Salah Jadid (1926-19 August 1993) was Chief-of-Staff of the Syrian Army from 11 November 1963 to 1966, succeeding Ziad al-Hariri and preceding Ahmad Suwaydani.
Biography[]
Salah Jadid was born in 1926 in Dweir Baabda, Latakia Governorate, Syria to a family of Alawites. He graduated from the Homs Military Academy in 1946 and entered the Syrian Army, and Jadid joined the Syrian Social Nationalist Party before joining the Syrian Ba'ath Party. Jadid was forced to retire from the army due to his Nasserist loyalties in September 1961, and he became Second Secretary of the Ba'ath Party. From 1963 to 1966 he was Chief-of-Staff of the Syrian Army, and from 1966 to 1970 he was the de facto leader of Syria. Jadid attempted to help the Palestine Liberation Organization in fighting Jordan during Black September in 1970, but Hafez al-Assad was opposed to this move; soon, Jadid had the support of the Syrian Communist Party in expelling Assad from the Ba'ath Party. On 13 November 1970, Assad and his supporters launched the "Corrective Movement" and overthrew Jadid, and he died in Damascus in 1993 at the age of 67.