Preceded by Abd al-Rauf al-Qasem Preceded by Sulayman Qaddah Succeeded by Hisham Ikhtiyar | Succeeded by Hilal Hilal Name Mohammed Bekheitan | |
Regional Secretary Bashar al-Assad Regional Secretary Bashar al-Assad | ||
Mohammed Saeed Bekheitan is the Assistant Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command of the Ba'ath Party. He has held the position since 2005. He is a close associate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad and is considered a senior decision-maker in the government.
Mohammed Bukheitan is a Sunni Muslim from Bedouin origins in Deir ez-Zor, a Sunni dominated region near the border with Iraq. He built his career in the police, eventually attaining the rank of general in the criminal security branch of the Ministry of Interior. From 1993 to 2000 he served as Governor of Hama, a major Sunni region in Syria. Since June 2000, he has been on the Regional Command of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. He headed the important National Security Bureau from 2000 to 2005 and since then has been the Assistant Secretary of the Syrian Regional Command of the Baath Party, the second highest position in the political party after the Syrian president.
He has been described by sources as an old guard Ba'athist who opposes reform efforts in Syria, even from inside the Ba'ath party. He was sanctioned by the European Union for "his senior decision making role in the repression of protesters participating in the Syrian Civil War".