[2] The coup was precipitated by a heightening in the power struggle between the party's old guard, represented by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Munif al-Razzaz, and the radical leftist factions adhering to a Neo-Ba'athist position.

Two days later, the Military Committee, backing the radical leftist factions, launched a coup that involved violent fighting in Aleppo, Damascus, Deir ez-Zor, and Latakia.

Salah Jadid's government would subsequently be overthrown in the coup d'etat of 1970, which brought his military rival Hafez al-Assad to power.

After the success of the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, officially the 8th of March Revolution, a power struggle erupted between the Nasserites in the National Council for the Revolutionary Command and the Ba'ath Party.

[6] The traditional elite, consisting of the upper classes, who had been overthrown from political power by the Ba'athists, felt threatened by the Ba'ath Party's socialist policies.

[5] The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was a historical rival of the Syrian Regional Branch, and it felt threatened by the party's secularist nature.

[5] The party was chiefly dominated by minority groups such as Alawites, Druzes, and Isma'ilis, and people from the countryside in general; this created an urban–rural conflict based predominantly on ethnic differences.

[7] Cohesive internal unity had all but collapsed after the 1963 seizure of power; Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and their followers wanted to implement "classic" Ba'athism in the sense that they wanted to establish a loose union with Nasser's Egypt, implement a moderate form of socialism, and to have a one-party state which respected the rights of the individual, tolerating freedom of speech and freedom of thought.

[7] They believed these policies would end exploitation of labour, that capitalism would disappear, and in agriculture they envisioned a plan were land was given "to he who works it".

[9] Bitar formed a new government which halted the nationalisation process, reaffirm respect for civil liberties and private property.

[10] Between 1963 and 1966, neo-Ba'athist radicals, who controlled the Ba'athist military committee, began steadily amassing power and influence within the Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath party.

[11] Before the crushing of the riots of 1964, a power struggle started within the Military Committee between Minister of Defence Muhammad Umran, and Salah Jadid.

[12] Umran, the committee's most senior member, wanted reconciliation with the rioters and an end to confrontation with the middle class, in contrast, Jadid believed the solution was to coerce and repress the protesters so as to save the 8th of March Revolution.

[12] With Hafez al-Assad's support, the Military Committee initiated a violent counter-attack on the rioters[13] This decision led to Umran's downfall.

[14] After Umran's downfall, the National Command and the Military Committee continued their respective struggle for control of the Ba'ath Party.

[16] Because of this decision, Aflaq was voted from office as secretary general, to be succeeded by fellow National Command member Munif al-Razzaz.

Umran was recalled from exile and reappointed to the office of Minister of Defence and commander-in-chief, and Mansur al-Atrash was appointed Chairman of a new and expanded National Revolutionary Council.

[19] The ruse was that Abd al-Ghani Ibrahim, the Alawi commander of the front facing Israel, reported to headquarters that a quarrel had broken out among front-line officers, and that guns had been used.

[19] Umran, al-Hafiz and the Chief of Staff left for the Golan Heights in a hurry for a lengthy discussion with the officer corps there; when they returned at 3 am on 23 February they were exhausted.

[20] The commander of al-Hafiz's bodyguard, Mahmud Musa, was nearly killed by Izzad Jadid, but was saved and smuggled out of Syria by Hatum.

[21] Following its violent seizure of power, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 400 people,[1] the neo-Ba'athist military committee purged the classical Ba'athist leaders of the old guard, like Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din Bitar.

[31] Salah Jadid's reign was characterized by extremely brutal repression, state terror, intensification of totalitarian measures, and imposition of hardline Marxist policies.

[32][33] The properties of traders, local businessmen and land owners were confiscated by Jadid's radical leftist regime, while the Syrian military forces became thoroughly politicized with neo-Ba'athist officers.

Druze officer Salim Hatum, who led the operations for the 1966 coup that arrested Syrian President Amin al-Hafiz, later plotted a counter-coup the same year, out of disenchanment with Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid.

[35] After obtaining asylum in Jordan, Hatum criticised the sectarian character of the new regime and warned of a civil war in a press conference, stating: "The situation in Syria was being threatened by a civil war as a result of the growth of the sectarian and tribal spirit, on the basis of which Salah Jadid and Hafiz al-Asad, as well as the groups surrounding them, ruled.. powerful places in the state and its institutions [are] limited to a specific class of the Syrian people [i.e. the Alawis].

[39] Jadid and his supporters now had the Syrian state at their disposal, and while theoretically able to establish new party organisations or coerce pro-Aflaq opinion, this failed to work since most of the regional branches changed their allegiance to Baghdad.

[39] Another change was to the ideological orientation of the Syrian Regional Branch and the new National Command; while the Aflaqites believed in an all-Arab Ba'ath Party and the unification of the Arab world, the Syria's new leaders saw this as impractical.

[41] When the National Command was toppled in 1966, the Iraqi Regional Branch remained, at least verbally, supportive of the "legitimate leadership" of Aflaq.

[42] When the Iraqi Regional Branch regained power in 1968 in the 17 July Revolution no attempts were made at a merger, to achieve their supposed goal of Arab unity, or reconciliation with the Syrian Ba'ath.

[47] Iraq's foreign minister Abdul Karim al-Shaikhly even had his own personal office in the Syrian Ministry of Defence, which Assad headed.