Mustafa Tlass

Mustafa Mustafa Tlas or Tlass (Arabic: مصطفى طلاس, DMG Mustafa Talas, born in 1932 in al- Rastan in Homs ) is a former Syrian politicians. From 1972 to 2004 he was the Syrian defense minister.

Life

Tlas was born in 1932 in al- Rastan ( الرستن ) in the province of Homs and comes from a Sunni family Kabyle origin. At 15, he joined the Baath Party. In 1952 he began studying at the Military Academy in Homs and met Hafiz al -Assad, whose confidant he was. From 1958 to 1961 both were in the former United Arab Republic, a union of Egypt and Syria, stationed in Cairo. After the defeat against Israel in the Six Day War in 1967 Tlas was appointed chief of staff of the Syrian army and in 1972 the Syrian defense minister of Assad in 1968.

In the 1970s, he modernized the Syrian army with the help of the Soviet Union. In February 1982, he was responsible for the massacre of Hama, which called in the Central Syrian city of Hama tens of thousands of victims, including many members of the Muslim Brotherhood, who stood in opposition to the ruling Baath party.

He has published several books of his own hands and built a publishing company, in which, among other things, was a remake of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion " was published. In 1983 he published an anti-Semitic book called " Matza of Zion" with a description of the Damascus affair of 1840. The medieval blood libel is resumed, after which Jews would use to bake the matzo blood.

Tlas has two sons, Firas and Manaf Tlas, and two daughters, Sarya Tlas and Nahed Ojjeh, widow of the Saudi arms dealer Akram Ojjeh.