Mustafa Abdul Qadir Tlass (; 11 May 1932 – 27 June 2017) was a Syrian military officer, author, historian and politician. He served as the Minister of Defense from 1972 to 2004 under Ba'athist-led Syria. He was part of the four-member Regional Command during the Hafez al-Assad era.
Early life and education Tlass was born on 11 May 1932 in Lower Rastan (al-Tahtani), near Homs, into a prominent Sunni Muslim family from an area with a long tradition of producing military officers. His father, Abdul Qadir Tlass, was a minor Sunni noble who made a living during the Ottoman period by selling ammunition to the Turkish garrisons, and later served as a local chief (mukhtar) under the French Mandate. On the other hand, members of his family also worked for the French occupiers after the First World War. His paternal grandmother was of Circassian origin and his mother was of Turkish descent. Tlass is said to also have some Alawite family connections through his mother. He received primary and secondary education in Homs. In 1952, he entered the Homs Military Academy, where he began a close friendship with Hafez al-Assad. He later completed his general staff training at the Voroshilov Academy in Moscow.
Career
Tlass joined the Ba'ath Party at the age of 15, and met Hafez al-Assad when studying at the military academy in Homs. The two officers became friends when they were both stationed in Cairo during the period of 1958–1961 United Arab Republic merger between Syria and Egypt: while ardent Pan Arab nationalists, they both worked to break up the union, which they viewed as unfairly balanced in Egypt's favor. When Hafez al-Assad was briefly imprisoned by Nasser at the breakup of the union, Tlass fled with his wife and sons to Syria.
During the 1960s, Hafez al-Assad rose to prominence in the Syrian government through the 1963 coup d'état, backed by the Ba'ath party. He then promoted Tlass to high-ranking military and party positions. In 1965, while he was Ba'athist army commander of Homs, Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Tlass arrested his pro-government comrades. In 1966, an Alawite-led faction within the Ba'ath Party seized power, strengthening Assad's position and, by extension, Tlass's. Tensions within the government soon became apparent, however, with al-Assad emerging as the prime proponent of a pragmatist, military-based faction opposed to the ideological radicalism of the dominant ultra-leftists. Following Syria's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War, Assad used the resulting political instability to appoint Tlass as Chief of Staff in 1968. Syria's unsuccessful attempt to intervene in the Black September conflict further deepened internal divisions, bringing the power struggle into the open.
In 1969, Tlass led a military mission to Beijing, and secured weapons deals with the Chinese government. In a move deliberately calculated to antagonize the Soviet Union to stay out of the succession dispute then going on in Syria, Mustafa Tlass allowed himself to be photographed waving Mao Zedong's Little Red Book, just two months after bloody clashes between Chinese and Soviet armies on the Ussuri river.
Under cover of the 1970 "Corrective Revolution", Hafez al-Assad seized power and installed himself as a dictator. 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. As'ad AbuKhalil argues that Mustafa Tlass was well-suited for Hafez al-Assad as a defense minister in that "he had no power base, he was mediocre, and he had no political skills, and his loyalty to his boss was complete." During his term as defense minister, Mustafa Tlass was functional in suppressing all dissent regardless of being Islamists or democrats. Tlass and Assad consistently favored a coordinated military command with Egypt, a policy that directly contributed to the two-front assault on Israeli-occupied territories during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. According to The New York Times, Tlass was closely involved in the Syrian government's response to the 1982 uprising in Hama. In an interview, he stated that he had approved many death sentences and could no longer recall the exact number, and said that during the 1980s, “150 death sentences a week were carried out by hanging in Damascus alone.” He described the government's approach to power by stating, “We used weapons to assume power, and we wanted to hold onto it. Anyone who wants power will have to take it from us with weapons.”
On 19 October 1999, defence minister of China, General Chi Haotian, after meeting with Mustafa Tlass in Damascus to discuss expanding military ties between Syria and China, flew directly to Israel and met with Ehud Barak, the then prime minister and defence minister of Israel where they discussed military relations. Among the military arrangements was a 1 billion dollar Israeli Russian sale of military aircraft to China, which were to be jointly produced by Russia and Israel."China defense minister visits Israel". World Tribune. 21 October 1999
At the beginning of the 2000s, Tlass was also deputy prime minister in addition to his post as defense minister. He was also a member of Baath Party's central committee. His other party roles included the head of the party military bureau and chairman of the party military committee.
Controversial writings and controversies
Tlass attempted to create a reputation for himself as a man of culture and emerged as an important patron of Syrian literature. He published several books of his own, and started a publishing house, Tlass Books, which has been internationally criticizedQuestion of Violation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Any Part of the World. Written statement submitted by the Association for World Education, 10 February 2004 for publishing anti-Semitic materials. In the late 1980s, Dar Tlass lil-Dirasat wa-al-Tarjamah wa-al-Nashr was a major commercial publishing house, and produced more than 30 titles annually, with its 1989 catalogue listing a cumulative total of 669 published titles. The publisher's output spanned a wide range of fields, including reference works, literature and short fiction, Islamic studies, history, cultural heritage, political science, and studies of the Arab-Israeli conflict, among others.Abraham, Midhat D. “SELECTION OF LIBRARY MATERIALS FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES FROM SYRIA.” MELA Notes, no. 64, 1997, pp. 1–13. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29785647. Accessed 20 Feb. 2026.
In 1998, Syrian Defense Minister Tlass boasted to Al Bayan newspaper that he was the one who gave the green light to "the resistance" in Lebanon to attack and kill 241 US marines and 58 French paratroopers, but that he prevented attacks on the Italian soldiers of the multi-national force because "I do not want a single tear falling from the eyes of [Italian actress] Gina Lollobrigida, whom [I] loved ever since my youth." In October of the same year, Tlass stated that there was no such country as Jordan, but only "South Syria".
Tlass had also boasted to the National Assembly about cannibalist atrocities committed against Israeli soldiers who fell captive in the Yom Kippur War. "I gave the Medal of the Republic's Hero, to a soldier from Aleppo, who killed 28 Jewish soldiers. He did not use the military weapon to kill them but utilized the ax to decapitate them. He then devoured the neck of one of them and ate it in front of the people. I am proud of his courage and bravery, for he actually killed by himself 28 Jews by count and cash."Official Gazette of Syria (11 July 1974 Issue)Letter Maurice Swan The New York Times 23 June 1975There have been three missing Israeli soldiers in the Beqaa valley since the June 1982 war in Lebanon. Tlass allegedly told a Saudi magazine: "We sent Israel the bones of dogs, and Israel may protest as much as it likes."London based Saudi weekly, 4–10 August 1984.
During his career, Tlass also became known for colorful language. In 1991, when Syria was participating on the Coalition side in the Gulf War, he stated that he felt "an overwhelming joy" when Saddam Hussein sent SCUD-missiles towards Israel. In August 1998, Tlass caused a minor uproar in Arab political circles, when he denounced Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as "the son of sixty thousand whores." The long-standing conflict between the Assad government and the Palestine Liberation Organization would not end until after Hafez al-Assad's death in 2000.
In 2000, the widow and children of Ira Weinstein, who was killed in a February 1996 Hamas suicide bombing, filed a lawsuit against both Tlass and the head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan, charging that they were responsible for providing the perpetrators with material resources and training.
In an interview which aired RT on 8 June 2009 (as translated by MEMRI), Tlass claimed that actress Gina Lollobrigida had once told him that he was the "one love in my life." He also claimed that Lady Diana wrote him letters that "were full of love and appreciation", and that Prince Charles gave him a gold-plated Sterling submachine gun as a gift.Former Syrian Minister of Defense Mustafa Tlass Displays Personal Memorabilia and Reminisces about His Imaginary Affairs with Actress Gina Lollobrigida and Lady Di, MEMRI, Transcript – Clip No. 2144, 8 June 2009.
Books
In 1986, he defended his doctoral dissertation on the military strategy of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov at the Sorbonne. However, on the same year, his doctoral dissertation defense was rejected after the media publicised several anti-Semitic statements made by him.
Tlass also wrote books about Syria's military and political history and also books of poetry, general Arab history, and a history of the military tactics used by Muhammad. His writings allegedly reflect anti-Semitism and belief in conspiracy theories. He also published two-volume memoirs (eventually extended to five), namely Mirat Hayati (Reflections of my life) in 2005. The memoirs were widely ridiculed around the Arab world and outraged Bashar al-Assad due to its content, making various claims about ordering summary executions of dissidents and Israelis and crediting himself for bringing Hafez and Bashar to power. Tlass, whom close friends had described as a sex-obsessed maniac who tried to sleep with as many women as he could, also described in graphic detail his outlandish attempts at seducing women: "As my eyes were fixated on her beautiful breasts I noticed she was wearing a white and transparent nightgown that concealed nothing of God's creation," Tlass wrote about a neighbor he fantasized for days.
The Matzah of Zion