General Discussion

The 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge also called the Comrades Massacre[1][2] was a public purge of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party orchestrated on 22 July 1979 by then-president Saddam Hussein[3] six days after his arrival to the presidency of the Iraqi Republic on 16 July 1979.[4][1]

Six days after the resignation of President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Hussein's accession to President of the Iraqi Republic, Regional Secretary of the party, and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council on 16 July 1979, he organized a Ba'ath conference on 22 July in Al-Khuld Hall in Baghdad to carry out a campaign of arrests and executions that included Ba'athist comrades, who were accused of taking part in a pro-Syrian plot to overthrow Saddam.

The list included most of the comrades who opposed Saddam Hussein's rise to power after Al-Bakr,[1] and among these was the former president's secretary, Muhyi Abdul-Hussein Mashhadi. Names of people were announced and they were taken outside the hall and into custody; 21 of them were later executed. Ba'athist propaganda at the time showed that they were convicted of conspiracy and high treason to the party.[2] Iraq subsequently cut off diplomatic relations with its fellow Ba'athist regime in Syria, accusing Hafez al-Assad of organizing the plot.[5]: 92 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Ba%27ath_Party_Purge