Iraq, 1966 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 29 to 30 June 1966 the Nasserist officer Arif Abd al-Razzaq, who had been prime minister and had already attempted a pro-union coup in September 1965, mounted a second coup attempt in Iraq, this time against President Abd al-Rahman Arif, who had taken office after the accidental death of his brother Abd al-Salam Arif in an April 1966 helicopter crash. Al Razzaq, again seeking to force Iraq into immediate union with Nasser's Egypt, returned from his Cairo exile to lead the attempt. But like his first bid it failed, the government suppressed it, and al-Razzaq once more fled the country.
The episode reflected the continuing pull between Nasserist officers pressing for union and a government that preferred to preserve Iraqi autonomy. Abd al-Rahman Arif remained in power until he in turn was overthrown by the Baath Party in the July 1968 coup that brought Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and eventually Saddam Hussein to power.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
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
64506301966- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-645-1966-06-30
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Abd al-Rahman Arif survived the June 1966 al-Razzaq coup attempt and ruled until the 1968 Baath coup.
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
CSP
Luttwak
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 →