Rifaat al-Assad

Major General
Rifaat al-Assad
Major General Rifaat al-Assad
رفعت الأسد
	Assad, c. 1980s
Vice President of Syria
	In office; 11 March 1984 – 8 February 1998 Serving with Abdul Halim Khaddam; and Zuhair Masharqa
President	Hafez al-Assad
Member of the Regional Command; of the Syrian Regional Branch
	In office; 15 April 1975 – 8 February 1998
Personal details
Born	22 August 1937; Qardaha, Syrian Republic
Died	20 January 2026 (aged 88); Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Party	Ba'ath Party
Spouses	Amira al-Assad; Sana' Makhluf; Rajaa Bakrat; Lina al-Khayer;
Children	Siwar al-Assad; Ribal al-Assad; Firas Al Assad
Parent	Ali al-Assad (father);
Relatives	Jamil al-Assad (brother); Hafez al-Assad (brother); Bashar al-Assad (nephew); Maher al-Assad (nephew)
Alma mater	Damascus University (BA); Soviet Academy of Sciences (PhD);
Military service
Allegiance	United Arab Republic (1958–1961); Second Syrian Republic (1961–1963); Ba'athist Syria (1963‍–‍1984);
Branch	Syrian Arab Army; Defense Companies
Service years	1958–1984
Rank	Major General
Commands	Defense Companies
Conflicts	Six-Day War; 1970 Corrective Coup; Yom Kippur War; Lebanese civil war; Islamist uprising in Syria 1982 Hama massacre; ; 1984 Syrian coup attempt; 1999 Latakia protests;

Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox officeholder with deprecated parameter "serviceyears". Replace with "service_years".

Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox officeholder with deprecated parameter "honorific-prefix". Replace with "honorific_prefix".

Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox officeholder with deprecated parameter "serviceyears_label". Replace with "service_years_label".

Rifaat Ali Suleiman al-Assad (Arabic: رِفْعَتُ عَلِيِّ ٱلْأَسَدِ, romanized: Rifʿat al-ʾAsad; 22 August 1937 – 20 January 2026) was a Syrian military officer and politician. He was the younger brother of Hafez al-Assad and the uncle of Bashar al-Assad, who served successively as President of Syria. He is most famous for being the commanding officer of the ground operations of the 1982 Hama massacre.

After launching a failed coup attempt against Hafez al-Assad in 1984, Rifaat lived in exile in Europe for 36 years and returned to Syria in October 2021 after being found guilty in France of acquiring millions of euros diverted from the Syrian state. In September 2022, France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation, confirmed the ruling.

In August 2023, Switzerland issued an international warrant for Rifaat's arrest after its Federal Criminal Court demanded his extradition to prosecute him for his role in supervising ground operations of the 1982 Hama massacre. The warrant was issued as part of the proceedings related to the war crimes complaint filed in 2013 by the human rights organization "TRIAL International" at the Swiss Office of Attorney General. In March 2024, the Swiss OAG charged Rifaat with numerous crimes committed in the February 1982 Hama massacre.