Salah al-Din al-Sabbagh ( ar, صلاح الدين الصباغ; 1899–1945) was an Iraqi Army officer and Arab nationalist that led the

Golden Square Golden Square, in Soho, the City of Westminster, London, is a mainly hardscaped garden square planted with a few mature trees and raised borders in Central London flanked by classical office buildings. Its four approach ways are north and sou ...

group which had opposed the government at the time and had highly influenced politics between the years of 1939 and 1941.Salah al-Din al-Sabbagh: Information from Answers.com
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Biography

Born in

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

to Iraqi parents, he was educated there and later attended the Ottoman Military College in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

, where he graduated as an officer in 1915. Sabbagh served in Palestine and Macedonia during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

where he was imprisoned only to later joined Amir Faisal I ibn Hussein, who became king of Iraq, and then returned to Iraq in 1921 to partake in the Iraqi army. His military education extends to courses taken both in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

and

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. In 1924 he became an instructor at the Baghdad Military College where he later taught at the Staff College. Sabbagh was then awarded the position of assistant chief of staff of the Iraqi army in 1937. He was an Arab nationalist which led him to become the head of the Golden Square between 1939 and 1941, a group of army officers that had placed heavy influence on Iraq's political scene. During this period, and relating to being an army officer and a pan-Arab nationalist, al-Sabbagh supervised the training of al-Futuwwah youth movement. Established in 1935, and made compulsory for high school students in 1939, the futuwwah movement, via its paramilitary training, sought to transform young Iraqi-Arab youth into future soldiers committed to the cultural, historical, geographical and national unity of the Arab nation. Having admired the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, he worked both with him and Rashid Ali al-Kaylani to negotiate with the

Axis powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

for support of their pan-Arab goals. Al-Sabbagh supported Rashid Ali as prime minister in 1941 and was responsible as a major advocate of the

Anglo-Iraqi War The Anglo-Iraqi War was a British-led Allied military campaign during the Second World War against the Kingdom of Iraq under Rashid Gaylani, who had seized power in the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état, with assistance from Germany and Italy. The ca ...

in April and May. Soon after the Iraqi defeat in the Anglo-Iraqi War of 1941, Sabbagh fled to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and later to

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, where he was extradited to Iraq and executed in 1945. Sabbagh had written an autobiography titled ''"Fursan al-Uruba fi al-Iraq"'' ("The knights of Arabism in Iraq"), which had been published in Damascus in 1956 which had detailed the account of his pan-Arabism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabbagh, Salah Al-Din 1889 births 1945 deaths 20th-century executions by Iraq Iraqi Arab nationalists Executed Iraqi people Executed military personnel Golden Square members Iraqi Ground Forces officers Iraqi people of Lebanese descent Iraqi writers Ottoman military personnel of World War I People extradited from Turkey People extradited to Iraq People from Mosul People executed by Iraq by hanging Executed Arab collaborators with Nazi Germany