Iraq, 1958 — military coup
Event Summary
On 14 July 1958 a group of Iraqi Free Officers led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif carried out a military coup. King Faisal II and Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah were executed at the royal palace, ending the Hashemite dynasty in Iraq, and revolutionary forces proclaimed a republic. Qasim assumed the positions of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence.
Films & Footage
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Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
How It Unfolded
Hand-coded by Coup Atlas from the sources on this page, using a fixed list of tactics. Only events we have read through carry this coding, so most records do not have it yet.
- Led by
- Military
- How long it took
- Under a day — resolved within 24 hours
- Troop movements in the capital or key cities
- Assassination or killing of the incumbent or senior figures
- Seizure of the presidential palace / seat of government
- Seizure of broadcasters / coup declaration on state media
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
64507141958- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-645-1958-07-14
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: King Faisal II of Iraq (overthrown, killed).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; killed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →