Abd al-Karim Qasim

Abd al-Karim Qasim

Arif with Qasim (right), 1958

Abd al-Karim Qasim Muhammed Bakr al-Fadli az-Zubaidi ( Arabic عبد الكريم قاسم, DMG ʿAbd al-Karīm Qāsim ; * November 21, 1914 in Baghdad , then Ottoman Empire ; † February 9, 1963 ibid) was an Iraqi military and politician and from 1958 to 1963 Prime Minister and Defense Minister of his country.

Life

Early years

Abd al-Karim Qasim's father was a Sunni Muslim of Arab and Kurdish ancestry. The father died as a soldier in the Ottoman army in the First World War shortly after Abd al-Karim was born. His mother was a Shiite woman with Kurdish roots. At the age of six he moved to Suwayra and in 1926 to Baghdad.

Qasim was related to Muhammad Jawad, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force under Bakr Sidqī's political patronage in the 1930s.

Ascent

Qasim was an excellent student who was accepted into a military academy in 1932. Two years later he was a lieutenant. Qasim was a member of an Iraqi unit in the Palestinian War between May 1948 and June 1949.

In 1951 he completed an officer course in Devizes, England, and rose to the rank of general. In the “ July 14th Revolution ” 1958 he was one of the leaders of the “Free Officers” who overthrew King Faisal II and ended the monarchy in Iraq. The king, a large part of his family and members of his government were murdered. The reason for the overthrow of the monarchy was its unilaterally pro-Western (pro-British) and anti-Arab policies, which were included in the Baghdad Pact with the former occupying power of Great Britain (1955) and in the establishment of the “ Arab Federation ” with the kingdom Jordan (March 1958) was expressed. In addition, the government wanted to send the army to suppress anti-monarchist protests in Jordan, which sparked the rebellion. Shortly after the revolution, officers revolted against Qasim in Mosul and Kirkuk . Both uprisings were put down with the help of the Iraqi communists and Kurds.

After his election as Prime Minister of the newly formed Republic of Iraq, Qasim reversed these unpopular steps: the union with Jordan was dissolved in 1958, and Iraq withdrew from the Baghdad Pact in 1959. Iraq also established close ties with the United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria. He worked closely with the Iraqi Communist Party . He had the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani return from exile in order to win the Kurdish tribes against pro-monarchist tribal leaders and Ba'ath supporters . Qasim set up a revolutionary council consisting of the Sunni Arab Muhammed Necip Ar-Rubeyi, the Shiite Arab Muhammed Mehdi Kubbe and the Sunni Kurd Halid Naqschbandi.

However, he did not want to submit to the Union of Nasser, which again led to the deterioration of relations and a Nasserist opposition at home. On September 14, 1960, OPEC was founded in Baghdad and the following year the government withdrew the concession from the British Iraqi Petroleum Company . The planned annexation of Kuwait was prevented by the British and an inter-Arab security force . Domestically, the government allowed political parties and unions and began expanding the country's infrastructure.

In addition to its popularity, Qasim also created numerous political opponents and was the target of several attacks. A first attack was carried out in 1959 by members of the Ba'ath Party , among them the later dictator Saddam Hussein , who called for a stronger pan-Arab stance.

Fall and end

After the Ba'ath supporters were persecuted, another attempted coup was successful, and the Ba'ath Party took over the government on February 8, 1963. On February 9, Qasim was executed after a brief trial. Author Con Coughlin claims that British intelligence and the CIA were well informed about the coup and approved it.

Pictures of Qasim's body were subsequently displayed on Iraqi television.

In July 2004, Qasim's remains were discovered by a Radio Dijlah team in Baghdad.

Web links

Commons : Abd al-Karim Qasim  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Iraq - a country study Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
2. ↑ Modern Iraqi History and the Day After: Part 2 ( Memento of May 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). The Estimate, March 7, 2003.
3. ↑ Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Peter Sluglett: The Iraq since 1958 - From the revolution to the dictatorship Frankfurt am Main, 1991, p. 62
4. ^ Coughlin, Con (2005). Saddam: His Rise and Fall. Harper Perennial. Page 39. ISBN 0-06-050543-5 .
5. ^ Iraqis Recall Golden Age. In: Institute for War and Peace. Archived from the original on September 2, 2006 ; accessed on September 5, 2006 : "Reporting article on discovery of Qasim's Body"