When he came to power, he organised the state along sectarian lines (Sunnis and non-Alawites became figureheads of political institutions whilst the Alawites took control of the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and security apparatuses).

However, Bassel died in a highspeed car crash in 1994, and Assad turned to his third choice—his younger son Bashar, who at that time was a medical student in the UK, with no political experience.

The move to appoint a member of his own family as his successor was met with criticism in some quarters of the Syrian ruling class, but Assad persisted with his plan and demoted officials who opposed this succession.

[15] After Syria left the UAR in September 1961, Assad and other Ba'athist officers were removed from the military by the new government in Damascus, and he was given a minor clerical position at the Ministry of Transport.

[34] Assad may have received the most important job of all, since his primary goal was to end factionalism in the Syrian military and make it a Ba'ath monopoly;[34] as he said, he had to create an "ideological army".

[45] According to Seale, Assad abhorred Aflaq; he considered him an autocrat and a rightist, accusing him of "ditching" the party by ordering the dissolution of the Syrian Regional Branch in 1958.

[54] Shortly after his release, Assad was approached by dissident Syrian military officers to oust the government; he refused, believing that a coup at that time would have helped Israel, but not Syria.

[60] Shortly after the failed attempt to expel Assad from the Regional Command, he began to consolidate his position in the military establishment[60]—for example, by replacing Chief of Staff Ahmad al-Suwaydani with his friend Mustafa Tlass.

[62] In February 1969, the Assad-Jadid conflict erupted in violent clashes through their respective proteges: Rifaat al-Assad (Hafez's brother and a high-ranking military commander) and Jundi.

[65] Around this time, Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, Houari Boumediene's Algeria and Ba'athist Iraq began sending emissaries to reconcile Assad and Jadid.

[69] He made overtures to the Writers' Union, rehabilitating those who had been forced underground, jailed or sent into exile for representing what radical Ba'athists called the reactionary classes:[69] "I am determined that you shall no longer feel strangers in your own country.

[74] At the 11th National Congress, Assad assured party members that his leadership was a radical change from that of Jadid, and he would implement a "corrective movement" to return Syria to the true "nationalist socialist line".

According to Hinnebusch, the Alawite officers around Assad "were pivotal because as personal kinsmen or clients of the president, they combined privileged access to him with positions in the party and control of the levers of coercion.

[77] The leading figures in the Alawite-dominated security system had family connections; Rifaat al-Assad controlled the Struggle Companies, and Assad's brother-in-law Adnan Makhlouf was his second-in-command as Commander of the Presidential Guard.

[87] Although Sunnis held the positions of Air Force Commander from 1971 to 1994 (Jamil, Subhi Haddad and Ali Malahafji), General Intelligence head from 1970 to 2000 (Adnan Dabbagh, Ali al-Madani, Nazih Zuhayr, Fuad al-Absi and Bashir an-Najjar), Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army from 1974 to 1998 (Shihabi) and defense minister from 1972 until after Assad's death (Tlass), none had power separate from Assad or the Alawite-dominated security system.

[90] The Alawite military-security establishment got the greatest share of the money;[91] the Ba'ath Party and its leaders ruled a new class, defending their interests instead of those of peasants and workers (whom they were supposed to represent).

[91] This, coupled with growing Sunni disillusionment with what Hinnebusch calls "the regime's mixture of statism, rural and sectarian favouritism, corruption and new inequalities", fueled the growth of the Islamic movement.

[93] It was not until the 1970s that the Muslim Brotherhood established a clear, central collective authority for its organization under Adnan Saad ad-Din, Sa'id Hawwa, Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanuni and Husni Abu.

[95] The new government failed to assuage critics, and the Sunni middle class and the radical left (believing that Ba'athist rule could be overthrown with an uprising) began collaborating with the Islamists.

Believing they had the upper hand in the conflict, beginning in 1980 the Islamists began a series of campaigns against government installations in Aleppo;[95] the attacks became urban guerrilla warfare.

[95] The government began to lose control in the city and, inspired by events, similar disturbances spread to Hama, Homs, Idlib, Latakia, Deir ez-Zor, Maaret-en-Namen and Jisr esh-Shagour.

[101] According to Batatu, "there is no way that he could have permissibly accumulated the vast sums needed for the investments he made in real estate in Syria, Europe and the United States".

[102] Rifaat al-Assad also lacked military support;[102] officers and soldiers resented the Defense Companies' monopoly of Damascus' security, their separate intelligence services and prisons and their higher pay.

[104] This decree nearly sparked a clash between the Defense Companies and the Republican Guard on 27 February 1984, but conflict was avoided by Rifaat al-Assad's appointment as one of three Vice Presidents on 11 March.

Inefficiency, mismanagement, and corruption in the government, public, and private sectors, illiteracy, poor education (particularly in rural areas), increasing emigration by professionals, inflation, a growing trade deficit, a high cost of living and shortages of consumer goods were among problems faced by the country.

Syria lacked sugar, bread, flour, wood, iron, and construction equipment; this resulted in soaring prices, long queues and rampant black marketeering.

[114] The Soviet leadership was wary of supplying the Syrian government, viewing Assad's rise to power with a reserve and believing him to lean further West than Jadid did.

[118] In a secret meeting of the Egyptian–Syrian Military Council from 21 to 23 August 1973, the two chiefs of staff (Syrian Youssef Chakkour and Egyptian Saad el-Shazly) signed a document declaring their intention to go to war against Israel.

[137] On 23 October the Syrian government accepted the ceasefire, spelling out its understanding of UN Resolution 338 (withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied territories and the safeguarding of Palestinian rights).

[173] Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Libya, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Kuwait and Qatar announced three days of national mourning.