Rifaat al-Assad

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Rifaat al-Assad (Arabic: رفعت الأسد) is the younger brother of the former President of Syria, Hafiz al-Assad, and the uncle of the current President Bashar al-Assad, all of whom come from the minority Alawite Muslim sect. He was born in the village of Qardaha, near Lattakia in western Syria.

[edit] Under Hafiz' rule

He played a key role in his brother's takeover of executive power in 1970, dubbed The Corrective Revolution, and ran the elite internal security forces and the 'Defence Company' (Saraya al-Difaa). He had a pivotal role throughout the 1970s and many saw him as the likely successor to Hafiz up until 1984.

In February 1982 he commanded the forces that put down a Muslim Brotherhood Sunni Islamist revolt in the central city of Hama, by instructing his forces to shell the city, killing possibly 20,000 of its inhabitants. This became known as the Hama Massacre. The American journalist Thomas Friedman claims in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem that Rifaat later bragged that the total number of victims was no less than 38,000.

[edit] Attempted coup d'état

When Hafez al-Assad suffered from a heart attack in 1983, he established a 6-member committee to run the country. At the same time, Rifaat's troops, now numbering more than 55,000 with tanks, artillery, aircraft and helicopters, began asserting control over Damascus. Tensions between forces loyal to Hafiz and those loyal to Rifaat were extreme, but in the end Hafiz ended the attempted coup by getting up from his sick bed and assuming full control, with the aid of Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass. Command of the 'Defence Company' was transferred to another officer, and Rifaat was sent abroad on "an open-ended working visit".

Although he returned for his mother's funeral in 1992, he has remained in exile in France and Spain ever since. He nominally retained the post of vice president until 1998, when he was stripped even of this. This has not, however, prevented Rifaat, alongside his son Shawmar, from building up a large business empire both in Syria, and abroad. Periodic crackdowns on his supporters in Syria have continued: in 1999, for example, large numbers of Rifaat's supporters were arrested.

In France, Rifaat has loudly protested the succession of Bashar al-Assad, Hafiz's son, to the post of president, claiming that he himself embodies the "only constitutional legality" (as vice president, alleging his dismissal was unconstitutional). He has made threatening remarks about planning to return to Syria at a time of his choosing to assume "his responsibilities and fulfill the will of the people", and that while he will rule benevolently and democratically, he will do so with "the power of the people and the army" behind him. To date, however, this has amounted to little more than threatening words for which he uses his sons TV channel Arab News Network (ANN) as a mouthpiece.

[edit] Foreign support for Rifaat

It is claimed that Rifaat is reputed to have turned even to Israel asking for assistance, and he has also initiated contacts with exiled representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood. After the Iraq war, there were press reports that he had started talks with US government representatives on helping to form a coalition with other anti-Assad groups to provide an alternative Syrian leadership, on the model of the Iraqi National Congress. Rifaat has held a meeting with the former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Yossef Bodansky, the director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, has stated that Rifaat enjoys support from both America and Saudi Arabia. The Bashar regime remains wary of his intentions and carefully monitors his activities.

Rifaat was mentioned by the influential American think tank STRATFOR as a possible suspect for the 2005 bombing that killed Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri and the string of attacks that has struck Beirut after the subsequent Syrian withdrawal. The goal would be to destabilize the Syrian regime. However, there was no mention of Rifaat in the United Nations Mehlis report on the crime.

As of 2007 Rifaat was living in Marbella, Spain.[1]