 Lt. Col. Nassif ran a revenge operation after an attempted assassination of the President in 1980, in which a Battalion of Defense Company soldiers killed up to 1,000 Tadmor Prison inmates suspected of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood.In Spring 1982, 2 brigades of the Defence Companies and other elite armoured formations were deployed in Hama to quell an Islamist uprising, in what became known as the Hama Massacre.Members of the Defense Companies are alleged to have been involved in a February 1981 assassination attempt against the Prime Minister of Jordan Mudar Badran.