Mohammad Bassam Imadi | |
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Born | 1950 (age 72–73) [1] Damascus, Syria |
Nationality | Syrian |
Mohammad Bassam Imadi (born 1950) is the former Syrian ambassador to Sweden, who defected from the Bashar al-Assad government in 2011 [2] and became a member of the opposition Syrian National Council. [3]
Imadi resigned from his post as Syrian ambassador to Sweden in 2009. He began working with the opposition at the start of the uprising in March 2011. [3]
Ensuring national security, increasing influence among its Arab neighbours and securing the return of the Golan Heights, have been the primary goals of the Syrian Arab Republic's foreign policy. At many points in its history, Syria has seen tension with its neighbours, such as Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon. Syria enjoyed an improvement in relations with several of the states in its region in the 21st century, prior to the Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War.
Bashar Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian politician who has served as the 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the Secretary-General of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafez al-Assad, whose presidency between 1971 and 2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a dynastic dictatorship tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat, who are loyal to the Assad family.
The Muslim Brotherhood of 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.
Maher al-Assad is a Syrian general and commander of the Republican Guard and the army's elite Fourth Armoured Division, which together with Syria's Military Intelligence form the core of the country's security forces. He is also a member of the Central Committee of the Ba'ath Party's Syrian Regional Branch. He is thought by some to be the second-most powerful man in Syria after his brother Bashar, the current President.
Assef Shawkat was the deputy Minister of Defense of Syria from September 2011 until his death in July 2012.
Diplomatic relations between Syria and the United States are currently non-existent; they were suspended in 2012 after the onset of the Syrian Civil War. Priority issues between the two states include the Arab–Israeli conflict, the Golan Heights annexation, and the Iraq War.
Major General Hisham Ikhtiyar ; 1941 – 20 July 2012) was a Syrian military official, and a national security adviser to president Bashar al-Assad.
Parliamentary elections were held in Syria on 7 May 2012 to elect the members of the Syrian People's Council. The elections followed the approval of a new constitution in a referendum on 26 February 2012.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2011, including the escalation of violence in many Syrian cities.
Riyad Farid Hijab is a Syrian politician. He was Prime Minister of Syria from June to August 2012, serving under President Bashar al-Assad. From 2011 to 2012, he was Minister of Agriculture.
International reactions to the Syrian civil war ranged from support for the government to calls for the government to dissolve. The Arab League, United Nations and Western governments in 2011 quickly condemned the Syrian government's response to the protests which later evolved into the Syrian civil war as overly heavy-handed and violent. Many Middle Eastern governments initially expressed support for the government and its "security measures", but as the death toll mounted, especially in Hama, they switched to a more balanced approach, criticizing violence from both government and protesters. Russia and China vetoed two attempts at United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Syrian government.
The Syrian National Council, sometimes known as the Syrian National Transitional Council or the National Council of Syria, is a Syrian opposition coalition, based in Istanbul, Turkey, formed in August 2011 during the Syrian civil uprising against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
Fidaaldin Al-Sayed Issa, born January 15, 1985, is a Syrian political activist who lives in Eskilstuna, Sweden.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian uprising from September to December 2011. This period saw the uprising take on many of the characteristics of a civil war, according to several outside observers, including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, as armed elements became better organized and began carrying out successful attacks in retaliation for the ongoing crackdown by the Syrian government on demonstrators and defectors.
The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), or National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCB), is a Syrian bloc chaired by Hassan Abdel Azim consisting of 13 left-wing political parties and "independent political and youth activists". It has been defined by Reuters as the internal opposition's main umbrella group. The NCC initially had several Kurdish political parties as members, but all except for the Democratic Union Party left in October 2011 to join the Kurdish National Council. Some opposition activists have accused the NCC of being a "front organization" for Bashar al-Assad's government and some of its members of being ex-government insiders.
The Syrian opposition is the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-Assad groups with certain territorial control as an alternative Syrian government.
The 18 July 2012 Damascus bombing of the National Security headquarters in Rawda Square, Damascus, killed and injured a number of top military and security officials of the Syrian government. Among the dead were the Syrian Defense Minister and Deputy Defense Minister. The incident occurred during the Syrian Civil War, and is considered to be one of the most notorious events to affect the conflict. Syrian state-controlled television reported that it was a suicide attack while the opposition claims it was a remotely detonated bomb.
The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (Arabic: الائتلاف الوطني لقوى الثورة والمعارضة السورية), commonly named the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) (Arabic: الائتلاف الوطني السوري), or the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) is a coalition of opposition groups in the Syrian civil war that was founded in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. Former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Moaz al-Khatib, considered a moderate, was elected the president of the coalition, and resigned on 21 April 2013. Riad Seif and Suheir Atassi, both prominent democracy activists and the latter a secular human rights advocate, were elected vice presidents. The post of a third vice president will remain vacant for a Kurdish figure to be elected. Mustafa Sabbagh was elected as the coalition's secretary-general. The coalition has a council of 114 seats, though not all of them are filled.
Saudi Arabia–Syria relations refer to diplomatic and economic relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria. Diplomatic ties between these two countries of the Middle East have long been strained by the major events in the region. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria deteriorated further following the Syrian Civil War and Saudi Arabia's numerous calls for Bashar Assad to be ousted from power. Saudi Arabia cut off relations with Syria after they decided to close its embassy in Damascus and expel the Syrian ambassador in 2012. In March 2023, Saudi Arabia and Syria began discussing restoration of diplomatic relations.