The Ramadan Revolution, also referred to as the 8 February Revolution and the February 1963 coup d'état in Iraq, was a military coup by the Iraqi branch of the Ba'ath Party which overthrew the Prime Minister of Iraq, Abdul-Karim Qasim in 1963. It took place between 8 and 10 February 1963. Qasim's former deputy, Abdul Salam Arif, who was not a Ba'athist, was given the largely ceremonial title of President, while prominent Ba'athist general Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was named Prime Minister. The most powerful leader of the new government was the secretary general of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, Ali Salih al-Sa'di, who controlled the National Guard militia and organized a massacre of hundreds—if not thousands—of suspected communists and other dissidents following the coup.
A sign with the image of Qasim taken down during the coup
The corpse of Abd al-Karim Qasim
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, officially the Iraqi Regional Branch, is an Iraqi Ba'athist political party founded in 1951 by Fuad al-Rikabi. It was the Iraqi regional branch of the original Ba'ath Party, before changing its allegiance to the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath movement following the 1966 split within the original party. The party was officially banned following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, but despite this it still continues to function underground.
Rikabi was one of the leading figures in early Ba'athist history
Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959–1963
Qasim was executed by the Ba'athists inside the Iraqi Ministry of Defence building; the Ba'athists desecrated his corpse on Iraqi television.
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, as seen in 1974, led the Ba'athist coups of 1963 and 1968.