412 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 5 / 2015 a Government; others stated that Muslim representation should be present through a Civil Government. On the other hand a splinter group supported civil disobedience and the armed struggle while the other totally refused that option. Moreover Sayyid Quṭb radical teachings while maintaining the illegitimacy of the Arab Governments that were not establishing the Islamic Law caused the young Ihwān followers to define the regime as heretical and as an Enemy of the Islam. With the advent of Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad the Islamist objective of overthrowing the regime remained clearly defined. In order to accomplish that goal, the Muslim Brotherhood have used different strategies: on one side we need to refer to violent actions that ensued as the assaults to State Institutions (as the well-known attack on the Military Academy in Aleppo in 1979), or the attempts to take control over the main cities in Syria, or the exhortation to murder members of the Military and Government Leadership including Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad himself in 1980. After the events in 1982 in Hama which reduced the possibilities to continue resorting to armed struggle, the Alliance Strategy consolidated with al-Asad opposing groups (including members of the Kurdish opposition, the extreme right or even and even former members of the regime). From that time on Ihwān propaganda through different media entirely flourishes.58 In this regard Islamists were quite successful in their propagandistic speech. Due to that fact al-Asad are presented as a minority of Alawis gangsters, unrelated to Syria and enemies of the Islam that govern oppressively over a Sunni majority against the natural order according to the Islamic doctrine, by using a terminology both warlike and confessional.59 All this would clearly explain the armed reaction. The aware use of religion in Ihwān propaganda with the intention of obtaining support and achieving their goal has certainly been deeply rooted in Syria´s public opinion. This is clearly one of the causes that might explain the islamist reaction.60 58 For a detailed study on the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, until the beginning of the revolt, cf. Porat, Liad, “The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Asad Regime” Middle East Brief 2010 (47), 2-7. 59 Consult this magazine an-Nadīr regarding this matter, the official publication of this movement, specially the nn. 66 (1884), 6-10; 122 (1990), 10. 60 Cf. Pipes, Daniel, Greater Syria. The History of an Ambition, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992, 185-186; Pipes 1992: 185-186; Kedar 1999: 20 Kedar, Mordechai, “In Search of Legitimacy: Assad’s Islamic Image in the Syrian Official Press”, Modern Syria: from Ottoman rule to pivotal role in the Middle East (Moshe Ma’oz et al.), Brighton-Portlans: Sussex Accademic Press 1999, 20. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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