Abdul Karim Zahreddine was the Defense Minister of Syria from 16 April 1962 to 8 March 1963. He was the commander-in-chief of Syria's army from the 1961 Syrian coup d'etat until his imprisonment after the 1963 Syrian coup d'etat.
Biography[]
Abdul Karim Zahreddine was born to a Druze family in Syria, and he was the uncle of Ma'azi Zahreddine, who followed his uncle's military footsteps. Zahreddine was appointed the army's commander-in-chief on 29 September 1961 during the 1961 Syrian coup d'etat, which overthrew the United Arab Republic, and he served as Defense Minister from 1962 to 1963. Through his nephew, he befriended the Israeli Mossad spy Eli Cohen, who was posing as Syrian expatriate businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet; Cohen met the general at a former Roman estate in the Golan Heights, where they bathed and smoked hookahs together. However, Cohen was secretly recruited by Michel Aflaq, Amin al-Hafiz, and the Ba'ath Party to assist them in a coup on 8 March 1963, and he was asked to host a party with several high-ranking cabinet officials and generals to distract them from the military takeover. Upon leaving Cohen's party that night, Zahreddine was ambushed by pro-coup soldiers, who killed his escorts and arrested him. He later attempted suicide in prison, but the attempt failed.