Amin al-Hafiz

Amin al-Hafiz was a Syrian politician, general, and member of the Ba'ath Party who served as the President of Syria from 27 July 1963 to 23 February 1966. He led a coup against the Syrian government in 1963, shortly after the dissolution of the United Arab Republic. He became the head of the National Revolutionary Command Council and instituted socialist reforms and oriented his country towards the Eastern Bloc. He also improved ties with the Soviets, bankrolled Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Fatah guerrillas, and ordered engineers to divert two rivers that fed Israel's share of the Jordan. He was overthrown by a radical Ba'athist faction headed by Salah Jadid in 1966 and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He died in Aleppo in 2009 at the age of 88.