Bakr Sidqi (Arabic: بكر صدقي), an Iraqi nationalist and general of
Kurdish descent, was born 1890 in Kirkuk and assassinated
on August 12, 1937, at Mosul.
Sidqi was Kurdish by birth, but like many ambitious men who lived in the Ottoman
Empire, he joined the Turkish army as a young man; already an Arab nationalist who
favored freeing the Arab lands from Turkish domination, he nonetheless spent formative years in what was essentially the colonial
army. Having studied at the Military College in Istanbul and graduated as a second lieutenant,
he fought in the Balkan Wars and joined the Staff College in Istanbul, graduating in
1915.
Sidqi joined Faisal's army in Syria and served in
Aleppo with a number of other Sharifian officers. After
the collapse of Faisal's kingdom in Syria, in 1921 Sidqi joined the army of Iraq (which had become an independent country
following World War I). He attended the British Staff College and was considered one of
Iraq's most competent officers. He lectured in the military school and achieved the rank of colonel in 1928 and brigadier general
in 1933. He spent much of his time crushing Assyrian tribal rebellions in the 1930s. In August 1933 Sidqi ordered the Iraqi Army to march to the north to crush militant Assyrian separatists in the town of
Sumail, near Mosul, which led to 3,000 Assyrian civilians being
killed. [1] In 1935, he cracked down on the tribal
rebellions at al-Rumaitha and al-Diwaniya with unprecedented harshness.
In October 1936, during the reign of Faisal's ineffectual son King Ghazi I, Sidqi, then
acting commander of Iraqi army, staged what was probably the first modern military coup d'état in the Arab world against the
government of Yasin al-Hashimi. Iraqi planes distributed leaflets that called for the
overthrow of the cabinet and the appointment of ousted anti-reform Prime Minister Hikmat
Sulayman. The leaflets warned that the military, under Sidqi's leadership, would march on Baghdad if these steps were not implemented. Jafar al-Askari, minister
of defense, attempted to dissuade Sidqi from his plans, but the latter arranged for his murder. Al-Hashimi subsequently resigned
and left the country, leaving power to Sidqi, at the head of a conservative group opposed to democratic reforms.
Sulayman became prime minister but after overthrowing the government, it was Sidqi who as commander of the armed forces
essentially ruled Iraq. However, the murder of al-Askari created strong feelings against the new government, and Sulayman's
cabinet lasted under ten months. Sidqi was assassinated in Mosul on his was to Turkey by a group
of dissident nationalist military officers who had withdrawn their support from
him. As a result, Sulayman resigned as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Jamil
al-Midfai. Sidqi was recognized as one of the most brilliant officers in the Iraqi army, known for his intelligence,
ambition, and self-confidence. He also believed the army was needed to bring about reform and achieve order, a stance he shared
with Atatürk and Reza Pahlavi.
See also
Notes
References
- Ghareeb, Edmund A. Historical Dictionary of Iraq, p. 224. Scarecrow Press, 2004, ISBN 0810843307.
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