Abd al-Wahab al-Shawaf

Abd al-Wahab al-Shawaf Arabic: عبد الوهاب الشواف (also spelled Abdul Wahhab al-Shawwaf) (1916 – 9 March 1959) was a colonel in the Iraqi Army and played a part in the 14 July Revolution in 1958 as a member of the Free Officers Movement of Iraq.

Tensions increased between Qasim and his communist allies on one side (Qasim was not a communist himself but was an ally of the USSR and saw the communists as a powerful base of support) and United Arab Republic (UAR) President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Arab nationalist supporters in Iraq, including al-Shawaf, on the other side as the two competed for regional influence. By February 1959 Qasim had imprisoned his rival Arif, a pan-Arabist supporter of Iraqi membership of the UAR, which included Egypt and Syria, and ousted all other pro-unity officers from the RCC. Al-Shawaf saw an opportunity to fill Arif's position in Baghdad, but this was blocked by Qasim, who kept al-Shawaf in his post at Mosul.

With the success of the 14 July Revolution of 1958, which resulted in the overthrow and killing of King Faisal II and long-time prime minister Nuri al-Said, al-Shawaf was to be assigned as Military-Governor General by order of decree. However, due to pressure from leading Free Officer Abd al-Salam Arif, with whom al-Shawaf had differences, al-Shawaf was appointed to the less influential position of garrison commander in the northern city of Mosul on 15 July. He considered this an unjustified demotion by fellow Free Officer and newly inaugurated President Abd al-Karim Qasim, interpreting it as a way keep him distant from Baghdad, the center of Iraqi politics.

Al-Shawaf was a member of the original Free Officers group, which plotted the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy of Iraq, which had been in power since 1932 and was a close ally of the British. He was one of the seven leading officers that planned and executed the coup on 14 July. In one of several scenarios planned by the Free Officers, al-Shawaf and fellow Free Officer Ahmad Muhammad Yahya were to launch the revolt as their army units returned to Abu Ghraib, near the capital Baghdad, from al-Rutba, in the country's western desert, in early May 1958. Yahya refused to initiate the maneuver, however, and the Baghdad-based Free Officers would not lend support to al-Shawaf. Al-Shawaf was later discouraged from starting the revolt by one of the group's leaders, Abd al-Karim Qasim, who feared any success on al-Shawaf's part would challenge Qasim's future leadership role.