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1984 Syrian Coup Attempt
The 1984 Syrian coup attempt refers to the events in March during which Rifaat al-Assad unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow his brother, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. During these events, tens of thousands of soldiers with armored vehicles (some supported Rifaat, some supported Hafez) gathered in the capital Damascus and were on the verge of military clashes (which did not happen). Background Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970 after the " Corrective Movement". Al-Assad created a military dictatorship (much stronger than his predecessors) with a cult of personality around Assad family, his family. In the new regime Presidency of Hafez al-Assad, built by Hafez, Rifaat played a huge role, commanding the Defence Brigades, Defense Brigades, an all-Alawites, Alawite paramilitary force independent of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, Syrian Arab Army and responsible for defending Damascus from internal and external attacks. General Rifaat became a powerful figure in the Ba'ath P ...
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Rifaat Al-Assad
Rifaat Ali al-Assad (; born 22 August 1937) is a Syrian former military officer and politician. He is the younger brother of the late President of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, and Jamil al-Assad, and the uncle of the former President Bashar al-Assad. He was the commanding officer of the ground operations of the 1982 Hama massacre ordered by his brother. After launching a 1984 Syrian coup attempt, failed coup attempt against Hafez al-Assad in 1984, Rifaat lived in exile in Europe for 36 years and returned to Syria in October 2021 after being found guilty in France of acquiring millions of euros diverted from the Syrian state. In September 2022, France's highest court, the Court of Cassation (France), Cour de Cassation, confirmed the ruling. In August 2023, Switzerland issued an international warrant for Rifaat's arrest after its Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland, Federal Criminal Court demanded his extradition to prosecute him for his role in supervising ground operations of the 19 ...
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Presidency Of Hafez Al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad served as the President of Syria, President of Syria from 12 March 1971 until his Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, death on 10 June 2000. He had been Prime Minister of Syria, leading a Hafez al-Assad Government, government for two years. He was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad. Assad consolidated his power by imposition of mass surveillance on the society and ran a military dictatorship characterised by human rights violations, Arbitrary arrest and detention, arbitrary detentions, Extrajudicial killing, extrajudicial killings and elimination of leftist and conservative opposition. Various journalists and political scientists have described his regime as totalitarian. Major events during his tenure include the 1976 Syrian intervention in the Lebanese Civil War launched against the Palestinian fedayeen, Palestinian and leftist militias, resulting in the Syrian occupation of Lebanon until 2005. Domestically, his early years in power witnessed Islamist ...
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Coup D'état
A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. By one estimate, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, half of which were successful. Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems than Cold War coups, though coups still mostly perpetuate authoritarianism. Many factors may lead to the occurrence of a coup, as well as determine the success or failure of a coup. Once a coup is underway, coup success is driven by coup-makers' ability to get others to believe that the coup attempt will be successful. The number of successful cou ...
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1982 Hama Massacre
The Hama massacre () occurred in February 1982 when the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies paramilitary force, under the orders of President Hafez al-Assad, besieged the town of Hama for 27 days in order to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Ba'athist government. Fisk 2010 MEMRI 2002 The campaign that had begun in 1976 by Sunni Muslim groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, was brutally crushed in an anti-Sunni massacre at Hama, carried out by the Syrian Arab Army and Alawite militias under the command of Major General Rifaat al-Assad. Prior to the start of operations, Hafez al-Assad issued orders to seal off Hama from the outside world; effectively imposing a media blackout, total shut down of communications, electricity and food supplies to the city for months. Initial diplomatic dispatches released in Western media outlets assessed that 1,000 people were killed. Subsequent estimates vary, with the lower ones reporting at least 10,000 ...
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Kerry Pither
Kerry or Kerri may refer to: People * Kerry (name), a given name and surname of Gaelic origin, including a list of people with the name Places * Kerry, Queensland, Australia, a rural community * County Kerry, Ireland ** Kerry Airport, an international airport in County Kerry, Ireland ** Kerry Head, a headland * Kerry, Powys, Wales, a village * Kerry Park, Seattle, Washington, US, a park * Kerry (Dáil constituency), an Irish parliamentary constituency * County Kerry (Parliament of Ireland constituency) * Kerry (UK Parliament constituency) Businesses * Kerry Group, a food company in Ireland * Kerry Properties, a property developer in Hong Kong ** Kerry Logistics, a spinoff company Sports * Kerry F.C. (Ireland), an association football club based in Tralee, County Kerry * Kerry F.C. (Wales), an association football club based in Kerry, Powys * Kerry GAA, a governing body of Gaelic games in County Kerry ** Kerry county football team, a Gaelic football team ** Kerry county hu ...
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Tadmor Prison
Tadmor prison () was located in Palmyra (''Tadmor'' in Arabic) in the deserts of eastern Syria approximately 200 kilometers northeast of Damascus. It was also referred to as the ''Desert Prison''. Tadmor prison was known for harsh conditions, extensive human rights abuse, torture and summary executions. A 2001 report by Amnesty International called it a source of "despair, torture and degrading treatment." It was captured and destroyed by militants of the Islamic State (IS) in May 2015. History Founding The structures were originally built as military barracks by the French Mandate forces. Prison massacre During the 1980s, Tadmor prison housed thousands of Syrian prisoners, both political and criminal and it was also the scene of the June 27, 1980 ''Tadmor Prison massacre'' of prisoners by Rifaat al-Assad, the day after the Syrian branch of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood narrowly failed in an attempt to assassinate his brother, president Hafez al-Assad. Members of units of t ...
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Muslim Brotherhood In Syria
The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria () is the Syrian branch of the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization. Its objective is the transformation of Syria into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law through a gradual legal and political process. The party strongly opposes Pan-Arabism, socialism, capitalism, nationalism, communism, liberalism, and secularism in Syria. Founded at the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria was seen as one of several important political parties in the 1950s. When Syria unified with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic, the disbanding of the Muslim Brotherhood as a political party was a condition of union, one complicated by Gamal Abdel Nasser's conflict in Egypt with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was banned by the government of the Syrian Arab Republic starting after the 1963 coup by the secularist, pan-Arabist Ba'ath Party.Wright, Robin, ''Dreams and Shadows : the Future of the Middle East'', Peng ...
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Islamist Uprising In Syria
The Islamist uprising in Syria comprised a series of protests, assassinations, bombings, and armed revolts led by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Fighting Vanguard and, after 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. The uprising aimed to establish an Islamic republic in Syria by overthrowing the neo-Ba'athist government, in what was described by the Ba'ath Party as a "long campaign of terror". After 1980, the popular resistance to Ba'athist rule expanded, with a coalition of Islamist opposition groups coordinating nation-wide strikes, protests and revolts throughout Syria. During the violent events, resistance militias attacked Syrian Arab Army bases and carried out political assassinations of Ba'ath party cadres, army officials, Soviet military advisors, and bureaucrats linked to Assad family. Civilians were also killed in retaliatory strikes conducted by security forces. The uprising reached its climax in the 1982 Hama massacre, during which the Syrian ...
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Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the Lebanese people played a notable role in the lead-up to and during the conflict: Lebanese Christians and Lebanese Sunni Muslims comprised the majority in the coastal cities; Lebanese Shia Muslims were primarily based throughout southern Lebanon and in the Beqaa Valley in the east; and Lebanese Druze, Druze and Christians populated the country's mountainous areas. At the time, the Lebanese government was under the influence of elites within the Maronite Christian community. The link between politics and religion was reinforced under the Greater Lebanon, French Mandate from 1920 to 1943, and the country's parliamentary structure favoured a leading position for Lebanese Christians, who constituted the majority of the population. However, Leban ...
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Politics Of Ba'athist Syria
During the final decade of Ba'ath party rule, the politics of Syria took place in the framework of a presidential republic with nominal multi-party representation in People's Council under the Ba'athist-dominated National Progressive Front. In practice, Ba'athist Syria remained a one-party state where independent parties were outlawed, with a powerful secret police that cracked down on dissidents. From the 1963 seizure of power by its neo-Ba'athist Military Committee to the fall of the Assad regime, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party operated a totalitarian police state in Syria. After a period of intra-party strife, Hafez al-Assad gained control of the party following the 1970 coup d'état and his family dominated the country's politics. Until the early stages of the Syrian uprising, the president had broad and unchecked decree authority under a long-standing state of emergency. The end of this emergency was a key demand of the uprising. Superficial reforms in 2011 made ...
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Ba'ath Party (Syrian-dominated Faction)
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (; meaning "resurrection"), also referred to as the pro-Syrian Ba'ath movement, is a neo-Ba'athist political party with branches across the Arab world. From 1970 until 2000, the party was led by the Syrian president and Secretary General Hafez al-Assad. Until 26 October 2018, leadership was shared between his son Bashar al-Assad (head of the Syrian regional organization) and Abdullah al-Ahmar (head of the pan-Arab national organization). In 2018, after the reunification of the National and Regional Command, Bashar al-Assad became the Secretary General of the Central Command. The Syrian Regional Branch of the party was the largest organisation within the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party; it ruled Syria from the 1963 coup to the fall of the Assad regime in 2024. The Syrian Regional Branch's activities were indefinitely suspended on 11 December 2024 and its assets transferred to the transitional government, dissolving the branch. Other branches of the Sy ...
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