Everything about Bakr Sidqi totally explained
Bakr Sidqi, 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. 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 Shah Pahlavi.
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