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| See also: | Other events of 1980 List of years in Syria | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 1980 in Syria .
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| Decades: | |||||
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| See also: | Other events of 1980 List of years in Syria | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 1980 in Syria .
Hafez al-Assad was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000. He was also the prime minister of Syria from 1970 to 1971 as well as the regional secretary of the regional command of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and secretary general of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1970 to 2000. Hafez al-Assad was a key participant in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, which brought the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power in the country, a power that lasted until the fall of the regime in 2024, then led by his son Bashar.
Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian politician, military officer, and former dictator who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until his government was overthrown in the Syrian Revolution in 2024. As president, Assad was commander-in-chief of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces and secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is the son of Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000.
The president of Syria is the head of state of Syria. The president is vested with sweeping powers that may be delegated, at his sole discretion, to his vice presidents. The president appoints and dismisses the prime minister and other members of the Council of Ministers and military officers.
Bassel al-Assad was a Syrian military officer, engineer and politician. He was the eldest son of the 18th Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. He was expected to succeed his father as president until his death in a car crash in January 1994. After his death, his younger brother Bashar became heir apparent to the Syrian presidency and ultimately succeeded their father upon his death.
Rifaat Ali al-Assad, known as the "Butcher of Hama", is a Syrian former military officer and politician. He is the younger brother of the late President of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, and Jamil al-Assad, and the uncle of the former President Bashar al-Assad. He was the commanding officer of the ground operations of the 1982 Hama massacre ordered by his brother.
Qardaha is a town in northwestern Syria, in the mountains overlooking the coastal town of Latakia. Nearby localities include Kilmakho to the west, Bustan al-Basha to the southwest, Harf al-Musaytirah to the southeast and Muzayraa to the north. According to the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics, Qardaha had a population of 8,671 in 2004. It has a predominantly Alawite population and is the traditional home of the Assad family, which ruled Syria from 1970 until 2024. It is believed that many of Assad’s loyalists have fled to Qardaha after the end of the Assad regime in December 2024.
Abdul Halim Khaddam was a Syrian politician who served as interim President of Syria in 2000 as well as the Vice President of Syria and the Syrian High Commissioner to Lebanon from 1984 to 2005. He was a long known loyalist of Hafez al-Assad under the Ba'athist regime in Syria after the Corrective Movement in 1970. He resigned from his position and left the country in 2005 in protest against certain policies of Hafez's son and successor, Bashar al-Assad. He accumulated substantial wealth while in office: a Credit Suisse account in his name, opened in 1994, had nearly 90 million Swiss francs in September 2003, per Suisse secrets. This puts Khaddam and his family's net worth at $1.1 billion, making them one of the wealthiest and most influential political families in the Middle East.
Assef Shawkat was a Syrian military officer and intelligence chief who was the Deputy Minister of Defense of Syria from September 2011 until his death in July 2012. He was the brother-in-law of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, having married his older sister Bushra.
The Air Force Intelligence Directorate was the intelligence service of Ba'athist Syria from 1963 until 2024, owing its importance to Hafez al-Assad's role as the Air Force commander. Despite its name, it was mainly involved with issues other than air force intelligence, and took an active part in the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood rebellion in the 1980s. Agents of this service have frequently been stationed in Syrian embassies or branch offices of the national airline.
Pakistan–Syria relations are the historic, international, and bilateral relations between Syria and Pakistan. Syria has an embassy in Islamabad. Pakistan is represented in Syria through its embassy in Damascus and honorary consulate in Homs. Through the ancient civilization exchange, areas of modern Pakistan were part of the silk route with the Syria and for centuries, Syrian Islamic missionaries that introduced Islam in the parts of now integrated in Pakistan after 711 AD were from Syria.
Hafez Mohamad Makhlouf, also known as Hafez Makhlouf, is a Syrian brigadier general and intelligence officer who headed the Damascus branch of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate. He was a member of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's inner circle of close supporters.
Bouthaina Shaaban is a Syrian politician who served as political and media adviser to the presidency under Bashar al-Assad until his overthrow in 2024. Shaaban had also previously served as the first Minister of Expatriates for the Syrian Arab Republic, between 2002 and 2008, and was described as the Syrian government's face to the outside world at the time.
The Assad family ruled Syria from 1971, when Hafez al-Assad became president under the Ba'ath Party following the 1970 coup, until Bashar al-Assad was ousted on 8 December 2024. Bashar succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, after Hafez's death in 2000.
The Corrective Movement, also referred to as the Corrective Revolution or the 1970 coup, was a bloodless military coup d'état led by General Hafez al-Assad on 13 November 1970 in Syria. Assad promised to sustain and improve the "nationalist socialist line" of the state and the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath party adopted an ideological revision, absolving itself of Salah Jadid's doctrine of exporting revolutions. The new doctrine placed emphasis on defeating Israel, by developing the Syrian military with the support of the Soviet Union.
The 1999 Latakia protests were violent protests and armed clashes, which erupted in Latakia, Syria following 1998 People's Assembly's Elections. The violent events were an explosion of a long-running feud between Hafez al-Assad and his younger brother Rifaat. Two people were killed in fire exchanges of Syrian police and Rifaat's supporters during police crack-down on Rifaat's port compound in Latakia. According to opposition sources, denied by the government, the protests left hundreds of dead or injured.
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region, officially the Syrian Regional Branch, was a neo-Ba'athist organisation founded on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar and followers of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party ruled Syria from the 1963 coup d'état, which brought the Ba'athists to power, until 8 December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in the face of a rebel offensive during the Syrian Civil War. The party suspended all activities on 11 December 2024 "until further notice" and transferred its assets to the Syrian transitional government, de facto dissolving the party. On 29 January 2025, the party was formally dissolved by the Syrian transitional government.
Abdul Rahman Khleifawi was a Syrian military officer and politician. He was Prime Minister of Syria from 1971 succeeding Hafez al-Assad who just promoted to the post of President of Syria to 1972 for 1 year and again from 1976 to 1978 for about 2 years, he served as prime minister for two separate terms together under President Hafez al-Assad.
AnisaMakhlouf was the matriarch of the Syrian Al-Assad family, which ruled the country from 1971 to December 2024. The wife of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Makhlouf remained the Syrian First Lady from 1971 until 2000. Her son Bashar al-Assad was President of Syria from 2000 until the Assad regime was overthrown in 2024.
Ali Haydar, known as the "Father of the Syrian Special Forces", was a Syrian military officer who was the commander of the Syrian Special Forces for 26 years. He was a close confidant to President Hafez al-Assad and one of the members of Assad's inner circle. Born in the village of Hallet Ara, Haydar was a member of the Ba'ath Party from his youth. He was commissioned into the Syrian Army in 1952 after a stint studying at the Homs Military Academy. After the Ba'ath Party seized power in a 1963 coup d'état, Haydar was put in charge of Syria's special forces and supported al-Assad in his rise to the presidency. During this time he was deployed to Lebanon during their civil war. Haydar opposed the 1984 coup d'état attempt led by Rifaat al-Assad, instead remaining loyal to Hafez al-Assad. After suffering an aneurysm and leaving his post in 1988, he returned to lead the special forces again in the early 1990s. At the time a Major General, he was formally removed from his position and then imprisoned in August 1994, though he was treated well during his brief prison stay and was released without a trial or public humiliation. Haydar died in Latakia at the age of 90.
This article discusses the background and reasons that contributed to the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. What began as large-scale peaceful protests in March 2011 as part of the 2010–11 Arab Spring protests that reverberated across the Arab World, eventually escalated into a civil war following the brutal crackdown by Assad regime's security apparatus.