Word: zahreddin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Broken Bonds. Everyone knew it was coming, from Syria's strongman, General Abdel Karim Zahreddin, down to the lowliest private in the army. When Zahreddin severed Syria's union with Egypt 17 months ago, he had profited from the nation's revulsion against the police state and harsh economic controls imposed by Nasser. But Syrians, passionate believers in Arab unity, also felt guilty about breaking the bonds. Wispy President Nazem El-Koudsi sighed, "The trouble with Syrians is that we are never concerned with just our own problems but with issues affecting all Arabs...
...revolution came as quietly as a sunrise. General Zahreddin suspected Colonel Mohammed Hariri, chief of the southern front command, of being a top conspirator and ordered him sent out of the country as military attaché to Jordan. Hariri refused to go, and the entire southern command backed him up. An armored column moved out from the Badani mili tary camp and entered Damascus, where the tanks patrolling the streets quickly joined the rebels. Scarcely a shot was fired as Syria changed its allegiance. Tempers were so cool that President Koudsi was allowed to remain at home with his family...
...Aleppo briefly mutinied, demanding Syria's reunion with Nasser's Egypt; pro-Nasser mobs in Horns, Hama and Aleppo killed a score of army men; a handful of officers accused of political ambitions were shipped off to exile abroad. The army commander in chief. General Abdel Karim Zahreddin, tried vainly to put together a "government of technicians...
Apparently at a loss for a better idea, the top military men last week sheepishly sprung Koudsi from jail and reinstalled him as President. In what sounded like obvious relief, General Zahreddin said that his army is ''determined to go back to its barracks after an honest, clean and free government has been established...
When preparations were complete, Zahreddin broadcast an ultimatum ordering "all officers and soldiers of the Aleppo garrison" to be confined to barracks. A Russian-made jet of the Syrian air force dropped two bombs in a futile attempt to knock out the Aleppo transmitter. The announcer hysterically broadcast news of the attack and begged Nasser to send Egyptian paratroops to save the situation. But Cairo replied only that Nasser "heard with grief-stricken heart the report of air operations by the Syrian air force against the people and army of the northern region." Damascus radio blasted the Aleppo officers...