The 1963 Syrian coup d'etat occurred on 8 March 1963 when the Ba'ath Party seized power from President of Syria Nazim al-Kudsi, leading to the rise of Amin al-Hafiz as President of Syria and the establishment of the Syrian Ba'ath Party as the ruling party of the country for over 50 years.
Background[]
Following the 1961 Syrian coup d'etat and the demise of the United Arab Republic, Nazim al-Kudsi became President of Syria with support from the traditional landholding Sunni elite. The downfall of Nasserism in Syria led to the nationalist Ba'athist movement gaining traction among the capitalist and entrepreneurial middle class and the marginalized Alawite, Druze, and Ismaili lower classes. The Syrian Ba'ath Party, led by the philosopher Michel Aflaq and his military ally Amin al-Hafiz, recruited young peasants from radical peasant movements and mobilized large sectors of the population. In 1962, the Ba'ath Party began to plan a coup against the democratic government of al-Kudsi, which had angered the military by seeking to reduce its power in politics. The military was divided between a conservative and pro-government faction in Damascus, supporters of Akram al-Hawrani, a Nasserist faction, a Ba'athist faction, and an independent faction. The Ba'athist allies in the military opposed the Damascus faction's support for the regime and the Hawranist faction's opposition to pan-Arabism, while the Nasserists allied to the Ba'athists despite their support for Gamal Abdel Nasser and their support for the re-establishment of the United Arab Republic. After discovering that Prime Minister Khalid al-Azm planned to demote him, the Southern Sector commander Ziad al-Hariri decided to join the Ba'athist faction, as did military intelligence commander Rashid al-Qutayni and Homs Brigade commander Muhammad al-Sufi.
In late 1962, the founder of the Ba'athist movement, Michel Aflaq, and his military ally Amin al-Hafiz arranged for a meeting with the powerful Syrian businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet (secretly the undercover Israeli Mossad agent Eli Cohen), who had pledged his loyalty to al-Hafiz when they had first met in Argentina in 1961. al-Hafiz called on Thaabet to host a party at his luxury apartment in the Abu Rummaneh neighborhood on the night of 8 March 1963 to distract the Cabinet and the top military leadership from the military takeover, even as the coup plotters would take over the Second Bureau headquarters across the street from the apartment on Moussa Ibn Nousser Street. Thaabet agreed, doing so without informing his Mossad superiors about the operation. On 8 February 1963, exactly a month before the party was held, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party overthrew President of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim in a military coup, encouraging al-Hafiz to launch the coup.
Coup[]
al-Hafiz and his troops taking over the Second Bureau
On the night of 7-8 March 1963, the coup was set in motion as the Cabinet, commander-in-chief Abdul Karim Zahreddine, and several high-ranking officers partied at Thaabet's apartment. al-Hafiz, his chief of security Ahmed Suidani, and a group of Syrian soldiers stormed the Second Bureau, and gunshots were heard on all of the floors as his soldiers stormed the building. At the same time, Colonel Salih Hatum and his soldiers stormed the Radio Syria building and shot one guard dead before forcing news anchor George Seif to broadcast a prepared message stating that President Nazim al-Kudsi had peacefully turned over power to the military. Concurrent to these two takeovers was al-Hafiz and Suidani's takeover of the Presidential Palace, which occurred after several loyalist soldiers were gunned down. Suidani held al-Kudsi at gunpoint as al-Hafiz demanded the President's resignation, and the message was broadcast shortly afterwards. When the party at Thaabet's apartment ended, pro-coup soldiers ambushed Zahreddine and his fellow officers, cutting many of their throats and taking Zahreddine as a prisoner. With the President and commander-in-chief detained and the government institutions taken over, the Ba'ath Party was now in power.
Aftermath []
The bodies at the Presidential Palace
A total of 820 people had been killed during the takeover, in addition to 20 executed in its aftermath. The 20-man National Council for the Revolutionary Command was established to govern the country, with 12 Ba'athists and 8 Nasserists and independents sitting on the council. Salah al-Din al-Bitar was asked to form a government, although the officers still controlled the country. On 9 March 1963, the NCRC made Luay al-Atassi the de facto head of state, while the Nasserist al-Sufi was made Defense Minister. However, from 28 April to 2 May 1963, the Ba'athists purged the Nasserist faction from the military, leading to Nasserist Egypt beginning a large-scale radio campaign denouncing the Ba'ath. On 18 July, the Nasserists launched a failed coup, and their leaders Jassem Alwan, Raef al-Maarri, and Muhammad Nabhan were sentenced to death before being released a year later at the behest of Nasser and President Abdul Salam Arif of Iraq. In July, al-Hafiz formally became President of Syria.