President Taj al-Din al-Hasani with his Lebanese counterpart Alfred Nakkash in Damascus in 1942

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President Hasani (right) was a pro-French politician who nevertheless is accredited with uniting Syria during World War II, by restoring the previously autonomous regions, the Alawite State and Druze State, to the Syrian motherland. Usually pictured in Islamic uniform, he appears in this photo smoking a cigarette with no turban.