Word: razzak
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...averages at least two revolts a year. Automatic rifles cracked through the streets. Seven Iraqi air force MIG-19s whined low over the presidential palace, peppering it with rockets. Tanks took up positions at the Baghdad radio station. For the second time in ten months, former Premier Aref Abdel Razzak, 42, was up to his old tricks, launching a coup in the name of Nasser-style socialism. The bulk of the army rallied to the side of the government, quashing the uprising. The difference was that last week President Abdel Rahman Aref decided to take no more chances with Razzak...
With that, Aref could get back to the business of running his country. To replace overzealous Premier Aref Abdel Razzak, who fled into exile when the coup failed, Aref chose Abdel Rahman Bazzaz, a political moderate linked to no party, and onetime ambassador to Egypt and Britain. In his first press conference, Bazzaz sought to mollify all segments of Iraq's traditionally unruly citizens. He told the Nasserites that his government would work for eventual "federal union" with Egypt, made businessmen happy by blasting Marxism, and tried to appeal to left-wing intellectuals by advocating non-Marxist socialism...
...Razzak had held the premiership only 18 days. Formerly a brigadier and commander of the air force, Razzak was appointed to form a new Cabinet on Sept. 6, the eve of President Abdul Salam Aref's departure for the Arab League conference at Casablanca. With the President out of the country, Razzak decided to make Aref's absence permanent. Backed by his newly chosen Cabinet, which was as strongly pro-Nasser as himself, Razzak ordered a tank column from the Abi Gharib camp, outside Baghdad, to occupy Iraq's radio station and broadcast "communique No. 1," announcing...
President Aref was gone, but his brother, Deputy Chief of Staff General Abdul Rahman Aref was not. He quickly rallied the pro-Aref forces - and may well have had a spy on Razzak's team. At any rate, the rebel tank detachment bound for Radio Iraq was intercepted and captured after a brief encounter in Baghdad's streets. Other loyal troops surrounded the government ministries and arrested Premier Razzak and his fellow conspirators...
Within an hour, Razzak's coup was finished. He and his family were put aboard a plane and flown to Cairo where, after spending a night in Nasser's Tahra Palace, they moved into a luxury suite on the 19th floor of the Nile Hilton, next door to the suite of U.S. Film Star Charlton Heston and his family. On his way home from Casablanca, President Aref also stopped off in Cairo, perhaps to impress on Nasser the need for making haste slowly in ar ranging the eventual union of their two nations...