Husni al-Za'im was a Syrian Kurdish military officer and who was 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. After Syria's independence in 1946 he was made Chief of Staff, and was ordered to lead the Syrian Army into war with the Israeli Army in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 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.
Husni al-Za'im
The Kurdish population of Syria is the country's largest ethnic minority, usually estimated at around 10% of the Syrian population and 5% of the Kurdish population.
On 22 July 2012, the Arab town of Ras al-Ayn (pictured above) and a series of other towns in the northeastern Syria were captured by the People's Protection Units (YPG).
YPG's female units were fighting against ISIS in Syria