Though Salamiyah was a predominantly Ismaili town, al-Jundi belonged to the Sunni minority of the area and would later in life be known as 'an inciter of anti-Ismaili sentiments.

[2] In 1960, al-Jundi, then a captain in the army of the United Arab Republic (UAR), became a founding member of the secretive Military Committee of the Ba'ath Party.

[5] On 8 March 1963, the Military Committee launched a successful coup against the government of Nazim al-Qudsi, bringing the Ba'ath Party to power in Syria.

[7] Between 4 October 1964 and 21 December 1965, al-Jundi served as Minister of Agrarian Reform in the two successive cabinets of Amin al-Hafiz and Yusuf Zuayyin.

[12] The Bureau, under al-Jundi, acquired a notorious reputation in the country for its brutal methods of rooting out opponents,[13] including arbitrary arrests, torture and infiltrating civil society with state informers.