On November 18, 1963 President Abdul Salam Arif, the non-Baathist figurehead installed by the February Ramadan Revolution, turned on the Baath Party and took full power in Iraq, a coup within a coup. The Baathist regime had torn itself apart in the preceding week: at a November 11 party conference, officers loyal to Prime Minister Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr seized secretary general Ali Salih al-Sadi and flew him at gunpoint into Spanish exile, after which al-Sadi loyalists in the National Guard militia strafed the presidential palace and rampaged through Baghdad for days. Arif, backed by his brother Abdul Rahman Arif, army units, and officers including future strongmen, suppressed and dissolved the 34,000-strong National Guard, bombed its headquarters, forced the twelve Baathist ministers to resign, and replaced the militia with the Republican Guard.
Though the coup itself was described as bloodless, about 250 people died in related actions. Al-Bakr, who had conspired with Arif against al-Sadi, was made vice president, then removed on January 5, 1964 as Arif purged the last Baathist foothold; the party returned to power only in July 1968.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: The Baath Party government: the twelve Baathist ministers were forced to resign and the party was ousted from government on November 18, 1963, with Prime Minister Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr initially co-opted as vice president and removed weeks later; secretary general Ali Salih al-Sadi had already been flown into exile. President Arif himself remained and took full power, so the dataset fate of not physically harmed attaches to the displaced Baathist leadership.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Abdul Salam Arif (president, leader of the takeover)
Abdul Rahman Arif (his brother, brigade general, key military supporter)
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (Baathist prime minister, co-opted then purged)
Ali Salih al-Sadi (Baath secretary general, exiled to Spain on November 12)
Tahir Yahya (general, made prime minister under Arif)
Sources
The November 1963 coup took place between November 13 and 18, 1963, when pro-Nasserist officers led a military coup within the Baath Party; although the coup itself was bloodless, 250 people were killed in related actions, the twelve Baath members of government were forced to resign, the party was ousted on 18 November 1963, and the National Guard was replaced by the Republican Guard.
SOURCE REVIEWEDWikipedia, November 1963 Iraqi coup d'etatopen source ↗
On November 12 al-Sadi and colleagues were seized at gunpoint and flown to Madrid; fighter jets strafed the presidential palace as al-Sadi supporters demonstrated, and by Monday November 18 President Arif, his brother Brigade General Abdul Rahman Arif, and their army supporters suppressed the Baath National Guard militia, which had grown from 5,000 to 34,000 between February and August 1963, and bombed its headquarters, with allied officers suppressing the militia in Mosul and Kirkuk.
SOURCE REVIEWEDWikipedia, November 1963 Iraqi coup d'etatopen source ↗
The Baathist government collapsed in November 1963 over the question of unification with Syria and the extremist and uncontrollable behavior of al-Sadi's National Guard; Arif, with the overwhelming support of the Iraqi military, purged Baathists from the government and ordered the National Guard to stand down, and although al-Bakr had conspired with Arif to remove al-Sadi, on 5 January 1964 Arif removed al-Bakr from his new position as vice president to deny the Baath a foothold.
The internal Baath crisis began when al-Sadi, having ousted party founders Aflaq and Bitar at the Sixth National Congress in Damascus in October 1963, called an extraordinary conference on November 11 to expel al-Bakr and other rivals; Bakr loyal officers arrested al-Sadi's faction instead, National Guard members loyal to al-Sadi then bombed targets in Baghdad and rampaged for five days, and al-Bakr summoned President Arif, the commander in chief, whose intervention became the takeover.
SOURCE REVIEWEDWikipedia, Ali Salih al-Sadiopen source ↗
Editorial Note
Coding note: the deposed party is the Baathist government rather than the head of state, since Arif, the sitting president, led the coup himself, absorbing full power; the dataset's not physically harmed fits the ministers' fate, though roughly 250 died in the surrounding fighting, a figure recorded from the same source. This entry closes the arc opened by the February 8, 1963 Ramadan Revolution enriched in batch 13 and referenced by the Syria 1963 entries in batch 14. Arc forward: Arif died in an April 1966 helicopter crash, his brother succeeded him, and the Baath returned in the July 17, 1968 coup.
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:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: The Baath Party government: the twelve Baathist ministers were forced to resign and the party was ousted from government on November 18, 1963, with Prime Minister Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr initially co-opted as vice president and removed weeks later; secretary general Ali Salih al-Sadi had already been flown into exile. President Arif himself remained and took full power, so the dataset fate of not physically harmed attaches to the displaced Baathist leadership..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
“IRAQI BLOC INCLUDING BAATH IS PROJECTED,” December 11, 1963
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 →