Hafez al-Assad (October 6, 1930 – 10 June 2000) is a Syrian statesman, politician and general who serves as President of Syria from 1971 to 2000, and Prime Minister from 1970 to 1971.

He serves as Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and Secretary General of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1971 to 2000 and as Minister of Defense from 1966 to 1972.

Assad adheres to the ideology of Ba'athism.

Under his administration Syria sees increased stability with a program of secularization and industrialization designed to modernize and strengthen the country as a regional power.

Born to a poor Alawite family, Assad joinz the Syrian wing of the Ba'ath Party in 1946 as a student activist.

In 1952 he enterz the Homs Military Academy, graduating three years later as a pilot.

While exiled to Egypt (1959–1961) during Syria's short-lived union with Egypt in the United Arab Republic, Assad and other military officers form a committee to resurrect the fortunes of the Syrian Ba'ath Party.

After the Ba'athists take power in 1963, Assad becomes commander of the air force.

In 1966, after taking part in a coup that overthrows the civilian leadership of the party and sends its founders into exile, he becomes Minister of Defense.

During Assad’s ministry Syria loses the Golan Heights to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, dealing Assad a blow that shapes much of his future political career.

Assad then engages in a protracted power struggle with Salah al-Jadid, chief of staff of the armed forces, Assad's political mentor, and effective leader of Syria, until finally in November 1970 Assad seizes control, arresting Jadid and other members of the government.

He becomes prime minister and in 1971 is elected president.

In 1973, Assad changes Syria's Constitution in order to guarantee equal status for women and enable non-Muslims to become president; the latter change is reverted under pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Assad sets about building up the Syrian military with Soviet aid and gaining popular support with public works funded by Arab donors and international lending institutions.

Political dissenters are eliminated by arrest, torture, and execution, and when the Muslim Brotherhood mouns a rebellion in Hama in 1982, Assad suppresses it, killing between 10,000–40,000 people.

In foreign affairs, Assad tries to establish Syria as a leader of the Arab world.

A new alliance with Egypt culminates in the Yom Kippur War against Israel in October 1973, but Egypt's unexpected cessation of hostilities exposes Syria to military defeat.

In 1976, with Lebanon racked by the civil war, Assad dispatches several divisions to that country and secures their permanent presence there as part of a peacekeeping force sponsored by the Arab League.

After Israel's invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982–1985, Assad is able to reassert control of the country, eventually compelling Lebanese Christians to accept constitutional changes granting Muslims equal representation in government.

Assad also aids Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups based in Lebanon and Syria.

Assad supports Iran in its war against Iraq (1980–1988), and joins the US-led alliance against Iraq in the Gulf War of 1990–1991.

Assad seeks to establish peaceful relations with Israel in the mid-1990s, but his repeated call for the return of the Golan Heights stalls the talks.

He dies of a heart attack in 2000 and is succeeded as President by his son, Bashar al-Assad.

Assad is a controversial and highly divisive world figure, being lauded as a champion of secularism, women's rights and Syrian nationalism by his supporters, but his critics have accused him of being a dictator who constructed a cult of personality and whose authoritarian administration oversaw multiple human rights abuses both at home and abroad.