Mustafa Tlass .. The terrifying Minister of Defense, who gave Syria to Bashar al -Assad

The regime of Hafez al -Assad and his son Bashar, for fifty years, have penetrated the Alawite sect officers in the military, security and government joints in the state, which prepared for them a stable judgment of iron and fire, but Assad used prominent Sunni faces to be like a political interface that protects his sectarian system.

Among the most prominent of these faces was the former Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, who is the longest Arab defense ministers. The man remained in office for more than thirty years!

Mustafa Tlass was born on May 11, 1932 in the town of Rastan, Homs Governorate, and in 1947 he joined the Military College in the same city, in which he met a group of Baathist officers, among them Salah Jadid and Hafez al -Assad, and after graduating in the early fifties he became an officer in the Syrian army.

Tlass from Assad’s friendship to his service

As Muhammad Nazir Sinan says in his book “Why Syria?”, With the establishment of the unity between Syria and Egypt between the years (1958-1961), Tlass was transferred to Cairo with a number of officers, among them Hafez al-Assad, Muhammad Imran, and Salah Jadid, who would lead many of the following coups.

During that period, his relationship was strengthened, especially with his companion, Hafez Al -Assad, and when the separation occurred, Assad was arrested in Cairo, while Tlass returned to Syria, with him the wife of Assad and his daughter Bushra, and later the lion was released in a exchange deal with Egypt.

In 1963, with the beginning of the Baath rule, Mustafa Tlass won a reward for his devotion, although he had no prominent role in the coup of the eighth of March, which was led by a group of military officers in a move that appeared to be limited, but Tlass, who was not known for his revolutionary activity, proved his loyalty to the next regime, which will make him close to the power circle.

But in 1964, the situation in Hama exploded when bloody confrontations broke out between the people rejecting the practices of the new authority, which swept several cities in the form of widespread popular strikes and demonstrations.

On the other hand, the Baathist authority threatened every violent opposition voice, as the closed shops stormed and looted its contents, and the regime launched the army’s hand to suppress the opposition, until the situation reached the bombing of the Sultan Mosque in Hama, which then turned into a haven for the chases, and the result was 17 victims of the city’s people, which could be described as the early reins of the Hama massacre, which will be eighteen years later.

Meanwhile, Tlass was appointed the military officer as a judge of a field customary court, then he issued deaths against scholars and youth from the city of Hama, to announce early on his loyalty to the new Baathist regime.

On the other hand, the Syrian president and one of the prominent resurrection officers, Amin Al -Hafiz, sought to meet with the Sheikh of the city, Mahmoud Al -Hamid, in a calm move to reduce the congestion resulting from these trials and events, and then to announce a comprehensive amnesty for all those convicted in this case.

These shocking events between the authority and the army drew the beginning of Mustafa Tlass’s political march early, as it revealed his deep loyalty to his personal aspirations and aspirations to reach power in any way and color.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Tlass and Amin Al -Hafiz was tense, while Tlass was moving under the supervision of his close friend Hafez al -Assad, who had clear sectarian tendencies, and seeks to network the Alawite officers and strengthen their positions, Amin Al -Hafiz, the Sunni president, was dealing with the sectarian issue with no remarkable lack of interest.

In 1965, Mustafa Tlass was seeking with full force to arrest the senior officers loyal to the Secretary of Al -Hafiz in the Homs military area known as the central region, and in order and coordination with Salah Jadid and Hafez al -Assad.

As Tlass mentioned in his memoirs, “Mirror of My Life”, Amin Al -Hafiz issued the support of the national leadership of the Baath Party, which was headed by his founder Michel Aflaq and others, a decision to exclude Tlass from the leadership of the central region, to lose his military position because of his participation in the demobilization of a number of Sunni officers loyal to Al -Hafiz, under the direction of his friends, Hafez Al -Assad and Salah Jadid.

In the wake of this incident, the arrangement began within the Baath Party from the Alawite officers and those who are in their orbit, such as Mustafa Tlass, to overthrow the opponents of their escalating influence, led by the party’s founder, Michel Aflaq, Amin Al -Hafiz, and others.

In the end, this scheme succeeded on February 23, 1966, when the party scene witnessed what was known as the “Shabatis” revolution, where a group of Alawite officers, led by Salah Jadid, Muhammad Imran and Hafez al -Assad, overthrew the Secretary of Al -Hafiz and all the founders of the first Baath Party such as Michel Aflaq and Al -Bitar, in addition to all political leaders.

As a result, Salah Jadid assumed the position of Deputy Secretary -General of the Baath Party, and this position remained raised despite the liquidation of traditional leaders, while Hafez al -Assad was appointed Minister of Defense, and after the success of the new coup, and as Assad promised his companion Talas, he returned to his position as commander of the central region, which happened, which made Tlass to document his relationship and loyalty to his friend Hafez Al -Assad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d84NLQTJH4K

The right arm of Hafez al -Assad

In 1967, the resounding defeat that was known in the history of the modern Arabs took place as “the setback”, and Nur al -Din al -Atassi was the President of the Republic in Syria at the time, and in fact it was only a weak Sunni facade that was driven by the military hands, while Youssef Zaina was the prime minister.

As for the actual rulers of Syria during that period, they were: Salah Jadid, Deputy Secretary -General of the Baath Party, Hafez al -Assad, Minister of Defense, and Ahmed Suwaidani, Chief of Staff.

After the setback, and in light of the struggle for power, the differences between the two close friends escalated for this reason, and given the absolute loyalty that Hafez realized from his friend Tlass, he appointed him in 1968 as chief of staff of the army, and his right arm, especially in those years in which the conflict between Hafez al -Assad and Salah al -Jadid escalated, and he reached his climax on November 13, 1970, when Salah tried to obtain a new decision National to dismiss Hafez al -Assad and Mustafa Tlass.

But Hafez al -Assad preceded them, and he came down to his tanks to the streets, so he arrested Salah Jadid, members of the national leadership and everyone who were loyal to him, headed by Noureddine Al -Atassi, the weak of the republic, who remained in prison until his death in 1992, while Salah Jadid died in prison also in the following year 1993.

After the success of what Hafez al -Assad called the corrective movement, he took power directly, and that was the first time that a president from the Alawite sect reached power in Syria, a sect formed less than 10% of the population, and in front of this new reality it was expected that Mustafa Tlass was expected to be the Sunni façade in the new ruling combination.

Later on the rank of Imad, which is a rank allocated to him and was distinguished from the rest of the officers, and the Ministry of Defense was assigned to him throughout the period of Assad, in addition to the position of Deputy Prime Minister, but Tlass remained in the eyes of many of the Sunnis in Syria as a limited value officer.

Patrick Cell contemplates in his book “The Assad, the Conflict over the Middle East” in the footnote that was surrounding the lion, and of course, Mustafa Tlass, and saw that their survival in their positions for long periods is due to “loyalty” and only loyalty, he says: “In his first year, Assad gathered his team, so he used men who were destined to work under his rule fifteen years or increased, and as the lion was in harmony In his political principles, he seemed to be frequently hesitant to change the faces around him, which was characterized by loyalty to loyalty. “

Mustafa Tlass was one of the players in drafting the plans of the October 1973 war against the Zionist entity, as he had a prominent role in coordination with the Egyptian side of the Military Operations Department.

Although the Syrian army achieved initial success thanks to the element of the surprise, which enabled its forces to reach the beaches of Tiberias, the inability of the military leadership to provide the necessary support to advance or strengthen the attack prevented the investment of this victory, which led to the decline in the Syrian forces and the loss of everything they accomplished, in addition to the displacement of the residents of 20 villages towards Damascus, to spread the tents for expatriates on the outskirts of the capital.

Despite the amplification of the self that we see in the biography written by Tlass in five volumes entitled “The Mirror of My Life”, and the attempt to photograph himself as the second man in Syria for three decades, the French News Agency quoted the former French intelligence officer and expert in Syrian affairs, Alan Shweier, as saying: Alevis.

This was confirmed by the Dutch historian and diplomat Nicholas van Damm in his book “The Struggle for Power in Syria”, after he seized the ruling on November 13, 1970, he relied heavily on a group of his loyal officers, who took vital strategic centers within the armed forces.

Van Dam is noted that most of these officers were from the Alawite sect, while senior military positions were entrusted to a number of officers belonging to other sects, but without being an actual threat to Assad’s rule, as the real influence in the hands of the Alawite officers, who were able to put out any attempt to rebel.

To clarify this pattern, Van Dam is cited several examples, including Major General Naji Jameel, a Sunni officer from Deir Al -Zour, who took over the Syrian Air Force Command from November 1970 to March 1978. Despite his high position, he was not able to use the air force against the regime, given that the main air bases were under the control of the Alawite officers.

This also applies to other Sunni officers, headed by Major General Mustafa Tlass, who was appointed Minister of Defense in March 1972, and Major General Youssef Shakour, who later served as the chief of staff, and he is one of the Christian community (the Greek Orthodox).

Patrick Cell believes in his previous book that the role of Tlass at the head of the army was to prevent any military coup against Hafez al -Assad, and he played a role in causing a military and security balance in front of the army units, security forces and other intelligence, and for this reason it was just a chess piece that Assad moved according to his own interests.

We will see this clear in the role played by Tlass in the Hama massacre in 1982, next to Rifaat al -Assad, Ali Haider and other influential Alawite officers who control the army and the security forces.

In a rare interview with the German newspaper “Der Spiegel” in 2005, Tlass defended the bloody military campaign against Hama, saying: “We used the weapon to reach power … and anyone who wants to extract it from us, he must take it by force,” noting that during that period, about 150 sentences were executed per week in Damascus alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erktt2yocnyi

Talab also had an important role in protecting the regime of Hafez al -Assad during the period of the coma that Hafez was subjected to in 1984. In that period, Rifaat al -Assad, the brother and the pride of his leadership of the forty thousand “defense” forces of the forces with their light and heavy weapons, sought to enhance his influence and control power through a white coup, taking advantage of his brother’s illness.

Tlass inherits the authority to Bashar!

In his eternal memoirs, Mustafa Tlass draws the image of the protector of Hafez al -Assad, and the loyal defender of him, opened the title “Three weeks that shook Damascus”, Tlass quotes Rifaat al -Assad as saying to Hafez al -Assad after a reconciliation session between them: “I swear to you by God had it not been for General Mustafa Tlass, all of your group in the corners do not equal franc … He was the only one who is ready to fight.”

The appearance of many controversial situations at the regional level, as he was describing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as the traitor, because in his claim he wanted to recruit him in his favor and he refused this, and perhaps he was one of those who were They incite Al -Assad Hafez to shoot down Sadat’s plane when Damascus came to tell him his intention to travel to Jerusalem for reconciliation with Israel, as he became famous for him Insult The famous Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the same position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oibmkkipezc

Given the vacuum that his long years left in the Ministry of Defense, and to confirm the conclusion of Nicholas van Damm and other researchers in contemporary Syrian history that Tlass was just a Sunni face used for considerations of preserving power in the hands of the Alawites, Tlass went to the field of authoring and publishing, so he established a publishing house that carried his name, and issued many of his prominent works, among which was his personal memoirs, “Mirror of my life” And the book “The History of the Great Arab Revolution” and “The Arab Messenger”, in addition to “The Taken Nizar Qabbani”, and perhaps his most famous and broader work was his book on “The Art of Cooking”.

In his book “The Missing Novel”, the Vice President and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Farouk Al -Shara, reviews the facts of the tenth of June 2000, when he visited the president’s house to find, according to a gesture of Major General Asif Shawkat, that “the body of President (Hafez al -Assad) was illegal in the neighboring room.”

In this context, the Sharia refers to the role that Mustafa Tlass played in the arrangements for the transmission of power, saying: “None of us wondered in a sad session how the sudden death occurred, but General Mustafa Tlass broke the silence, and he proposed directly to amend the constitution so that Dr. Bashar could take over the presidency.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, Mustafa Tlass has been silent about it, and he has not announced a clear position, and he has not criticized the massacres of the regime, preferring to leave Syria and stability in France with his family, and we will find among his most famous sons Manaf Tlass, who was the commander of the 104th Brigade in the Republican Guard before he defected from the regime in July 2012, where he fled to Turkey, and from which he fled to France.

The accounts differed regarding the real motives of the defection of Manaf, while some sources indicated that his decision came in protest against the violent military campaign against his hometown, the town of Rastan, other sources suggested that the estrangement between him and the regime began during the military operation on the Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs, between February and March 2012, when he refused to lead the unit that launched the attack on the neighborhood and took control of it later.

After a long life he spent in the service of the Al -Assad family, and on June 27, 2017, Mustafa Tlass died at the age of 85 at the Avisen Hospital near Paris, to be one of the most important figures who played a role in terrorizing the Syrian people in the last five decades!