Flag of Ba'athist Syria
National flag of Ba'athist Syria from 1963 to 2024.
The flag of Ba'athist Syria was a red–white–black horizontal triband bearing either three green stars, the Hawk of Quraish, or two green stars at different periods. It served as the national flag of Syria under Ba'athist rule from 1963 until the regime's collapse in 2024, and became closely associated with the government of Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war.
Quick Facts
- Nickname
- Flag of the Syrian Arab Republic (1980–2024)
- Use
- 111111
- Proportion
- 2:3
- Relinquished
- 28 September 1961 (Syrian withdrawal from the United Arab Republic); 8 December 2024 (Fall of the Assad regime)
Facts from the source article.
History
After the 1963 Ba'athist coup, Syria's Revolutionary Command Council introduced a new flag on 1 May 1963: a horizontal red, white, and black triband with three green stars. Those stars stood for the unity of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, as well as the Ba'athist ideals of unity, freedom, and socialism. Iraq, which had its own Ba'athist takeover in February 1963, also adopted this three-star flag for a planned union, but the union fell apart after Iraq's Ba'athist government was ousted in November 1963. On 1 January 1972, President Hafez al-Assad swapped the green stars for the Hawk of Quraish when Syria joined the Federation of Arab Republics with Egypt and Libya. The hawk carried a ribbon with the federation's name, though Syria left its own name off the coat of arms. This flag flew during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Even after the federation dissolved in 1977, Syria kept the flag until 29 March 1980. The next day, 30 March 1980, Syria readopted the two-star red-white-black tricolour, the same flag it had used as part of the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961, to show its ongoing dedication to Arab unity. This flag was later described in Article 6 of Syria's 2012 constitution.
Legal status and usage since 2024
After the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, the two-star red–white–black tricolour ceased to be the national flag. The Syrian caretaker government replaced it with a green–white–black tricolour with three red stars. The United Nations updated its list of member states to display the new flag. Pro-Assad loyalists continue to use the two-star flag in parts of western Syria.
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