Iraqi coup d’état 1941

On 1 April 1941 a group of pro-Axis officers made a coup against the Iraqi government of regent Abd al-Ilah. He was regent for the child King Faysal II and fled to Transjordan. Former Prime Minister Rashid al-Kaylani became Prime minister again. The officers wanted full independence for Iraq from Britain that had taken Iraq from the Ottoman Empire during World War I and made it a Kingdom under British control. Several attempts to gain independence were met with British resistance and Iraqi politics deteriorated in uprisings and coup attempts.

 PM Rashid al-Kaylani.

   

The officers thought Germany and Italy would win the war, and sought closer ties with the Axis-powers. The British, afraid of losing the oil-rich country to Germany, requested permission to land troops according to the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty they made in 1930. Receiving no answer, Britain sent troops and war started. The British won and restored the regent and a pro-British government. Iraqi nationalist were outraged arguing that Rashid had a lot of support.

 

Map of Iraq in 1941.

 In the chaos people hostile to the British and the Zionist project in Palestine massacred hundreds of Jews in Bagdad. In the end Britain would lose as a new military coup in 1958 killed the whole royal family. Ties with Britain were cut and Iraq removed from the Baghdad Pact.

 



British forces outside Baghdad while negotiations for an armistice take place.



Sources and more information

The Arabs, Eugene Rogan, Basic Books New York 2009, pp. 187-91 and 208-09.

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/293631/Iraq/22904/World-War-II-and-British-intervention-1939-45

 

I am open to your comments and proposals.

Warmly

Bjarte Bjørsvik