United Arab Emirates, 1972 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
On 24 to 25 January 1972, weeks after the United Arab Emirates was founded, the deposed former ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Saqr bin Sultan al-Qasimi, returned from exile in Egypt with a group of mercenaries and attempted to seize back power from his cousin, the incumbent ruler Sheikh Khalid bin Muhammad al-Qasimi. Saqr, an Arab nationalist who had been removed in a British-backed bloodless coup in 1965, stormed the ruler's palace in the afternoon of 24 January amid gunfire and grenade blasts and took control of it. In the fighting Sheikh Khalid, a founding father of the UAE, was killed, either captured and executed or shot as a combatant.
Within an hour Saqr was besieged by the federal Union Defence Force, and in the early hours of 25 January he surrendered to the young UAE Defence Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. The coup failed to restore Saqr, who was imprisoned; Khalid's brother Sultan bin Muhammad al-Qasimi became the new ruler of Sharjah.
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
69601251972- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-696-1972-01-25
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Ruler Sheikh Khalid bin Muhammad al-Qasimi was killed, but the coup failed and Saqr surrendered; Sultan became ruler.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; killed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Luttwak
Powell and Thyne
The Guardian
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 →