Hafez al-Assad

About Hafez al-Assad

The Syrian dictator who ruled from 1971 to 2000. Assad was an air force general who seized power in a coup. He built a totalitarian state controlled by the Alawite minority. In 1982, he crushed a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama, killing an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 people. Assad occupied Lebanon and made Syria the power broker in Lebanese politics. He sought but failed to recover the Golan Heights from Israel. Assad died in 2000 while on the phone with the Lebanese President. His son Bashar al-Assad inherited the presidency and presided over the catastrophic Syrian Civil War.