Mohammad al-Sufi

Muhammad al-Sufi
Minister of Defense
In office 8 March 1963 – 2 May 1963
Prime Minister	Salah al-Din Bitar
Preceded by	vacant
Succeeded by	Ziad al-Hariri
Personal details
Born	1927 (age 90–91) Latakia, Syria
Nationality	Syrian
Military service
Allegiance	Syria
Rank	Field Marshal

Muhammad al-Sufi (Arabic: محمد الصوفي‎) (born 1927 in Latakia) is a former field marshal in the Syrian Army, who played a role in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état and briefly served as Defense Minister between March and May of that year. Politically a Nasserist, he was sidelined by Ba'athist rivals in the military and departed the political scene before returning to Syria in the 1990s.

In 1948 Sufi graduated from the Homs Military Academy, and in the early 1960s he served as the army's brigade in Homs, central Syria. A staunch supporter of Egypt's president and leading pan-Arabist, Gamal Abdel Nasser, he opposed Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic (a union with Egypt) in 1961. He was not alone and by mid-1962 a loose unionist coalition was formed among officer corps bringing together Nasserists, led by Sufi and Rashid al-Qutaini, Ba'athists led by the Military Committee and political independents led by Ziad al-Hariri. The unionists planned a coup to toppled the secessionist government of Nazim al-Kudsi and Khalid al-Azm.

While it was eventually decided that the planned coup be implemented on 9 March, Sufi and Qutaini proposed to Hariri on 5 March that the plan be postponed until 11 March. Their stated intention to further ensure unionist control over more army units so as to avoid any violence during the coup. Their non-Nasserist counterparts viewed this as an attempt by Sufi and the Nasserists to launch their own coup at a later time and according to Syria expert Itamar Rabinovich, the Nasserists, who were the largest single faction among the unionist officers and maintained a significant level of popular support due to their association with President Nasser, likely feared being sidelined by the Ba'athists and the independents should the coup have gone as planned. Nonetheless, the coup was not delayed and was launched earlier on the night of 7 March, succeeding by the morning 8 March. Sufi and Qutaini were taken off guard and rushed to join the insurrection, playing relatively minor roles.

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