Key dates in Assad’s career
by NEW YORK (JTA) -- Following are key dates in the career of Syrian President Hafez Assad:, June 1967 -- A former army general, Assad serves as defense minister during the Six-Day War, during which Israel captures the Go
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March 12, 1971 -- Parliament elects Assad president.
October 1973 -- Syria and Egypt jointly launch a surprise attack on Israel to recapture territory lost in 1967. Syria almost regains the Golan, but Israel ultimately pushes Assad's forces back.
May 1974 -- Israel and Syria agree to disengage forces in the Golan; a U.N. observer force is created to monitor the U.S.-brokered agreement.
Jan. 16, 1976 -- Reacting to civil war in Lebanon, Assad sends forces there.
February 1979 -- After Iran's Islamic Revolution, Assad allies himself with the fundamentalist leaders of Iran in aiding international terrorists against Israel.
March 27, 1979 -- Assad condemns Egypt one day after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signs a peace deal with Israel.
Dec. 14, 1981 -- Israel annexes the Golan Heights.
February 1982 -- Assad sends forces into the Syrian city of Hama to crush an uprising. An estimated 10,000 people are killed.
June 1982 -- Israel invades Lebanon; Syrian troops pull back to northern and eastern Lebanon.
June 1983 -- Assad expels PLO leader Yasser Arafat from Syria. Assad also sponsors a mutiny by PLO radicals that drives Arafat out of Lebanon.
Aug. 2, 1990 -- After Iraq invades Kuwait, Assad joins U.S. coalition against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
November 1991 -- Syria attends U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Israel, attends Madrid peace conference in November 1991.
April 1992 -- Assad tells leaders of Syrian Jewry that he has decided to lift the decades-old restrictions that barred Jews from leaving the country.
October 1994 -- Details emerge about a secret operation in which approximately 4,000 Syrian Jews left the country, some 1,500 of whom settled in Israel.
March 1996 -- Sporadic Israeli-Syrian negotiations are halted when Assad fails to condemn a series of terror attacks against Israel.
December 1999 -- Assad agrees to resume peace talks with Israel.
January 2000 -- Israeli-Syrian talks are postponed indefinitely after Assad demands a written Israeli commitment to withdrawal from the Golan.
March 26, 2000 -- During a summit in Geneva, President Clinton and Syrian President Hafez Assad fail to find a basis for resuming Israeli-Syrian talks.
June 10, 2000 -- Assad dies at the age of 69, leaving his son Bashar as his designated heir.
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