Iraq, 1963 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an attempted military coup in Iraq on 3 July 1963, a failed uprising by the Iraqi Communist Party and sympathetic army elements against the Baathist government that had seized power in the February 1963 coup that overthrew and killed Abd al-Karim Qasim. The Baath regime, with Abd al-Salam Arif as president and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as prime minister but effectively dominated by the party's secretary general Ali Salih al-Sadi and his National Guard militia, had carried out a massive campaign of arrests and killings against Iraqi communists, who had been Qasim's base of support. The July 1963 rising was an attempt by the battered communists and allied officers to strike back, but it was suppressed.
The Baath government's factional infighting and the ill discipline of the National Guard led to its own collapse in November 1963, when Arif ousted the party from power.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
64507031963
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: The Baathist government under President Abd al-Salam Arif survived the July 1963 communist rising but fell to an internal coup in November 1963.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Chicago Tribune
New York Times
Washington Post, Times Herald
Wikipedia
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 →