The blood of Al-Rehab Palace .. Why did the monarchy in Iraq end in a horrific massacre?!

"They all fell one on the other in a mass of flesh and blood... King Faisal fell backwards on the shoulder of another victim. Then the person in charge of the execution, the officer Abd al-Sattar al-Sabaa, came forward and stood over the corpses lying in front of him, and fired his machine gun again towards the king and the prince. His companion said to him: Louis. (Why?) He replied: Until I am sure!

(A scene from the scenes of the massacre day)

In March 1917, during the First World War (1914-1918), Britain was able to occupy Iraq from Basra in the south to north of Baghdad, and then completed the occupation of the entire Iraqi territory by annexing Mosul and Kirkuk, while compensating France, which was occupying these areas according to the Sykes Agreement - Pico in 1916 through fixed shares of Iraqi oil for a quarter of a century.

Britain's intervention and occupation of Mesopotamia came after its fierce battles against the Ottomans, and their heavy defeat in 1916 in the Kut or Kut al-Amarah region for many reasons;

Chief among them is protecting British strategic interests in the Middle East, such as controlling Iraq’s oil, securing the oil of Abadan and Al-Ahwaz, cutting off the road to the ambitions of Germany and Russia in occupying Mesopotamia, and ensuring freedom of movement, trade, and transportation of equipment through geostrategic routes between Britain in the far west and the jewel of the British crown. India is in the far east.

All these reasons and others were essential motives for the British occupation, but there are lies spread by the British to impose the “mandate” as they spread in every country they occupied in the Middle East, especially in Palestine, Egypt and Sudan. They lied to the people of Iraq and promised them to guarantee the establishment of the independent Iraqi state after the end of the war. and their respect for the principles proclaimed by US President Wilson, foremost of which is the "right of self-determination for peoples".

But the deception of the British on these promises eventually led to the uprising of 1920, which forced the British to establish a royal Iraqi state led by Faisal bin Sharif Hussein, who ruled Syria for several months before the Iraqis accepted him as king of their country in order to rid them of the oppressive British occupation on their chests. All of this led to the beginning of the Iraqi royal era (1921-1958), which ended in a catastrophic and tragic end, with the death of King Faisal II, the grandson of the founder Faisal I, and his uncle Prince Abdul Ilah bin Ali bin Al Hussein, and the Prime Minister close to the English Nuri Al-Said.

How were the features of the Iraqi monarchy?

And how did King Faisal II ascend to the throne of Iraq as a boy under the guardianship of his uncle, Prince Abdul Ilah Al Hashemi?

Why did the Iraqi army officers resent this ruling?

Why did they take a bloody decision to get rid of all these people without mercy or pity, including the women of the Hashemite family in Iraq?!

That's what we'll see in our next story.

King Faisal II, the last king of Iraq

Britain's deception

The deception of the British against the Arabs who participated with them in expelling the Ottomans during the First World War on the fronts of the Hijaz, the Levant and Iraq, led by Sharif Hussein al-Hashemi and his sons Princes Faisal, Ali and Abdullah, was the main reason for the uprising of 1920, which forced the British to return to the Hashemite family again to find its lost In Faisal I, the son of Sharif Hussein, who was appointed king of the land of Mesopotamia on August 23, 1921[1].

Since that date, the monarchy began in Iraq, which was succeeded by King Faisal I (died in 1933), and King Ghazi I bin Faisal (1939), to begin the rule of the last king in Iraq, the boy Faisal II bin Ghazi bin Faisal I (1935-1958), who will manage The affairs of his kingdom were his uncle, Prince Abdul Ilah al-Hashemi, and the veteran prime minister, Nuri al-Said, both of whom were close to the English.

Nuri al-Said had been charged with establishing his fourth government after the murder of King Ghazi in April 1939, in the famous mysterious car accident, which we dealt with at length in our report “A Crime in the Night of Iraq.” Five months after that incident, Britain and France entered World War II (1939). -1945) against Hitler Germany, which still had influence in Iraq, as it diplomatically and politically supported Arab rights to independence, and fought Jews and Zionism in the region and in Europe, and King Ghazi's rapprochement with her was one of the main reasons that led to his assassination and elimination by the British over Most likely.

King Ghazi was killed when his car hit an electric pole near Al-Harithiya Palace.

For this reason, in his fourth cabinet, Nuri al-Said, under the noses and ears of the regent, Prince Abd al-Ilah al-Hashimi, the uncle of the boy king, rushed to open the gates of Iraq to the British armies with sending two military divisions to participate in the war against the Axis Powers in the Libyan desert or the Balkans, and severing political relations with countries hostile to Britain. And Nuri al-Saeed’s haste in severing relations with the Germans, completely immersing himself in the arms of the British, and implicate Iraq and its resources in the service of the occupier, caused the Iraqi nationalists to ignite the resentment of the Iraqi patriots against this man, and he was forced every time to submit his resignation until the storm of criticism and accusations passed peacefully. ].

During the periods between the ministries of Nuri al-Saeed, decision-making in Iraq was devolved to some national politicians, led by Rashid Ali al-Kilani (1965), who rose to the position of prime minister for the third and last time in 1941 with the support of the Iraqi army and patriots who forced the regent Abd al-Ilah al-Hashimi to Flee from Iraq after they took control of the country, and the resignation of his ally Nuri al-Saeed, but Britain was not to accept the receipt of the Iraqi patriots headed by Rashid al-Kilani to power, so it was forced to call in military forces that exceeded ten thousand soldiers from India, and began to confront the Iraqi forces from Basra in the south until Baghdad in the north, and a month after these fierce battles in which the British with their advanced air forces crushed the Iraqi army on the ground, Rashid Ali Al-Kilani and his supporters among the senior army men were forced to resort to Iran [3].

In the arms of the occupier

Britain's influence in Iraq returned more severe and more oppressive, and the regent Abd al-Ilah became more dependent on the English after he returned from abroad after these times.

As soon as the Second World War ended and the Palestine issue began to emerge, the Arab countries and the League of States decided to move the Arab armies led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to liberate Palestine in 1948, but the differences of these countries, and the collusion of the Security Council to stop the war, led to The end to the withdrawal of Arab armies from Palestine.

The withdrawal of the Iraqi army had a huge negative impact on the hearts of Iraqis, as demonstrations took place in the streets of Baghdad on July 23, 1948, rejecting the decision to withdraw, and calling for the continuation of the fight against the Zionists, who were receiving support and backing from the Security Council. Senior Iraqi leaders and politicians, led by the Prime Minister, realized At that time, Ali Muzahim Al-Bachachi betrayed the regent Abd al-Ilah al-Hashemi, and that he was colluding with the British in the withdrawal of the Iraqi army within the withdrawing Arab armies, so that Palestine fell into the tragedy of the catastrophe of 1948 [4].

secret organizations

The Iraqis realized that the weak monarchy controlled by the British occupation was the main cause of all their crises.

As a result, secret political and military organizations were formed in Iraq since the beginning of the Second World War, and especially after the Nakba of Palestine, which worked to the utmost to overthrow the monarchy and achieve national demands. To pass through Baghdad before Palestine, then the idea of ​​change focused and deepened following the July 23, 1952 revolution that took place in Egypt, and left an impact on the Iraqi people and their political and military parties and organizations” [5].

Since the overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt in July 1952, the collection of officers in the Iraqi army has tried to emulate the Egyptian experience by forming new cells similar to the Free Officers Organization. Major Refaat al-Haj Serry and Lieutenant-Colonel Rajab Abdel Majid began in September 1952 to approach the officers they trusted. And I invited them to join the cells that they decided to form to eliminate the monarchy, and at the end of that year there was an imminent attempt to eliminate the young King Faisal II, his uncle Prince Abdul Ilah and Prime Minister Nuri al-Saeed, but it was decided to postpone it due to the travel of Nuri al-Saeed[6].

In 1956, the tripartite aggression against Egypt took place, and it also witnessed the complicity of the Iraqi government headed by the trio Abdul Ilah, King Faisal II and Nuri Al-Saeed, and their failure to take an explicit position and reject the aggression of Britain, France and Israel against Egypt in the Suez War, and when the Soviet Union intervened and was forced The aggressors to withdraw, and Abdel Nasser emerged victorious, ascertained to the Iraqi politicians and military the extent of the betrayal of the Iraqi government at the time and its workers to the Western colonial powers.

By that same year, there were two large organizations within the Iraqi army units aimed at eliminating the monarchy in the country;

The first was the Higher Committee of National Officers, "The Free Later", led by Major Rifaat al-Haj Serri, who postponed the coup attempt and the extermination of the monarchy previously, and the "Mansuriya" organization led by the commander of the 19th Brigade Abdel Karim Qassem and his assistant, Colonel Abdel Salam Aref, and by 1957, the two organizations agreed to unite under The umbrella of the "national officers", the leadership devolved to the oldest member in age and rank, Colonel Abdul Karim Qassem, and serious planning began to get rid of the monarchy.

Abdel-Karim Kassem

The absent government

Everyone agreed on the assassination of both Prince Abdul Ilah Al Hashemi, who became the crown prince, and Prime Minister Nuri Al-Said while preserving the life of the young King Faisal II, because his father, King Ghazi, was a patriot close to the patriots in the Iraqi army and politics, and he was assassinated while trying to liberate from British domination of the country.

The Iraqi government headed by the triumvirate was completely absent from the anger and movements in the army, and Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi, the Prime Minister of Iraq for several periods during the royal era, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in this last government and one of the witnesses to the massacre, tells us that the Iraqi government “was indifferent to what was threatening it… and that the King Jordanian Hussein bin Talal received reliable news about the presence of a group in the Iraqi army that was being organized to stage a coup against the regime. About the coup movement in the army, and he was given some of the names of those responsible for this movement, so the team responded - as usual - with an answer full of mockery and indifference, stressing that the coup movements that allegedly exist in the Iraqi army do not exist” [7].

Tawfiq Al-Suwaidi also tells us in his memoirs that other warnings came from Turkey and some branches of the Iraqi internal security about imminent military movements, but none of the trio, King Faisal II, Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah or Nuri al-Saeed, as well as those without them, did not take these threats seriously. Grandfather, even when Turkish President Adnan Menderes told Prime Minister Nuri Al-Saeed in June 1958, a month before the coup, that a coup was being prepared in the Iraqi army, Al-Saeed replied nervously, stressing that "this information is incorrect, and that he does not believe any of it." [8].

Turkish President Adnan Menderes and Prime Minister Nuri Al-Said

massacre day

Thus, the trio surrendered to his destiny, and the "free" national officers units moved towards Al-Rehab Palace, the headquarters of the King and the Crown Prince, and the house of Nuri Al-Saeed, taking advantage of the presence of the three men in Baghdad, as well as exploiting the orders given to the 20th Brigade to move from the Jalawla area in eastern Iraq to Jordan to support the army. The Jordanian, where the leaders of the organization took advantage of the movements of this brigade and its passage in Baghdad to attack Al-Rehab Palace without any suspicion or confrontation, while the king was preparing to travel to complete his marriage procedures and travel for a vacation in Europe.

Thus, as soon as the first minutes of the morning began on July 14, 1958, the soldiers led by Abdul Karim Qassem, Abdul Salam Aref and other leaders of the loyal regiments surrounded the sovereign facilities in the capital, Baghdad, and announced through the radio the establishment of the republic and the abolition of the monarchy, and besieged Al-Rehab Palace, the headquarters The Hashemite family, and the besieged forces were able to enter the palace and force the young King Faisal II, his uncle Prince Abdullah and his grandmother Princess Nafisa and some other princesses out to the palace garden, then field orders were issued to eliminate them, and the hail of bullets began to rain down, “so they all fell one on the other in A human mass of flesh and blood… King Faisal fell backwards on the shoulder of another victim.” Then the person in charge of the execution order, officer Abdul Sattar al-Saba’, came forward and stood over the corpses lying in front of him, and fired his machine gun again towards the king and the prince, and his companion said to him: Luish (Why? ) He replied: Until I am sure!”[9].

As for Nuri al-Saeed, when he was trapped in his house, and realized that it was the inevitable end, he took out his gun and committed suicide, and a short time did not pass since this massacre, until the revolutionaries took the bodies of everyone and roamed with them in Baghdad until their features changed, and only a few of those close to the ruling family survived this massacre. They were headed by Princess Badi’ah bint Sharif Ali bin Al Hussein, the aunt of King Faisal II and the sister of the regent Prince Abdul Ilah bin Ali. She managed to escape with her children and husband in disguise. She recounted the events of this tragic massacre and her escape to several regions before eventually resorting to the Saudi embassy in Baghdad in her memoirs entitled "Memoirs of the Heir to the Thrones".

After she learned, while she was on the other side of Baghdad, from some eyes and close associates, of the assassination of all those who were in Al-Rehab Palace, led by King Faisal II, twenty-three years old, and her brother, Prince Abdullah, and the others. I left everything behind, and went out in my black cloak from my house, I don’t know where, and I did not imagine that this forced exit is my last time in my house” [10]!

Since that date, Iraq entered the stage of the republic following a large bloody massacre that later had repercussions even on Abdul Karim Qasim himself.

It could have been easily avoided because of the surrender of both the king and his crown prince, but Abd al-Ilah and Nuri al-Saeed fell into the arms of the British occupier for many years, and their failure to Iraq in the issues of independence, Palestine and resistance to the occupier, with the expansion of Arab nationalism and socialist progress and the Nasserist discourse against the monarchies and the spread of military coups in the region at that time;

All this led to this bloody end in Al-Rehab Palace, ending the story of the monarchy in Iraq after only 37 years of its establishment!

————————————————————————————————————

Sources