Aleppo Artillery School massacre | |
---|---|
Part of Islamist uprising in Syria | |
Location | Aleppo, Syria |
Date | 16 June 1979 |
Target | Syrian Army cadets |
Attack type | Execution |
Weapons | Guns, grenades |
Deaths | 83 |
The Aleppo Artillery School massacre was a sectarian massacre of Syrian Army cadets on 16 June 1979. It was carried out by a handful of members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Fighting Vanguard led by Adnan Uqlah and Ibrahim al-Youssef, without the permission of the leader of the Fighting Vanguard, Hisham Jumbaz. [1] [2] [3] The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria later tried to cover up their involvement in the massacre by condemning it, but the Syrian government decided to conduct a large-scale crackdown against it to prevent any reoccurrence. [4] [5]
The massacre occurred on 16 June 1979, in the Ramouseh district of the city of Aleppo, Syria, at the Aleppo Artillery School. An officer on duty, Ibrahim al-Youssef, and members of the Fighting Vanguard (at-Tali’a al-Muqatila) and led by ʿAdnan ʿUqla, massacred 83 Alawi cadets in the Aleppo Artillery School. [6] [7] [8] The duty officer in charge of the school called Alawite cadets to an urgent morning meeting in the mess hall of the school; when they arrived, he and his accomplices opened fire on the unarmed cadets with automatic weapons and grenades. [9] The incident marked the beginning of full scale urban warfare of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood against the ruling Alawites. [10]
On 22 June, the Syrian interior minister, Adnan al-Dabbagh, accused the Muslim Brotherhood of the massacre. Although the principal targets were members of the Alawite sect, the Syrian Minister of Information, Ahmad Iskander Ahmad, stated that the murdered cadets also included Christians and Sunni Muslims.[ citation needed ] In a statement distributed on 24 June, the Muslim Brotherhood organization denied that it had any prior knowledge of the massacre nor involvement in it. [11] It also accused the Syrian government, then led by the Alawite President Hafez al-Assad, of trying to tarnish the image of the Muslim Brotherhood, speculatively because it was influential among the Syrian public. Overall, Syrian Islamists differed in their response to the massacre, however, with differing beliefs about the role of this kind of violence as a resistance tactic against the regime. [12]
The Syrian government responded by sentencing to death an estimated 15 prisoners belonging to the "Islamic resistance movement," all of whom were also accused of being Iraqi agents.[ citation needed ] Following the massacre, terrorist attacks became almost a daily occurrence, particularly in Aleppo and other northern cities. The government usually attributed these attacks to the Muslim Brotherhood, but as the armed resistance gained wider popular support and other, loosely defined, armed groups appeared, it became difficult to determine the extent of the Brotherhood's involvement. [13]
Hafez al-Assad was a Syrian politician, dictator and military officer who served as the 18th president of Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000. He had previously served as prime minister of Syria from 1970 to 1971 as well as 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.
The Alawite State, initially named the Territory of the Alawites, after the locally-dominant Alawites from its inception until its integration to the Syrian Federation in 1922, was a French mandate territory on the coast of present-day Syria after World War I. The French Mandate from the League of Nations lasted from 1920 to 1946.
Alawites are an Arab esoteric religious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, an esoteric sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God. The group was founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. Ibn Nusayr was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi, and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris.
The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982 when the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies paramilitary force, under the orders of President Hafez al-Assad, besieged the town of Hama for 27 days in order to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Ba'athist government. The campaign that had begun in 1976 by Sunni Muslim groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, was brutally crushed in an anti-Sunni massacre at Hama, carried out by the Syrian Arab Army and Alawite militias under the command of Major General Rifaat al-Assad.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria is a Syrian branch of the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization. Its objective is the transformation of Syria into an Islamic state governed by Sharia law through a gradual legal and political process.
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.
Terrorism in Syria has a long history dating from the state-terrorism deployed by the Ba'athist government since its seizure of power through a violent coup in 1963. The Ba'athist government have since deployed various types of state terrorism; such as ethnic cleansing, forced deportations, massacres, summary executions, mass rapes and other forms of violence to maintain its totalitarian rule in Syria. The most extensive use of state terrorism in the 21st century was the extensive state deployed violence against civilians during the 2004 Qamishli massacre.
The Brigades for the Defense of the Revolution, commonly referred to as Defense Companies, Defense Corps or Defense Brigades, were a Syrian all-Alawite paramilitary force commanded by Rifaat al-Assad. Their task was to safeguard and defend the government of Hafez al-Assad, and the capital Damascus, from internal and external attack.
The Islamist uprising in Syria comprised a series of protests, assassinations, bombings, and armed revolts led by Sunni Islamists, mainly members of the Fighting Vanguard and, after 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood, from 1976 until 1982. The uprising aimed to establish an Islamic republic in Syria by overthrowing the neo-Ba'athist government, in what has been described by Ba'ath Party as a "long campaign of terror".
The siege of Aleppo refers to a military operation conducted by forces of the Syrian government led by Hafez al-Assad in 1980 during the armed conflict between the Sunni groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Syrian government. Government forces committed several massacres in the course of the operation.
The 1981 Hama massacre was an incident in which over 300 residents of Hama, Syria, were killed by government security forces.
Shabiha is a colloquial and generally derogatory term for various loosely-organised Syrian militias loyal to the Assad family prior to the collapse of the Assad regime, used particularly during the initial phase of the Syrian civil war. As the war has evolved, many groups which had previously been considered shabiha were amalgamated into the National Defence Force and other paramilitary groups.
The Syrian Civil War is an intensely sectarian war. However, the initial phases of the uprising in 2011 featured a broad, cross-sectarian opposition to the rule of Bashar al-Assad, reflecting a collective desire for political reform and social justice, transcending ethnic and religious divisions. Over time, the civil war has largely transformed into a conflict between ruling minority Alawite government and allied Shi'a governments such as Iran; pitted against the country's Sunni Muslim majority who are aligned with the Syrian opposition and its Turkish and Persian Gulf state backers. Sunni Muslims made up the majority of the former Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and many held high administrative positions, while Alawites and members of almost every minority were also been active on the rebel side.
The National Alliance for the Liberation of Syria was a coalition of Syrian opposition groups, supported by the Iraqi government. The foundation of the National Alliance took place in Paris in March 1982. The charter of the National Alliance was tramsitted by Voice of Arab Syria on March 22, 1982. The National Alliance called for armed popular struggle in order to topple the al-Assad regime.
The Syrian Resistance, formerly known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Sanjak of Iskandarun, is a Marxist-Leninist pro-Syrian government militia operating in northwest Syria prior to the fall of the Assad regime.
Adnan Uqla was a Syrian Islamist insurgent who served as the leader of the Fighting Vanguard; a Sunni militant group connected to the Muslim Brotherhood that led the failed Islamist insurrection in Syria. He was noted as being particularly pious and of being the Vanguard's most charismatic and influential figure.
Adnan Saad al-Din (1929–2010) was the fourth supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria between 1976 and 1981.
Marwan Hadid (1934–1976) was an influential militant leader and preacher of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Syria.
The Fighting Vanguard of the Mujahidin, also known as the Fighting Vanguard of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, was an offshoot of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood that took part in violent actions against the regime of Hafez al-Assad during the Islamist uprising in Syria, mainly between 1976 and 1982.
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