Hafez al-Assad

At 69 years old, Hafez al-Assad has this physical status:

After graduating from high school, Assad aspired to be a medical doctor, but his father could not pay for his study at the Jesuit University of St. Joseph in Beirut. Instead, in 1950, he decided to join the Syrian Armed Forces. Assad entered the military academy in Homs, which offered free food, lodging and a stipend. He wanted to fly, and entered the flying school in Aleppo in 1950. Assad graduated in 1955, after which he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force. Upon graduation from flying school, he won a best-aviator trophy, and shortly afterwards was assigned to the Mezze air base near Damascus. He married Anisa Makhlouf in 1957, a distant relative of the powerful Makhlouf family.

In 1955, the military split in a revolt against President Adib Shishakli. Hashim al-Atassi, head of the National Bloc and briefly president after Sami al-Hinnawi's coup, returned as president and Syria was again under civilian rule. After 1955, Atassi's hold on the country was increasingly shaky. As a result of the 1955 election, Atassi was replaced by Shukri al-Quwatli, who was president before Syria's independence from France. The Ba'ath Party grew closer to the Communist Party not because of shared ideology, but a shared opposition to the West. At the academy, Assad met Mustafa Tlass, his future minister of Defence. In 1955, Assad was sent to Egypt for a further six months of training. When Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, Syria feared retaliation from the United Kingdom, and Assad flew in an air-defense mission. He was among the Syrian pilots who flew to Cairo to show Syria's commitment to Egypt. After finishing a course in Egypt the following year, Assad returned to a small airbase near Damascus. During the Suez Crisis, he also flew a reconnaissance mission over northern and eastern Syria. In 1957, as squadron commander, Assad was sent to the Soviet Union for training in flying MiG-17s. He spent ten months in the Soviet Union, during which he fathered a daughter (who died as an infant while he was abroad) with his wife.

In 1958, Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic (UAR), separating themselves from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey (who were aligned with the United Kingdom). This pact led to the rejection of Communist influence in favour of Egyptian control over Syria. All Syrian political parties (including the Ba'ath Party) were dissolved, and senior officers—especially those who supported the Communists—were dismissed from the Syrian armed forces. Assad, however, remained in the army and rose quickly through the ranks. After reaching the rank of captain, he was transferred to Egypt, continuing his military education with the future president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak.

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