Mustafa Abdul Qadir Tlass was a Syrian senior military officer and politician who was Syria's minister of defense from 1972 to 2004.
30 Facts About Mustafa Tlass
2.
Mustafa Tlass was part of the four-member Regional Command during the Hafez Assad era.
3.
Mustafa Tlass's father, Abdul Qadir Tlass, was a minor Sunni noble who made a living during the Ottoman period by selling ammunition to the Turkish garrisons.
4.
Mustafa Tlass is said to have some Alawite family connections through his mother.
5.
Mustafa Tlass joined the Ba'ath Party at the age of 15, and met Hafez al-Assad when studying at the military academy in Homs.
6.
When Hafez al-Assad was briefly imprisoned by Nasser at the breakup of the union, Mustafa Tlass fled and rescued his wife and sons to Syria.
7.
Mustafa Tlass then promoted Tlass to high-ranking military and party positions.
8.
In 1965, while he was Ba'athist army commander of Homs, Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Tlass arrested his pro-government comrades.
9.
In 1969, Mustafa Tlass led a military mission to Beijing, and secured weapons deals with the Chinese government.
10.
Mustafa Tlass was promoted to minister of defense in 1972, and became one of al-Assad's most trusted loyalists during the following 30 years of one-man rule in Syria.
11.
At the beginning of the 2000s, Mustafa Tlass was deputy prime minister in addition to his post as defense minister.
12.
Mustafa Tlass was a member of Baath Party's central committee.
13.
Mustafa Tlass attempted to create a reputation for himself as a man of culture and emerged as an important patron of Syrian literature.
14.
Mustafa Tlass published several books of his own, and started a publishing house, Tlass Books, which has been internationally criticized for publishing alleged anti-Semitic materials.
15.
Mustafa Tlass had boasted to the National Assembly about Cannibalist atrocities committed against Israeli soldiers who fell captive in the Yom Kippur war.
16.
Mustafa Tlass did not use the military weapon to kill them but utilized the ax to decapitate them.
17.
Mustafa Tlass then devoured the neck of one of them and ate it in front of the people.
18.
Mustafa Tlass wrote books about Syria's military and political history and books of poetry, general Arab history, and a history of the military tactics used by Muhammad.
19.
Mustafa Tlass published two-volume memoirs, namely Mirat Hayati in 2005.
20.
In 1983, Mustafa Tlass wrote and published The Matzah of Zion, which is a treatment of the Damascus affair of 1840 that repeats the ancient "blood libel", that Jews use the blood of murdered non-Jews in religious rituals such as baking Matza bread.
21.
Mustafa Tlass re-printed the book several times, and stands by its conclusions.
22.
In February 2002 in the Jordanian daily Al Dustour stated that Mustafa Tlass submitted his letter of resignation to Bashar al-Assad, and was set to step down in July 2002.
23.
However, in 2004, Mustafa Tlass was replaced by Hasan Turkmani as defense minister.
24.
Mustafa Tlass left for France for what he described as medical treatment.
25.
Mustafa Tlass married Lamia Al Jabiri, a member of the Aleppine aristocracy, in 1958.
26.
Mustafa Tlass's marriage secured his position among the traditional elite and enabled him to advance socially.
27.
Mustafa Tlass has lived in Paris since the onset of Syrian uprising.
28.
Mustafa Tlass was the only member of the Ba'ath government who took part in the traditional social establishment of Syria.
29.
Mustafa Tlass's hobbies are said to include horseback riding, tennis, and swimming.
30.
Mustafa Tlass died on 27 June 2017 in Avicenne Hospital in Paris, France, at the age of 85.