Editing Abdul-Karim Qasim (section)

==Early life and career==
[[File:Qasim 1937.jpg|left|thumb|alt=Photograph of Qasim in 1937 looking to his left |Qasim in 1937]]
Abd al-Karim's father, Qasim Muhammed Bakr Al-Fadhli Al-Zubaidi was a farmer from southern [[Baghdad]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Yapp |first=Malcolm |year= 2014 |title=The Near East Since the First World War: A History to 1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJHZBAAAQBAJ&q=Abd+al-Karim+Qasim+1914&pg=PA83 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |page=84 |isbn=978-1-317-89054-6 }}</ref> and an [[Iraqi people|Iraqi]] [[Sunni]] [[Muslim]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-6577.html|title=Iraq – Republican Iraq |website=www.country-data.com}}</ref> who died during the [[World War I|First World War]], shortly after his son's birth. Qasim's mother, Kayfia Hassan Yakub Al-Sakini<ref>{{cite web|title=من ماهيات سيرة الزعيم عبد الكريم قاسم|date=29 October 2014|url=http://almadasupplements.com/news.php?action=view&id=11267#sthash.Eh6LWIvG.dpbs|language=ar|publisher=Am Mad as Supplements|access-date=5 May 2017|archive-date=3 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403134218/http://almadasupplements.com/news.php?action=view&id=11267#sthash.Eh6LWIvG.dpbs|url-status=dead}}</ref> was a [[Shia Muslim]] [[Feyli (tribe)|Feyli Kurd]] from Baghdad.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-05-16 |title=Modern Iraqi History and the Day After: Part 2, March 7, 2003 |url=http://www.theestimate.com/public/030703.html |access-date=2024-09-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130516133644/http://www.theestimate.com/public/030703.html |archive-date=16 May 2013 }}</ref>

Qasim was born in Mahdiyya, a lower-income district of Baghdad on the left side of the river, now known as [[Karkh]], on 21 November 1914, the youngest of three sons.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last=Dann|first=Uriel|url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/75/3/893/118489|title=Iraq under Qassem: A Political History, 1958–1963|publisher=Pall Mall Press|year=1969|isbn=978-0269670640|location=London|pages=20–21|language=English}}</ref> When Qasim was six, his family moved to Suwayra, a small town near the [[Tigris]], then to Baghdad in 1926. Qasim was an excellent student and entered secondary school on a government scholarship.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2006-09-02 |title=Iraqis Recall Golden Age |url=http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=167565&apc_state=heniicr2004 |access-date=2024-09-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060902123122/http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=167565&apc_state=heniicr2004 |archive-date=2 September 2006 }}</ref> After graduation in 1931, he attended Shamiyya Elementary School from 22&nbsp;October 1931 until 3&nbsp;September 1932, when he was accepted into Military College. In 1934, he graduated as a second lieutenant. Qasim then attended al-Arkan (Iraqi Staff) College and graduated with honours (grade A) in December 1941. Militarily, he participated in the suppression of the [[1935–1936 Iraqi Shia revolts|tribal uprisings]] in central and southern Iraq in 1935, the 1941 [[Anglo-Iraqi War]] and the [[1943 Barzani revolt|Barzani revolt]] in 1945. Qasim also served during the Iraqi military involvement in the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War|1948 Arab-Israeli War]] from May 1948 to June 1949. In 1951, he completed a senior officers’ course in [[Devizes]], [[Wiltshire]]. Qasim was nicknamed "the snake charmer" by his classmates in Devizes because of his ability to persuade them to undertake improbable courses of action during military exercises.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Dissembler|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,810960,00.html|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|date=13 April 1959}}</ref> 

In the “July 14 Revolution” of 1958, he was one of the leaders of the “Free Officers” who overthrew [[Faisal II|King Faisal II]] and ended the monarchy in Iraq.<ref name="Hunt 2005 72">{{Harvnb|Hunt|2005|p=72}}.</ref><ref name="Eppel 1998 233">{{Harvnb|Eppel|1998|p=233}}.</ref> The king, much of his family and members of his government were murdered.<ref name="Eppel 2004 151">{{Harvnb|Eppel|2004|p=151}}.</ref> The reason for the fall of the monarchy was its policies, which were viewed as one-sidedly pro-Western (pro-British) and anti-Arab, which, among other things, were reflected in the Baghdad Pact with the former occupying power Great Britain (1955) and in the founding of the “Arab Federation” with the kingdom Jordan (March 1958).<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Farouk-Sluglett |first1=Marion |last2=Sluglett |first2=Peter |date=1991 |title=The Historiography of Modern Iraq |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2165278 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=96 |issue=5 |pages=1408–1421 |doi=10.2307/2165278 |jstor=2165278 |issn=0002-8762|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The government also wanted to send the army to suppress anti-monarchist protests in Jordan, which sparked the rebellion.<ref name=":3" /> Shortly after the revolution, officers rioted against Qasim in Mosul and [[Kirkuk]]. Both uprisings were suppressed with the help of the Iraqi communists and Kurds.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Feldman |first=Bob |date=2006-02-02 |title=A People's History of Iraq: 1950 to November 1963 |url=https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/west-asia/a-peoples-history-of-iraq-1950-to-november-1963/ |access-date=2024-09-15 |website=Toward Freedom |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ufheil-Somers |first=Amanda |date=1992-05-04 |title=Why the Uprisings Failed |url=https://merip.org/1992/05/why-the-uprisings-failed/ |access-date=2024-09-15 |website=MERIP |language=en-US}}</ref>

Toward the latter part of that mission, he commanded a battalion of the First Brigade, which was situated in the [[Kafr Qasim|Kafr Qassem]] area south of [[Qilqilya]]. In 1956–57, he served with his brigade at [[Mafraq]] in Jordan in the wake of the [[Suez Crisis]]. By 1957 Qasim had assumed leadership of several opposition groups that had formed in the army.<ref>{{cite book|last=Tucker|first=Spencer C.|title=Persian Gulf War Encyclopedia: A Political, Social, and Military History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-oaMBAAAQBAJ&q=Al+Arkan+College&pg=PA355|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|date=2014|page=355|isbn=978-1-61069-415-5}}.</ref>