On the night of March 7 to 8, 1963, the Military Committee of the Syrian Baath Party, in alliance with Nasserist and independent officers, seized power in Damascus, one month after the Iraqi Baathists overthrew Qasim. Units under officers including Ziad al-Hariri caught loyalist forces in a pincer, the 70th Armoured Brigade surrendered, coup troops seized the radio station, central post office, and Defense Ministry, and army commander in chief Major General Abdel Karim Zahreddine was arrested; President Nazim al-Qudsi and Akram al-Hawrani were tracked down and arrested. The new rulers established the twenty man National Council for the Revolutionary Command, twelve Baathists and eight Nasserists and independents, ordered party co-founder Salah al-Din al-Bitar to form a government on March 9, and installed Lieutenant General Luay al-Atassi, released from jail and promoted, as NCRC chairman and de facto head of state, while the Military Committee, whose members included Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, kept the real levers of power.
The state of emergency declared on March 8, 1963 remained in force for decades, and the coup opened more than half a century of Baathist rule in Syria.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Nazim al-Qudsi, arrested along with Akram al-Hawrani after being tracked down; army commander in chief Abdel Karim Zahreddine was also placed under arrest. This matches the dataset fate of arrested or jailed.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Nazim al-Qudsi (deposed president, arrested)
The Baath Military Committee, including Muhammad Umran, Salah Jadid, and Hafez al-Assad (organizers and real power)
Ziad al-Hariri (front commander whose forces marched on Damascus, appointed chief of staff)
Luay al-Atassi (NCRC chairman and de facto head of state from March 9)
Salah al-Din al-Bitar (Baath co-founder asked to form the government)
Abdel Karim Zahreddine (army commander in chief, arrested)
Sources
In the takeover the commander of the 70th Armoured Brigade surrendered to the plotters, the hostile unit at Qatana did not intervene, al-Hariri's forces marched on Damascus setting up roadblocks and seizing the central post office, Captain Salim Hatum seized the radio station, the Defense Ministry headquarters was taken without a fight, commander in chief General Zahr al-Din was put under arrest, and both al-Qudsi and al-Hawrani were easily tracked down and arrested.
The first act of the new rulers was to establish the twenty man National Council for the Revolutionary Command, composed of twelve Baathists and eight Nasserists and independents; on 9 March the NCRC ordered Salah al-Din al-Bitar to form a government, and released Luay al-Atassi from jail, promoted him to lieutenant general, and appointed him commander in chief and NCRC chairman, the de facto head of state, while the expanded Military Committee decided state policies before NCRC sessions and became the real seat of power.
The 8 February 1963 Ramadan Revolution in Iraq, in which the Iraqi Baathists took power by overthrowing Abd al-Karim Qasim, preceded and encouraged the Syrian takeover; the Baath Party's military committee had spent 1962 planning to take power through a military coup, having concluded it had no route to power except force.
The state of emergency imposed when the Baath Party seized power on March 8, 1963 remained in place for decades, a foundation of the security state that followed.
SOURCE REVIEWEDHuman Rights Watch legal framework analysis, as cited in Wikipedia, 1963 Syrian coup d'etatopen source ↗
Editorial Note
This record closes the arc running through four earlier enriched Syria records: the September 28, 1961 secession, the March 28, 1962 Nahlawi action, its April 13, 1962 resolution, and the September 20, 1962 Assembly dissolution, all of whose principals (Qudsi, Zahreddine, the civilian order itself) were removed here. Claims of outside sponsorship exist in the scholarship, including a senior Baathist's later statement of a Western push and one historian's judgment that the Syrian Baath got help from the CIA; these are recorded as contested interpretations, not established fact. Arc forward: the July 18, 1963 Nasserist rising and the July 27, 1963 leadership change, next in this batch.
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: President Nazim al-Qudsi, arrested along with Akram al-Hawrani after being tracked down; army commander in chief Abdel Karim Zahreddine was also placed under arrest. This matches the dataset fate of arrested or jailed..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; arrested or jailed. 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
“Rebels in Syria Tighten Control; Friendly to Iraq,” by Dana Adams Schmidt, March 9, 1963
“Atassi is Named as Syria’s Chief,” by Dana Adams Schmidt, March 25, 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 →