Ramadan Revolution | |||||||
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Part of the Cold War and the Arab Cold War | |||||||
A sign with the image of Qasim taken down during the coup | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Iraqi Government
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Ba'ath Party
United States[1] | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Abd al-Karim Qasim Muhammad Najib |
Ali Salih al-Sa'di Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr Abdul Salam Arif | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
100 killed[2] | 80 killed[3] | ||||||
1,500–5,000 alleged civilian supporters of Qasim and/or the Iraqi Communist Party killed during a three day "house-to-house search"[2][4] |
Part of a series on |
Ba'athism |
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The Ramadan Revolution, also referred to as the 8 February Revolution and the February 1963 coup d'état in Iraq, was a military coup by the Iraqi branch of the Ba'ath Party which overthrew the Prime Minister of Iraq, Abdul-Karim Qasim in 1963. It took place between 8 and 10 February 1963. Qasim's former deputy, Abdul Salam Arif, who was not a Ba'athist, was given the largely ceremonial title of President, while prominent Ba'athist general Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was named Prime Minister. The most powerful leader of the new government was the secretary general of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, Ali Salih al-Sa'di, who controlled the National Guard militia and organized a massacre of hundreds—if not thousands—of suspected communists and other dissidents following the coup.[5]
The government lasted approximately nine months, until Arif disarmed the National Guard in the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, which was followed by a purge of Ba'ath Party members.
[Kennedy] Administration officials viewed the Iraqi Ba'th Party in 1963 as an agent of counterinsurgency directed against Iraqi communists, and they cultivated supportive relationships with Ba'thist officials, police commanders, and members of the Ba'th Party militia. The American relationship with militia members and senior police commanders had begun even before the February coup, and Ba'thist police commanders involved in the coup had been trained in the United States.
Proxy Warriors
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).