Syria, 1982 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an event coded as an attempted dissident coup in Syria on 6 January 1982 against the government of President Hafez al-Assad, in the period of intense confrontation between the ruling Baath regime and the Islamist opposition led by the Muslim Brotherhood. Through the late 1970s and early 1980s the Brotherhood waged an armed insurgency of assassinations and bombings against the Alawite dominated Assad government, which responded with escalating repression. Early 1982 was the immediate prelude to the regime's most notorious act, the Hama massacre of February 1982, when the army under Assad's brother Rifaat crushed a Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama, killing many thousands of people.
Any coup attempt or plot in early January 1982 came within this atmosphere of insurgency and looming confrontation and did not unseat Assad, who survived the Islamist challenge and an earlier 1980 assassination attempt, and a serious 1983 to 1984 succession crisis involving Rifaat, to rule Syria until his death in 2000, when power passed to his son Bashar.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
65201061982
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Hafez al-Assad survived the early 1982 plotting amid the Islamist insurgency and the Hama confrontation.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Powell and Thyne (31 January 1982)
New York Times
Irish Times
Newsday
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →