1. Salah Jadid was a Syrian military officer and politician who was the leader of the far-left bloc of the Syrian Regional Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and the de facto leader of Ba'athist Syria from 1966 until 1970, when he was ousted by Hafez al-Assad's Corrective Movement.
Salah Jadid studied at the Homs Military Academy, and entered the Syrian Army in 1946.
Salah Jadid changed allegiance again in the 1950s, when he became a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, a party supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideological beliefs.
Salah Jadid supported Syria's ascension into the United Arab Republic, a union republic consisting of Egypt and Syria.
Salah Jadid established the Military Committee alongside other Ba'athists in 1959.
The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Salah Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment.
In that coup, Salah Jadid bicycled into the city that morning, and captured the Bureau of Officers' Affairs, which later became his personal fiefdom.
Soon, in the same 1963, Salah Jadid was promoted from Lieutenant colonel to Major general and named Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Syria.
The influence and power of neo-Ba'athists grew: Neo-Ba'athism was a more radical version of Ba'athism, and Salah Jadid was one of the main Neo-Ba'athists in Syria.
Salah Jadid came to power after a military coup in 1966, in which he was a leading figure.
Salah Jadid's coup caused the deepest rift in the history of the Ba'ath movement: when the National Command was toppled, the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Ba'ath party remained supportive of what it viewed as the "legitimate leadership" of Michel Aflaq.
Salah Jadid began his rule by re-organizing all the intelligence agencies under the central command of the Baath Party's National Security Bureau.
Salah Jadid appointed his ally, al-Jundi, to head the National Security Bureau, which became known as the most intimidating apparatus in the country.
Salah Jadid attempted a socialist transformation of Syrian society at a forced pace, creating unrest and economic difficulties.
Salim Hatum, who helped Salah Jadid come to power and commanded the coup operations, was disappointed in him and attempted a counter-coup, but it failed: Hatum fled to Jordan, and when he returned to Syria after the Six-Day War in 1967, he was immediately captured and executed by the neo-Ba'athist regime.
The Salah Jadid regime was anti-religious and imposed severe restrictions on religious freedom, banning religious preaching and persecuting the clergy.
Salah Jadid pursued an isolationist policy until 1969, which led to very tense relations with a number of countries in the region.
In 1970, when conflict erupted between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian army, Salah Jadid sent troops - ostensibly of the Palestine Liberation Army but actually regular Syrian army troops - into Jordan to aid the PLO.
The Syrian Communist Party aligned itself with Salah Jadid, drawing him the support of Soviet ambassador, Nuritdin Mukhitdinov.
In November 1970, Salah Jadid tried to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass.