50 years ago ... the secrets of the assassination of the Iraqi general Hardan Al-Tikriti in Kuwait, and does his rival Saddam stand behind that?

The assassination of Lieutenant General Pilot Hardan Al-Tikriti, Minister of Defense and former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, represented a watershed moment in the bloody struggle for power in Iraq at the time.

Although Al-Tikriti was stripped of all his posts and prevented from returning to the country, his persecution continued until he was assassinated on March 30, 1971, during his visit to the State of Kuwait.

Hardan Abdul Ghaffar was born in Tikrit in 1925 and completed his primary and middle school studies there, then moved with his older brother Adham, who used to work in the Ramadi city post office, and completed his high school education there, and worked there as a writer, according to his grandson Fahd Rafi.

Al-Jazeera Net summarizes the stages of Hardan’s hierarchy, where he joined the Military College on September 14, 1946 and graduated with the rank of Second Lieutenant on July 1, 1949, then joined the Royal Aviation College, the tenth session on December 29, 1949, and graduated as a pilot on November 4. 1952, then he graduated from the Staff College in 1955.

Hardan Abdul Ghaffar Al-Tikriti, Minister of Defense, opens the session of the Baghdad Expo in 1969, and President Saddam Hussein, may God have mercy on them, appears behind him pic.twitter.com/KnVau0mjez

- sultanalazawy (@sultanalazawy) January 31, 2021

The man of the coups

Fahd notes that his grandfather was called the coup man, as he participated in most of the coups that took place in Iraq between 1958 and 1968.

He explains: The deceased joined the Free Officers Organization who contributed to the success of the July 14, 1958 coup that ended the monarchy. He also participated in the February 8, 1963 coup, and was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council that overthrew the government of Abdul Karim Qasim.

After that, he participated in the movement of November 18, 1963, in which he overthrew the National Guard and removed the Baath Party from power, and had a prominent role with the Ba'athists in the July 17-30, 1968 coup.

Hardan held many important positions and had a great position, according to Fahd, where he held the position of commander of the Kirkuk and Mosul air bases from 1961 to 1963, then became commander of the Air Force in 1963, and the Minister of Defense and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in 1964 before being chosen as ambassador to the Kingdom Sweden in the same year.

After the success of the 1968 coup, he became a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, Chief of Staff of the Army, Commander of the Air Force, Minister of Defense, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Deputy Prime Minister, and in 1970 he held the position of Vice President of the Republic.

Hardan was a brilliant military man with an attracted personality, and he was a courageous ambition that did not stop talking about the concerns of the homeland and the nation, influenced by the Arab nationalist ideology, as he did not belong to the Baath Party, and was very popular with the army, according to Fahd.

For his part, the writer Tel Al-Snow, author of the book "Hardan Al-Tikriti: A Treacherous Assassinated Leader," sees that the deceased was the most dangerous rival to Saddam, and most of the military coups in Iraq was his leader, and he had the first role and the president in it, and when they saw his danger they decided to eliminate him.

He added to Al-Jazeera Net that the late two presidents Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein were afraid of Hardan, so they dismissed him from his posts, and granted him the position of ambassador, but he refused, and remained a political refugee in Algeria, until he came to Kuwait to summon his mother and his family to take them to Algeria, so they took advantage of his presence in Kuwait and assassinated him there.

Snow: Al-Tikriti was assassinated by killers recruited by the Iraqi intelligence (Al-Jazeera)

The process of his assassination

When Saddam realized the danger of Hardan in his competition, he decided to eliminate him, as "the Iraqi intelligence commissioned 4 people from the hired assassins, and he colluded with the killers, his friend, the ambassador to Kuwait," according to al-Snow.

And he lists the details of what happened, "Hardan was complaining of a stomach disease, so he told the embassy that, and the Iraqi ambassador came to take him to the Amiri Hospital, and the ambassador was in contact with the killers who arrived from Iraq by plane to carry out the assassination."

Upon his arrival at the hospital, he was met by an elegant young man wearing a suit and he opened the car door for him, so Hardan thought that he was one of the hospital employees, but that young man shot and killed him on the spot, as he adds snow.

Al-Tai believes that the assassination of Al-Tikriti opened the door for Saddam to take over the reins of power (Al-Jazeera)

The incident almost caused a diplomatic crisis with Kuwait, but the then Iraqi Foreign Minister Abdul Karim al-Sheikhly went to Kuwait to settle the matter after a formal investigation was opened, and the killers returned with the same plane carrying Hardan's body - according to snow - and the deceased was buried in Tikrit, where he recommended burying him in that place next to a grave. His wife, who died in Algeria.

In the same context, the former Iraqi army officer, Salah Mahdi Al-Taie, confirms that the assassination of Hardan came under the direct supervision of the Iraqi intelligence, and that the operation was carried out by the so-called "Ali Mama", who is one of the (brothers) of Baghdad who is used in the liquidation.

In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Tai expresses his belief that Hardan was the most powerful figure in power, and that his assassination opened the door to Saddam’s emergence and his assumption of power.

Fathi: The assassination of Al-Tikriti formed the first signs of a diplomatic crisis between Iraq and Kuwait (Al-Jazeera)

Diplomatic crisis

The assassination of al-Tikriti on Kuwaiti soil came as the first signs of a diplomatic and political crisis between the two countries, and as a result, Kuwait demanded the transfer of all employees of the Iraqi embassy as persona non grata, according to Assistant Professor of Strategic Relations Dr. Muhammad Maysar Fathi.

He adds to Al-Jazeera Net that the Iraqi government has responded to Kuwait’s request, sending a new diplomatic team and the new mission is headed by Ambassador Muhammad Sabri Al-Hadithi.

Fathi points out that the Iraqi-Kuwaiti relations were characterized by situations of tension, instability, complexity and fluctuations between limited cooperation or closure and severing of relations between the two countries, and this is due to the nature of the variables that govern the local and national environment, and the challenges involved in the external environment.