within the Arab World and started to get the Nation ready to fight for the Golan Height, occupied by Israel in 1967. In October 1973, he joined Egypt in a surprising attack on Israel. Although the War ended with a forced retreat of Syrian and Egyptian troops, it was considered a moral victory for the Arabs after 6 years of the humiliating defeat in 1967. After the war, Syria and Israel signed a US-sponsored agreement to disengage their forces in the Golan Heights. According to the agreement, Syria regained control over a narrow strip of territory that included the main Golan town of Al-Quneitra, and UN peacekeepers were installed in a buffer zone that separated the two armies.
In 1976, Assad sent Syrian troops into Lebanon to stop the sectarian Civil War started a year earlier. In October 1990, the Syrian army helped put an end to the civil war and remained on the Lebanese territory to maintain peace and security.
In 1990, Iraq invaded his neighboring Gulf emirate of Kuwait and threatened to invade Saudi Arabia. Assad sent Syrian troops to join a US-led international coalition to defend Saudi Arabia and force Iraq out of Kuwait.
After the Gulf war that followed, Syria agreed to attend a US-sponsored peace conference in Madrid. The conference, based on UN resolutions and the "land for peace" principle, launched bilateral peace talks between Israel and the Arab states. Assad was again disappointed with his Arab allies policies, in 1993 and 1994, Jordan and the Palestinians signed separate peace agreements with Israel. However, Syria and Lebanon kept a unified stance. Assad refused to accept any peace deal that do not include complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. In early 2000, he rejected an Israeli peace offer that excluded a few kilometers from a proposed withdrawal from the Golan.
On June 10, 2000, Assad died of a heart attack. His son, Bashar, succeeded him after a public referendum on July 10, 2000.
