Salah ad-Din al-Bitar (1912 – 21 July 1980) was a
Syrian politician who co-founded the
Arab Ba'ath Party with
Michel Aflaq in the early 1940s. As students in Paris in the early 1930s, the two formulated a doctrine that combined aspects of
nationalism and
socialism. Bitar later served as
prime minister in several early Ba'athist governments in Syria but became alienated from the party as it grew more radical. In 1966 he fled the country, lived mostly in Europe and remained politically active until he was assassinated in 1980.