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Hasan Turkmani

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Lieutenant general
Hasan Turkmani
حسن توركماني‎
Deputy Vice President for Military Affairs
In office
3 June 2009 – 18 July 2012
PresidentBashar al-Assad
Prime MinisterMuhammad Naji al-Otari
Adel Safar
Riyad Farid Hijab
13th Minister of Defense
In office
12 May 2004 – 3 June 2009
Preceded byMustafa Tlass
Succeeded byAli Habib Mahmud
18th Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army
In office
23 January 2002 – 12 May 2004
Preceded byAli Aslan
Succeeded byAli Habib Mahmud
Member of the Regional Command of the Syrian Regional Branch
In office
9 June 2005 – 18 July 2012
Personal details
Born1 January 1935
Aleppo, French Mandate of Syria
Died18 July 2012 (aged 77)
Damascus, Syria
Political partyBa'ath Party
Military service
Allegiance Second Syrian Republic (1955–1958; 1961–63)
 United Arab Republic (1958–1961)
Syria Syrian Arab Republic (1963–2012)
Branch/service Syrian Army
Years of service1955–2012
Rank Lieutenant General
Battles/wars

Hasan Ali Turkmani (Arabic: حسن توركماني; 27 January 1935 – 18 July 2012) was a Syrian military officer and politician who served as Syria's Minister of Defense from 2004 to 2009.[1]

He was among four top Syrian government officials killed in a bombing in Damascus on 18 July 2012.

Early life

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Hasan Turkmani was born in Aleppo in 1935 into a Syrian Sunni Muslim family[2][3] of Turkmen origin.[4]

Career

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Bashar al-Assad (centre) alongside Syrian Defense Minister General Mustafa Tlass (right) and Chief of Staff Hasan Turkmani (left) in 2002.

Turkmani joined the Syrian Army in 1955 as an infantry officer. He was one of the first officers to graduate on the new mechanized units of the BMP-1 and BTR-60 armoured vehicles. He completed a staff course for combined arms operations from East Germany in 1965, and a Command and Staff Course from Egypt in 1969. He commanded the 9th Mechanized Infantry Division which fought a crucial rearguard action around Damascus in 1973.[5] He was promoted to the rank of major general in 1975.[2] Turkmani also began to serve as a member of the central committee of the Baath Party beginning in 2000.[6][7] He was the deputy chief of staff in the Syrian army until 2002.[8] He was appointed chief of staff on 23 January 2002, replacing Ali Aslan.[2][9] Since he was a Sunni Muslim, his appointment was considered as a move to restore a touch of sectarian diversity to Syria's military-intelligence establishment, which had been dominated by Alawites.[2]

On 12 May 2004, he became defense minister, replacing Mustafa Tlass.[10][11] On the other hand, Ali Habib Mahmoud succeeded Turkmani as chief of staff.[11] In June 2006, Turkmani visited Tehran and signed a strategic alliance agreement with his Iranian counterpart Mustafa Mohammad Najjar to form a joint defense committee.[12]

Turkmani was replaced in June 2009 by the former army chief Ali Habib Mahmud as defense minister.[13] On 3 June 2009, President Bashar Assad appointed Turkmani as assistant vice president with the rank of minister.[14] He was also appointed chief of crisis operations and was widely blamed for the campaign of torture in Syria.[15] In addition, Turkmani was a military advisor to Vice Fresident Farouk Sharaa.[16]

In June 2011, President Bashar al-Assad send a special military and security delegation led by General Hasan Turkmani to the Turkish capital of Ankara to meet Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[17] On 15 June 2011, Turkmani said that they would discuss relations between Turkey and Syria, congratulate Erdoğan on his election victory and thank him welcoming Syrian refugees into the country.[18]

Rumoured death

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On 19 May 2012, the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Damascus council announced that one of their operatives from the FSA's Al Sahabeh battalion had successfully poisoned all eight members of Bashar Assad's Central Crisis Management Cell (CCMC), a group of top military officials who ran the Syrian army's daily operations. The Free Syrian Army's Damascus council said they believed at least six of the eight members, including Turkmani, Assef Shawkat, Mohammad al-Shaar, Daoud Rajha, Hisham Ikhtiyar and Mohammad Said Bakhtian, had been killed. Mohammad al-Shaar, then interior minister, and Hasan Turkmani, then assistant vice president, denied their rumoured deaths on State TV, calling it "categorically baseless".[19][20]

Assassination and funeral

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Hasan Turkmani was assassinated on 18 July 2012 in a bombing by opposition militants on a meeting of the Central Crisis Management Cell (CCMC) at the national security building in Rawda Square, north-west Damascus, where the minister of defense Dawoud Rajiha, his deputy Assef Shawkat and other top officials were also killed.[21] Turkmani died of his wounds after the attack.[22] Dozens of civiliants were injured. A state funeral was held for him, Dawoud Rajiha and Assef Shawkat in Damascus on 20 July 2012.[23]

Personal life

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Hasan Turkmani's son Muhammad Bilal owned the weekly political magazine Abyad wa Aswad ("Black and White" in English).[1][24]

References

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  1. ^ a b Bar, Shmuel (2006). "Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview" (PDF). Comparative Strategy. 25 (5): 436. doi:10.1080/01495930601105412. S2CID 154739379. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d Gambill, Gary C. (February 2002). "The Military-Intelligence Shakeup in Syria". Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. 4 (2). Retrieved 7 July 2012.
  3. ^ Fahim, Kareem (19 July 2012). "Profiles of Syrian Officials Targeted in Damascus Blast". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  4. ^ Al-Akhbar (2012). "Damascus Bombing: The Assassinated Generals". Archived from the original on 10 October 2016. Retrieved 9 October 2016. He was born in Aleppo, the capital of northern Syria, in 1935 to parents of Turkish origins. He studied in the city until he enrolled in the Military Academy, graduating as an expert in field artillery.
  5. ^ Hanna Batatu (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Princeton University Press. p. 228. ISBN 978-0-691-00254-5. Retrieved 27 March 2013.
  6. ^ Moubayed, Sami (26 May – 1 June 2005). "The faint smell of jasmine". Al Ahram Weekly. 744. Archived from the original on 25 March 2013. Retrieved 2 March 2013.
  7. ^ Bruce Maddy-Weitzman (2002). Middle East Contemporary Survey, Vol. 24, 2000. The Moshe Dayan Center. p. 558. ISBN 978-965-224-054-5. Retrieved 8 March 2013.
  8. ^ Zisser, Eyal (June 2004). "Bashar al-Asad and his Regime- Between Continuity and Change". Orient. 45 (2): 239–256. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  9. ^ Blanche, Ed (30 March 2002). "'Coup-proof' Arab regimes must tread carefully in changing world". Lebanon Wire. Archived from the original on 26 November 2012. Retrieved 6 April 2013.
  10. ^ Hinnebusch, Raymond (2011). "The Ba'th Party in Post-Ba'thist Syria: President, Party and the Struggle for 'Reform'". Middle East Critique. 20 (2): 109–125. doi:10.1080/19436149.2011.572408. S2CID 144573563.
  11. ^ a b Flynt Lawrence Leverett (1 January 2005). Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire. Brookings Institution Press. pp. 191. ISBN 978-0-8157-5206-6. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
  12. ^ Samii, Abbas William (Winter 2008). "A Stable Structure on Shifting Sands: Assessing the Hizbullah-Iran-Syria Relationship" (PDF). Middle East Journal. 62 (1): 32–53. doi:10.3751/62.1.12. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
  13. ^ "Syria names new defence minister". France 24. 3 June 2009.[permanent dead link‍]
  14. ^ "Syria Military. Defense Ministry". Global Security. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  15. ^ Ibish, Hussein (17 July 2012). "Assad is Doomed". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  16. ^ Neil MacFarquhar; Dalal Mawad (18 July 2012). "Blast Kills Core Syrian Security Officials". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
  17. ^ "Erdogan to Assad: Stop the violence, implement reforms". The Jerusalem Post. 14 June 2011. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  18. ^ "Syrian president's envoy to meet Turkish PM". Xinhua. 15 June 2011. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  19. ^ "Six senior figures in Assad regime killed, rebel army says". The Guardian. 20 May 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  20. ^ "High-ranking Syrian officials deny reports of their own assassinations". Al Arabiya. 20 May 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  21. ^ Bassem Mroue; Elizabeth A. Kennedy (18 July 2012). "Ex-Syrian Defense Minister Said Killed in Damascus". ABC. AP. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
  22. ^ Dominic Evans; Khaled Yacoub Oweis (18 July 2012). "Bomb kills men at heart of Assad rule as Syria fight rages". Reuters. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
  23. ^ "Syria National Security Chief Dies of Wounds, State Funerals Held for Slain Officials". Naharnet. 20 July 2012. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
  24. ^ Blandford, Nicholas (1 February 2005). "Syrian media liberalisation causes a stir". The Middle East. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
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