One last coda to our recent Iraqi coup series occurred after a day’s pause in the hecatombs, as reported by the New York Times on Jan. 25, 1970:
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 24 — Three more men were executed in Baghdad at dawn today bringing to 44 the number shot or hanged since the leftist Baath Government in Iraq headed off a rightist plot on Tuesday.
The three-man special court that has sentenced 37 conspirators said the three were the last of those apprehended. Others, it added, are still at large.
An Iraqi military aircraft landed here this afternoon with a token gift of 30 submachine guns confiscated from the plotters. Iraq has promised to turn over all 3,000 submachine guns captured to the Palestinian commandos.
More blood was spilled in Baghdad this week than after any comparable attempted coup since World War II, and many Arab commentators expressed dismay and horror.
OTHER MASSACRES RECALLED
The nearest approach was 18, shot after a Nasserite rising against a Baathist Government in Syria in July, 1963.
The Baghdad executions fitted the context of Iraq’s violent history, which has led some historians to compare the current regime with that of the eighth-century Abbasid governor Al Hajjaj Ben Yussef, who declared, when he took office, that the Iraqis were a mean people and he was “going to wring their necks.” Great numbers of executions followed.
In more recent times the Iraqis in 1933 killed several thousand Assyrians who had volunteered for armed service with the British. In 1941 several hundred Jews were killed in a major pogrom in Baghdad.
In contrast to Egypt’s bloodless overthrow of King Farouk, the Iraqis in 1958 shot King Faisal and his family in the garden of their palace and went on to drag the bodies of Prince Abdul Illah and Premier Nuri al Said through the streets.
Part of the Daily Double: Saddam Hussein crushes a coup.
On this day..
- 1522: Didrik Slagheck
- 1887: Georgette and Sylvain Thomas, guillotine couples act
- 1981: Not Kim Dae-jung, South Korean president and Nobel laureate
- 1641: Not Manuel de Gerrit de Reus, chosen by lot, saved by hemp
- 1538: Anna Jansz, Anabaptist
- 1963: Lazhar Chraiti and nine other Tunisian conspirators
- 1846: Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh, in her rocking chair
- 1936: Allen Foster, who fought Joe Louis
- 1911: Shusui Kotoku and ten other anarchists
- Daily Double: The High Treason Incident
- 1938: Han Fuqu, Koumintang general
- 1989: Ted Bundy, psycho killer
- 1992: Ricky Ray Rector, "a date which ought to live in infamy for the Democratic Party"
A glimpse into Iraq’s dark history! I appreciate you sharing. The obvious brutality of the executions and the ensuing mayhem are disturbing. It is essential to remember the lessons from history in order to make sure that catastrophes of this nature don’t happen again.
The massacres of that time were tragic!
A glimpse into a tragic part of Iraq’s history! Thanks for your sharing. The sheer brutality of the executions and the violence that followed are disturbing. It’s important to remember the lessons of history, to prevent such atrocities from happening again.