After early hopes that an era of political liberalization might follow Bashar al-Assad's succession of his father, these hopes flickered as Assad tightened his grip. He reined in Sunni Islamist opponents and sought to broaden his power base beyond minority sects. He promoted Sunnis to power and restored ties to Aleppo - a Sunni stronghold with which relations had been tense since the 1982 Hama massacre and the subsequent repression of the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s.