Salah Jadid

Salah Jadid
صلاح جديد‎
Assistant Regional Secretary of the Syrian Regional Branch
In office 1 August 1965 – 13 November 1970
Regional Secretary	Amin al-Hafiz Nureddin al-Atassi
Preceded by	Muhammad az-Zubi
Succeeded by	Jaber Bajbouj
Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army
In office 11 November 1963 – 1966
Preceded by	Ziad al-Hariri
Succeeded by	Ahmed Suidani
Member of the Regional Command of the Syrian Regional Branch
In office March 1966 – 13 November 1970
In office 1 February 1964 – 19 December 1965
Personal details
Born	1926 (1926) Dweir Baabda, Alawite State, French Syria
Died	19 August 1993(1993-08-19) (aged 66–67) Mezzeh prison, Damascus, Syria
Political party	Ba'ath Party (Syrian) Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (1947–1966)
Military service
Allegiance	First Syrian Republic (1946–1950) Second Syrian Republic (1950–1958; 1961–63) United Arab Republic (1958–1961) Syria (1963–1970)
Branch/service	Syrian Army
Years of service	1946–1970
Rank	Major General
Battles/wars	First Arab-Israeli War Six-Day War

Salah Jadid (Arabic: صلاح جديد, romanized: Ṣalāḥ Jadīd; 1926 – 19 August 1993) was a Syrian military officer and politician who was the leader of the left-wing bloc of the Syrian Regional Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970, when he was ousted by Hafez al-Assad's Corrective Movement.

Early life and career

Jadid was born in 1926 in the village of Dweir Baabda, near the coastal city of Jableh, to an Alawite family of the Haddadin tribe. Another report states his birth year as 1924. He studied at the Homs Military Academy, and entered the Syrian Army in 1946. Jadid was originally a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), but later became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, in the 1950s through an associate of Akram al-Hawrani. Even so, Jadid remained close to the SSNP; his brother, Ghassan, was one of its most prominent members in Syria. He changed allegiance again in the 1950s, when he became a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, a party supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideological beliefs. Jadid supported Syria's ascension into the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union republic consisting of Egypt and Syria.

During the UAR-era, Jadid was stationed in Cairo, Egypt. Jadid established the Military Committee alongside other Ba'athists in 1959. The chief aim of the Military Committee was to protect the UAR's existence. In the beginning there were only four members of the Military Committee, the others were Hafez al-Assad, Abd al-Karim al-Jundi and Muhammad Umran. The Military Committee also tried to save the Syrian Ba'ath movement from annihilation. Committee members were among those who blamed Aflaq for the Ba'ath Party's failing during the UAR years. The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. A faction within the party, led by al-Hawrani, called for Syria's secession. The Military Committee did not succeed in its aims, and in September 1961 the UAR was dissolved. Nazim al-Kudsi, who led the first post-UAR government, persecuted Jadid and the others for their Nasserite loyalties, and all of them were forced to retire from the Syrian Army.

In 1963 Jadid was promoted from Lieutenant colonel to Major general and named Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Syria.

Downfall and death

In 1970, when conflict erupted between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian army, Jadid sent Syrian-controlled Palestinian troops of the nominally PLO-run Palestine Liberation Army, based in Syria, into Jordan to aid the PLO. This decision was not supported by Assad's more moderate Ba'ath faction, and the troops withdrew.

The action helped trigger a simmering conflict between the Jadid and Assad factions within the Ba'ath Party and army. The Syrian Communist Party aligned itself with Jadid, drawing him the support of Soviet ambassador, Nuritdin Mukhitdinov. Angered by this, Assad decided to scare the Soviets by sending Mustafa Tlass to Beijing to procure arms and wave Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. In November 1970, Jadid tried to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass. Assad responded by launching an intra-party coup dubbed the Corrective Movement. Jadid was arrested on 13 November 1970, and remained in the Mezzeh prison in Damascus until his death of a heart attack on 19 August 1993.

Bibliography

• Moubayed, Sami M. (2006). Steel & Silk: Men and Women who shaped Syria 1900–2000. Cune Press. ISBN 978-1-885942-41-8.
• Seale, Patrick (1990). Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06976-3.
• Tucker, Spencer; Roberts, Priscilla Mary (2008). The encyclopedia of the Arab–Israeli conflict: a Political, Social, and Military History: A–F. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-841-5.