This day in history: The mother of all Syrian coups

On this day in 1949, a group of soldiers stormed the home of Syria’s constitutionally elected president, Shukri al-Quwatli, nestled in the tranquil Bustan al-Rais neighbourhood on the slopes of Mount Qassioun in Damascus. Ibrahim al-Husseini, commander of the Military Police, entered and, after a curt salute, informed the president of his arrest, which the Army Command ordered.

As a man of dignity, he did not resist. Instead, he retreated to his room to change, his wife assisting him, both shrouded in uncertainty about who had orchestrated this brazen act. Al-Quwatli, revered as the father of Syrian independence, had led the nation to victory against the French Mandate in 1946. A seasoned nationalist, he had spent decades resisting both Ottoman and French domination.

As his wife helped him prepare, she whispered anxiously, "Is it the Israelis, or is it King Abdullah of Jordan, who covets the Syrian throne?" It never crossed her mind that the mastermind behind this betrayal was neither foreign nor distant, but a man al-Quwatli himself had once trusted and elevated—the Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army, Colonel Husni al-Zaim. The same al-Zaim who had once declared, "If there is a man in Syria whose head we should kiss before his hand, it would be Shukri al-Quwatli."

Next morning, Damascus awoke to an unfamiliar sight: tanks and armoured vehicles rumbling through its streets, soldiers peering out from turrets, their steel helmets glinting under the city lights. The people of Damascus, unaccustomed to such military displays, watched in bewilderment.

Even the soldiers themselves seemed uneasy, unaware that this night would mark the beginning of their addiction to power. A curious citizen approached one of the tanks stationed near the Syrian parliament and asked, "Brother... what’s going on?" The soldier replied tersely, "A coup!" The man, unfamiliar with political machinations, asked, "Okay... but what does a coup mean?"

Meanwhile, Faris al-Khoury, the Speaker of Parliament, feigned illness and stayed home to avoid meeting al-Zaim, who, undeterred, arrived at Khoury’s doorstep, offering him the position of prime minister in his new government. Al-Khoury, also a man of principle, responded with unwavering resolve: "If I come to power, the first thing I will do is put you in prison for assaulting parliamentary legitimacy and violating the constitution. May God forgive you... You have opened a door in Syria that history will find hard to close."

His words indeed proved true. Al-Zaim’s coup flung open the gates to military coups in Syria—gates that would remain ajar until 2024, when Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled the last military regime the country had known—the rule of the Ba’ath Party and the Assads.

Contrary to popular belief, al-Zaim’s coup was not the first in the Arab world. It was actually preceded by Bakr Sidqi’s coup in Iraq, which toppled Prime Minister Yasin al-Hashimi in 1936.

In his memoirs published in Doha years later, Lebanese journalist Asad Dagher, an aide to King Faisal I in 1920, revealed that some Syrians had toyed with the idea of a military coup that year. They approached War Minister Yusuf al-Azma, but he refused to cooperate. Dagher wrote that the plan was for Azma to overthrow King Faisal, who was perceived as weak in confronting the French, and replace him with his half-brother, Prince Zeid bin Hussein.

Yusuf al-Azma—a product of the Ottoman military establishment—had witnessed the coups against Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1908 and the subsequent rise of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in 1913.

Had al-Azma accepted the proposal, the history of Syria—and perhaps the entire Middle East—might have taken a dramatically different course. But his resolute refusal delayed the wave of coups in Syria until 1949—a year that marked the beginning of a turbulent era, including nine successful coups and nine failed attempts listed below.

In that year alone, three successful coups were carried out in Syria. Meanwhile, some officers carried out multiple coups in their lifetimes. For example, Colonel Adib al-Shishakli carried out his first coup in 1949, his second in 1951, and almost carried out a third in 1956.

Successful coups

1. Husni al-Zaim’s coup against President Shukri al-Quwatli, 29 March 1949
2. Sami al-Hinnawi’s coup against President Husni al-Zaim, 14 August 1949
3. Adib al-Shishakli’s coup against Chief of Staff Sami al-Hinnawi, 19 December 1949
4. Shishakli’s coup against Prime Minister Ma’ruf al-Dawalibi, 29 November 1951
5. The military coup against President Adib al-Shishakli, 25 February 1954
6. The secessionist coup against the United Arab Republic, 28 September 1961
7. The Ba’ath Party coup against President Nazim al-Qudsi, 8 March 1963
8. Salah Jadid’s coup against President Amin al-Hafez, 23 February 1966
9. Hafez al-Assad’s coup against President Nur al-Din al-Atassi, 16 November 1970

Failed coups

1. An attempted Jordanian coup via Bahij al-Kallas, 27 September 1950
2. Muhammad Safa’s attempted coup against Adib al-Shishakli, December 1952
3. An attempted Iraqi coup against President Shukri al-Quwatli, 1956
4. An attempted American coup against President Shukri al-Quwatli in 1957 was also known as the Howard Stone affair
5. Abdul Karim al-Nahlawi’s coup against President Nazim al-Qudsi, 28 March 1962
6. The Aleppo insurrection of 2 April 1962
7. Jassem Alwan’s coup against the Ba’athists on 18 July 1963
8. Salim Hatum’s coup against Salah Jadid on 8 September 1966
9. Rifaat al-Assad’s coup against his brother Hafez al-Assad in 1984

Predictable pattern

These coups followed a predictable pattern: an ambitious officer leading a group of soldiers to seize the radio station, then moving on to parliament, the presidential palace, and army headquarters to overthrow the existing regime—whether democratic or military.

Some coup leaders enjoyed foreign support from Iraq, Jordan, or the United States, but most Syrian coups were bloodless—with the notable exception of Sami al-Hinnawi’s, which culminated in the execution of President Husni al-Zaim and Prime Minister Muhsin al-Barazi by firing squad on 14 August 1949.

Undoubtedly, Syria’s first coup inspired the Free Officers’ coup against King Farouk in Egypt on 23 July 1952. In turn, the Egyptian coup, dubbed a "revolution," inspired Abdul Karim Qasim’s coup against the Iraqi monarchy on 14 July 1958.

The Iraqi coup was the bloodiest in the history of military coups in the Arab world, claiming the lives of the young King Faisal II and his entire family, as well as the brutal lynching of Prime Minister Nuri al-Said in the streets of Baghdad. A similar bloodbath occurred during the coup against Qasim in 1963, setting the stage for Saddam Hussein’s rise to power in 1979.

When the first coup unfolded in Damascus in 1949, parliamentarians rushed to hold an emergency session at the Chamber of Deputies, only to be barred by soldiers. Lutfi al-Haffar, a Damascus MP and former prime minister, confronted them, declaring, "We are the elected representatives of the nation... You cannot stop us from entering the parliament. I am the MP for Damascus."

A young soldier, his finger on the trigger of his machine gun, sneered, "We have just arrested the president of the republic. Nothing stops us from arresting or killing you." They showed no respect for Haffar’s age or stature, and the same scenario would repeat in 1962, when Haffar became a victim of Colonel Abdul Karim al-Nahlawi’s failed coup. By then, Haffar had retired from politics, but the coup’s architect ordered his arrest anyway, sending soldiers to drag him from his home.

A soldier entered the home of the 77-year-old statesman and said, "Please, Lutfi Bey, come with me, and don’t hold it against me for disturbing you. I’m just following orders. We are your sons."

Haffar, his voice trembling with anger, replied, "No, you are not our sons, because we did not raise our children to storm citizens’ homes, arrest them without warrants, or meddle with nations and destroy their laws. Give me a moment to fetch my medicine." He was then taken to prison in a military jeep, shivering in the freezing cold, crying out, "I’m sick, I’m cold... Have mercy on us, people!"

President Nazim al-Qudsi responded with equal defiance to the military’s overreach. According to Mutih al-Samman, the director of internal security during the secession period, Qudsi told the soldiers, "May God ruin you, soldiers... You’re going to destroy the independence of Syria with your actions."

Thus began Syria’s descent into a cycle of coups and countercoups—a dark chapter that would shape its destiny for decades to come. Husni al-Zaim may have opened the gates of hell, but the echoes of his actions continue to reverberate through the annals of Syrian history.