General

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 Dawoud Rajiha , forename sometimes transliterated Dawood or Daoud, surname sometimes transliterated Rajha, is the Minister of Defense of the Syrian Arab Republic and a former chief of staff of the Syrian Arab Army

Syrian Army

The Syrian Army, officially called the Syrian Arab Army, is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It is the dominant military service of the four uniformed services, controlling the senior most posts in the armed forces, and has the greatest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the...

.

Rajiha, a Greek Orthodox Christian

Greek Orthodox Church

The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

, was born in Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

, the Syrian capital, in 1947. He was an artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 specialist in the military academy, from which he graduated in 1967. He attained the rank of lieutenant general in 1998 and made full general in 2005, a year after being made deputy chief of staff of the Syrian Army. After serving as the army chief of staff since Ali Habib Mahmud

Ali Habib Mahmud

Lieutenant General Ali Habib Mahmud is a Syrian military officer who served as Syria's Minister of Defense from June 2009 until August 2011. He was a part of Assad's inner circle.-Early life, education and career:...

 was named to head the Ministry of Defense in 2009, he was appointed to replace Mahmud as defense minister on 8 August 2011, during the 2011 Syrian uprising

2011 Syrian uprising

The 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011...

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External links

• Ministry of Defense official government website