Interesting facts about the death of Abdus-Salaam Aref

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On April 13, 1966 AD, Iraqi President, Colonel Abdus-Salaam Aref, was killed in an air accident, while returning to Baghdad from Basra. He had cooperated with Colonel Abdul-Karim Qasem in the 1958 military coup that ended the British-installed monarchy. Aref fell out with Qasem and despite the latter's leniency towards him, including pardon from a death sentence, teamed up with the Ba'thists to overthrow the government. The bloody coup was carried out in 1963 in which Qasem and his close associates were killed.
There are interesting facts about the death of Abdus-Salaam Aref in a plane crash. It is said the Iraqi president had blasphemously tried to ridicule the famous censuring of the rebellious people of Basra by the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS) following his victory in the historical Battle of Jamal or Camel.
On hearing the president's speech on radio the people of Iraq were greatly saddened at his ridiculing of the Imam's statements concerning the people of Basra. It is said that the leading scholar of the Najaf Islamic seminary, Seyyed Mohsin al-Hakeem, went to the holy shrine of Imam Ali (AS) and clinging to the metal enclosure wept bitterly and prayed fervently, before leaving the place in a state of profound grief. No sooner had this venerable figure left the holy shrine, when suddenly Radio Iraq cut its regular broadcasts to announce the crash of the aircraft and the death of the Iraqi president.