The siege of

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

refers to a military operation conducted by forces of the

Ba'athist Syria Ba'athist Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR), was the Syrian state between 1963 and 2024 under the One-party state, one-party rule of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region, Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath Party (Syri ...

led by

Hafez al-Assad Hafez al-Assad (6 October 193010 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, his death in 2000. He was previously the Prime Minister of Syria ...

in 1980 during the armed conflict between the Sunni groups, including the

Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...

, and the Ba'athist Syrian regime. Ba'athist Syrian forces committed several

massacres A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians en masse by an armed group or person. The word is a loan of a French term for "b ...

in the course of the operation.

Background

Protests and violence

Aleppo has traditionally been seen as Syria's most important city after Damascus, and was an important center to members of Syria's democratic and secular opposition as well as the armed Islamist opposition. The city was the scene of the Aleppo Artillery School massacre in June 1979, and also witnessed running battles and clashes between government security forces and the Islamist opposition in Autumn 1979. Armed cells of radical Islamist opposition attacked police patrols and government as a result, Syrian's government military and security forces launched a crackdown resulting in many casualties. Government security forces clamped down on the opposition, raiding opposition centers and meeting places. Government security forces were composed of 5,000 soldiers of the Defense Brigades, as well as thousands of members of the police and various other state security organizations. In spite of the heavy government presence large sections of Aleppo fell out of the control of the Syrian state.

Surge in opposition activity

Violence in the city exploded in November 1979, after security forces arrested Shaykh Zain al-Din Khairalla, a leading voice amongst Islamists and a regular leader of Friday prayers in the

Great Mosque of Aleppo The Great Mosque of Aleppo, also known as the Great Umayyad Mosque of Aleppo, is the largest and one of the oldest mosques in the city of Aleppo, Syria built by the Umayyad Caliphate. It is located in the al-Jalloum district of the Ancient City o ...

. Following the arrest opposition activity and violence increased exponentially, with daily demonstrations, strikes, and boycotts, and increased attacks on Ba'ath Party offices. The Islamist opposition were the biggest threat to the state, as they were the best armed and organized, although the secular opposition threatened the Ba'athist state due to its wide support amongst the middle classes, as well as minority groups opposed to the Islamists.

Operation

Crackdown

In early March 1980 the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood closed down the business district of Aleppo for two weeks. The strikes spurred sympathy strikes in other cities including Hama, Homs, Idlib, Deir ez-Zor, and Hasaka. In response both to the strikes and the general increase in opposition activity, in mid March units of the 3rd Division of the Syrian Army were redeployed to Aleppo from Damascus and Lebanon. The Division was reinforced with Special Forces units as well as additional units of the Defense Brigades. Syrian government forces, comprising some 30,000 men from units considered both elite and loyal, surrounded and sealed off Aleppo. The Special Forces units entered the city first, on 1 April 1980. The 3rd Division in turn deployed in force on 6 April. The Division deployed their soldiers alongside hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles, which engaged in a brutal crackdown, often firing indiscriminately at residential properties. Government force would seal off neighborhoods, and then search house to house for suspects and weapons. Gen. Shafiq Fayadh was reported to have stood on a tank on 5 April, and announced his willingness to "kill a thousand people a day to rid the city of the Muslim Brother vermins." The government offensive had resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths by mid April, whilst many more were detained at detention sites spread throughout the city. Special Forces units set up a prison camp in the

Citadel A citadel is the most fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of ''city'', meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. ...

Insurgency and massacres

Government forces had largely regained control of the city by May, although the situation remained tense. However new violence flared in the summer of 1980. In retaliation for an attack on a government patrol, Special Forces units rounded up males at random in the Suq al-Ahad quarter on 1 July. The units rounded up a random group of 200 males aged fifteen and over, and then proceeded to open fire on them killing 42 and wounding over a hundred and fifty.

Al-Masharqah massacre

On the morning of

Eid al-Fitr Eid al-Fitr () is the first of the two main Islamic holidays, festivals in Islam, the other being Eid al-Adha. It falls on the first day of Shawwal, the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. Eid al-Fitr is celebrated by Muslims worldwide becaus ...

, 11 August 1980, in response to another attack on a government patrol, Special Forces commander Hashem Mualla submitted orders for his men to surround the neighborhood of al-Masharqah, and ordered discharge of random people from their homes. These people were then marched to a nearby cemetery. Near the tomb of Ibrahim Hananu the units were ordered to fire, killing between 83 and 100 citizens, mostly children. Several hundred more were injured. Later, bulldozers buried the bodies, while some of them were still alive. Reinforcing the random nature of the selection process, some of those killed included Ba'ath party members, government workers, and other government supporters.

Bustan Al-Qasr massacre

The day after the

massacre in al-Masharqah neighborhood, the Third Armored Division occupied

and 35 citizens were taken from their homes and shot dead.

Result

Casualties

An estimated 1,000–2,000 people were killed by the security forces during the siege, either during clashes, at random, or as part of

summary execution In civil and military jurisprudence, summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial. The term results from the legal concept of summary justice to punish a summary offense, a ...

s. At least 8,000 were arrested, with other sources talking of 10,000 prisoners.From Hama to Hamas: Syria's Islamist Policies
inFocus SPRING 2009 • VOLUME III: NUMBER 1, Jewish Policy Center From 1979 to 1981 Muslim Brotherhood forces killed over 300 people in Aleppo; nearly all of whom were Ba'athist officials of

Alawites Alawites () are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ...

, but also including some clerics who had denounced these killings and the Brotherhood's armed terrorist campaign.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleppo 1980 Islamist uprising in Syria Sieges of Aleppo 1980s sieges 1980 mass shootings Massacres in 1980 Massacres in Syria Massacres committed by Ba'athist Syria Mass murder in Aleppo Mass shootings in Syria 1980 murders in Syria Battles in 1980 20th-century mass murder in Syria Attacks on residential buildings in Syria Attacks on buildings and structures in 1980 Deaths by live burial Cemetery vandalism and desecration