Husni al-Za'im

Husni al-Za'im was a Syrian military officer who served as head of state of Syria in 1949. He had been an officer in the Ottoman Army. After France instituted its colonial mandate over Syria after the First World War, he became an officer in the French Army and later in the Syrian Army of the newly-independent Syrian Republic. Following Abdullah Atfeh's early defeats in the early days of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, al-Zaim was made Chief of Staff. The defeat of the Arab league forces in that war shook Syria and undermined confidence in the country's chaotic parliamentary democracy, allowing him to seize power in 1949. However, his reign as head of state was brief, he was tried and executed in August 1949 by his former coup co-conspirators. Al-Za'im infamously executed Lebanese intellectual Antoun Saadeh in July 1949.