Muhammed Faris

Did You Know?

• Faris was admitted to Sanko Hospital in Gaziantep, Turkey, after a heart attack in March 2024.
• He was buried in the rebel-held city of Azaz in Northern Syria.
• He died on 19 April 2024 at the age of 72.

Career

Muhammed Faris was born in Aleppo, Syria, and became a colonel and pilot in the Syrian Air Force, specializing in navigation. On 30 September 1985, he was chosen for the Interkosmos spaceflight program. In July 1987, he flew as a Research Cosmonaut on Soyuz TM-3 to the Mir space station, spending 7 days, 23 hours, and 5 minutes in space, and returned to Earth on Soyuz TM-2. He is known for taking the first recorded sample of Earth dirt into space, a vial of soil from Damascus. On 30 July 1987, he was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and also received the Order of Lenin. After his mission, he went back to the Syrian Air Force and lived in Aleppo.

During the Syrian civil war, on 4 August 2012, Faris left Bashar al-Assad's regime and joined the armed opposition. On 13 September 2012, he gave an exclusive interview to Al Aan TV, discussing the civil war. He was also a member of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, an anti-Assad group. In a March 2016 interview as a Syrian refugee in Turkey, Faris said that if Europe did not want refugees, it should help remove the regime, and he expressed regret over Russian interference supporting Bashar Assad. In September 2017, he was appointed Defense Minister of the Syrian Interim Government, a self-appointed opposition group.