BEIRUT – It was one of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world. More than four decades ago, Hafez Assad, then president of Syria, launched what came to be known as the Hama Massacre.
Between 10,000 to 40,000 people were killed or disappeared in the government attack on the central Syrian city. It began on Feb. 2, 1982, and lasted for nearly a month, leaving the city in ruins.
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The memory of the government assault and the monthlong siege on the city, which at the time was a stronghold of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, remains visceral in Syrian and Arab minds.
Now Islamist insurgents have captured the city, tearing down a poster of Hafez Assad’s son, President Bashar Assad, and swarming security and government offices — scenes unimaginable 40 years ago.
The moment carried great symbolism in Syria’s long-running civil war, which began 13 years ago but many say is rooted in Hama.
A dark history
Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, is known for its quaint waterwheels, a landmark attraction along the banks of the Orontes River.
In the early 1980s, the city's name became synonymous with killings.
It was the scene of Muslim Brotherhood-led anti-government attacks that targeted military officers, state institutions and ruling party offices. In February 1982, Hafez Assad ordered an assault on the city to quell the unrest.
In a matter of days, government warplanes destroyed most of the city, opening the way for ground troops.
Hafez Assad’s brother, Rifaat, led the artillery unit that shelled the city and killed thousands, earning him the nickname the “Butcher of Hama.”
Only this year, Rifaat Assad was indicted in Switzerland for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Hama. An international arrest warrant was issued for him three years earlier.
The massacre created resentment that fanned the flames of another uprising against Hafez Assad’s son years later.
The epicenter of protests
In 2011, Hama and surrounding towns became the epicenter of some of the biggest protests against Bashar Assad, which started in 2011 during a wave of Arab uprisings.
The protests forced government security forces to withdraw from the city briefly in June 2012, leaving the opposition in control and fueling a brief sense of liberation, in a place that had once been pounded by Syrian warplanes.
Residents at that time painted walls around the city in red, threw red paint on the waterwheels to symbolize the Hama massacre and tried to organize local administration. About 800,000 people lived there at the start of the uprising.
“Erhal ya Bashar," a protest chant that means “Come on, leave, Bashar” was popularized in the Hama protests.
But government forces returned in August of that year, with a brutal assault that caused mass casualties in the first 24 hours. The leader of the chants was later killed, his throat slit by government forces.
Aron Lund, a longtime Syria expert at Century International, a New York-based think tank, said Hama has obvious symbolic value because of the history of the massacre. He described it as a “huge event in Syrian history and really formative for the opposition and the Islamist opposition in particular."
The brutal crackdown is commerated each year.
It was also formative for government forces, because many of the current military leaders were young at the time, Lund said.
“When 2011 rolled around, they all realized that, you know, we all remember, you all remember Hama. So there’s no there’s no compromising here,” he said.
In a video message Thursday, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the de facto leader of the Syrian insurgency, announced that fighters had reached Hama “to clean the wound that has bled for 40 years.” One of the opposition fighters' first moves was to free prisoners from the city's central prison.
The city's strategic importance
Hama is a major intersection in Syria that links the country’s center with the north as well as the east and the coast.
It is about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power. Hama province also borders the coastal province of Latakia, a main base of popular support for Assad.
The region is predominantly Sunni Muslim but also has a minority from the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to which Assad’s family belongs.
Hama’s fall would have been a massive development in its own right, Lund said. But coming after the fall of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo last week, which gave government forces the time to prepare their defense lines, it “will absolutely encourage Assad’s enemies and discourage his supporters.”
Next stop for the insurgents is the central province of Homs, which analysts say would be a game-changer if it falls into rebel hands. Insurgent groups have already said they are advancing toward Homs.
Homs, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama, is where one of Syria's two state-run oil refineries is located and is also gateway to Damascus. It connects the capital to the coast, where Assad has his base and his village of origin, and home to a Russian naval base.
“Should the rebels be able to seize Homs, which they now have a shot at doing after seizing Hama, then they could theoretically have grabbed" three of Syria's largest cities and severed the capital from the coast, said Lund.