Following the failure of the coup, law and order broke down in Mosul, which witnessed several days of violent street battles between various groups attempting to use the chaos to settle political and personal scores.

During Qasim's term, there was much debate over whether Iraq should join the United Arab Republic, led by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In an attempt to intimidate any individuals plotting a potential coup, Qasim had encouraged a Communist backed Peace Partisans rally in Mosul that was held on 6 March 1959.

Qasim's attempt to stop dissent was successful to some extent, as Colonel Abdul Wahab Shawaf, the stocky 40-year-old Arab nationalist Commander of the Iraqi Army's Mosul Garrison, was discomforted by the Communists' show of force.

Shawaf was supported in this endeavour by other disgruntled Free Officers, who were primarily from prominent Arab Sunni families and who opposed Qasim's growing relationship with the ICP.

[9] Shawaf ordered the Iraqi Army's 5th brigade, which was under his command, to round up 300 members of the Communist Peace Partisans, including their leader, Kamil Kazanchi, a well known Baghdad lawyer and politician, who was executed.

Bedouin tribesmen who had been called on by Shawaf prior to his death to support the coup also engaged in pillaging, and the violence within Mosul was also used as a cover by some to settle private scores.

[8] Three pro-government Kurdish tribes moved into Mosul and fought the Arab Shammar tribesmen, their long time opponents who had rallied around Shawaf.

Sheik Ahmed Ajil, the chief of the Shammars was spotted by Kurdish militiamen in his car and was killed, along with his driver, and both were later hung naked from a bridge over the Tigris.

[8] By the fourth day government troops had begun to impose order and began clearing the roads as well as removing naked and mutilated bodies which had been strung up from lamp posts.