The 1959 Mosul Uprising was an attempted coup by Arab nationalists in Mosul who wished to depose then Iraqi Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim, and install an Arab nationalist government that would join the Republic of Iraq with the United Arab Republic. Following the failure of the coup law and order broke down in Mosul, which witnessed several day of violent street battles between various groups attempting to use the chaos to settle political and personal scores.

Although the rebellion was crushed by the military, it had a number of adverse effects that affected Qasim’s position. First, it increased the power of the communists. Second, it encouraged the ideas of the Ba’ath Party’s (which had been steadily growing since the July 14 coup). The Ba’ath Party believed that the only way of halting the engulfing tide of communism was to assassinate Qasim.

Source: Wikipedia, published under the GNU FDL. Retrieved 2014-03-03