39 Facts About Nuri al-Said

Nuri Pasha al-Said Al-Qaraghuli CH was an Iraqi politician during the Mandatory Iraq and the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq.

Nuri al-Said held various key cabinet positions and served eight terms as Prime Minister of Iraq.

From his first appointment as prime minister under the British Mandate in 1930, Nuri was a major political figure in Iraq under the monarchy.

Nuri al-Said was forced to flee the country after the 1941 Iraqi coup d'etat which brought a pro-Nazi government to power, but following a British-led intervention he was re-installed as prime minister.

Nuri al-Said attempted to flee the country but was captured and killed.

Nuri al-Said was born in Baghdad to middle class Sunni Muslim family of Circassian origin.

Nuri al-Said graduated from the Ottoman Military College in Istanbul in 1906, trained at the staff college there in 1911 as an officer in the Ottoman Army and was among the officers dispatched to Ottoman Tripolitania in 1912 to resist the Italian occupation of that province.

Nuri al-Said was an elusive guerrilla leader, with Jaafar Al-Askari, against the British in Libya in 1915.

On one operation Nuri rode with T E Lawrence and his British Army driver as crew of a Rolls-Royce Armoured Car.

Nuri al-Said headed the Arab troops who took Damascus for Faisal in the wake of the retreating Ottoman forces in 1918.

When Faisal was deposed by the French in 1920, Nuri al-Said followed the exiled monarch to Iraq, and in 1922 became first director general of the Iraqi police force.

Nuri al-Said used the position to fill the force with his placemen, a tactic that he would repeat in subsequent positions; that was a basis of his considerable political clout in later years.

Nuri al-Said was a trusted ally of Faisal who, in 1924, appointed him deputy commander in chief of the army so as to ensure the loyalty of the troops to the regime.

Once again, Nuri al-Said used the position to build up his own power base.

Nevertheless, Nuri al-Said continued to hold sway among the military establishment, and his position as a trusted ally of the British meant that he was never far from power.

The Bakr Sidqi coup showed the extent to which Nuri al-Said had tied his fate to that of the British in Iraq: he was the only politician of the toppled government to seek refuge in the British Embassy, and his hosts sent him into exile in Egypt.

Nuri al-Said returned to Baghdad in August 1937 and began plotting his return to power in collaboration with Colonel Salah al-Din al-Sabbagh.

That so perturbed Prime Minister Jamil al-Midfai that he persuaded the British that Nuri al-Said was a disruptive influence who would be better off abroad.

Back in Baghdad in October 1938, Nuri al-Said re-established contact with al-Sabbagh and persuaded him to overthrow the Midfai government.

Al-Sabbagh and his cohorts launched their coup on 24 December 1938, and Nuri al-Said was reinstated as prime minister.

Nuri al-Said sought to sideline the king by promoting the position and possible succession of the latter's half-brother Prince Zaid.

In January 1939, the king further aggrieved Nuri al-Said by appointing Rashid Ali al-Gaylani head of the Royal Divan.

When Ghazi died in a car crash on 4 April 1939, Nuri al-Said was widely suspected of being implicated in his death.

Nuri al-Said supported the accession of 'Abd al-Ilah as regent for Ghazi's successor, Faisal II, who was still a minor.

The loss of his main military ally meant that Nuri al-Said "quickly lost his ability to affect events".

Nuri al-Said fled to British-controlled Transjordan; his protectors then sent him to Cairo, but after occupying Baghdad they brought him back, installing him as prime minister under the British occupation.

Nuri al-Said would retain the post for over two and half years, but from 1943 onward, the regent obtained a greater say in the selection of his ministers and began to assert greater independence.

Nuri al-Said served as the President of the Senate of Iraq from July 1945 to November 1946, and from 1948 to January 1949.

In November 1946, an oil workers' strike culminated in a massacre of the strikers by the police, and Nuri al-Said was brought back as premier.

Nuri al-Said briefly brought the Liberals and National Democrats into the cabinet, but soon reverted to the more repressive approach he generally favoured, ordering the arrest of numerous communists in January 1947.

In early January 1948 Nuri al-Said himself joined the negotiating delegation in England, and on 15 January the treaty was signed.

Nuri al-Said retained considerable power throughout the country, but he was generally hated.

Nuri al-Said was determined to drive the Jews out of his country as quickly as possible, and on 21 August 1950, he threatened to revoke the license of the company transporting the Jewish exodus if it did not fulfill its daily quota of 500 Jews.

On 18 September 1950, Nuri al-Said summoned a representative of the Jewish community, claimed Israel was behind the emigration delay and threatened to "take them to the borders" and expel the Jews.

In 1950, Nuri Al-Said turned to building up Iraq's internal strength by concentrating on economic development.

Nuri al-Said was overjoyed with the tripartite move and instructed the radio station to play The Postmen Complained about the Abundance of My Letters as a way to mock Nasser, whose father was a postal clerk.

The invasion exacerbated popular mistrust of the Baghdad Pact, and Nuri al-Said responded by refusing to sit with British representatives during a meeting of the Pact and cut off diplomatic relations with France.

Nuri al-Said went into hiding, but he was captured the next day as he sought to make his escape.

Nuri al-Said later married Dina Fawaz Maher in 1974, the daughter of a Jordanian army general, Fawaz Pasha Maher, and had two daughters: Sima and Zaina.