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Ghazi of Iraq
King of Iraq
Reign	8 September 1933 – 4 April 1939
Full name	Ghazi ibn Faisal
Born	12 March 1912
	Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Died	4 April 1939
Predecessor	Faisal I
Successor	Faisal II
Dynasty	Hashemite dynasty
Father	Faisal I

Ghazi ibn Faisal (Arabic: غازي Ġāzī ibn Fayṣal) (March 21, 1912 - April 4, 1939) was king of Iraq from 1933 to 1939. He was born in Mecca (in present-day Saudi Arabia), the oldest son of Faisal I, the first king of Iraq.

As Ghazi was the first son of Faisal I, he was left to take care of his grandfather, Hussein ibn Ali, the Grand Sharif of Mecca, while his father was busy in his campaigns and travels. He therefore grew up, unlike his worldly father, a shy and inexperienced young man. He left the Hijaz to Jordan with the rest of the Hashimites in 1924. He came to Baghdad at the same year and was appointed as the crown prince. When he was 16 Ghazi was taken for his first airplane flight by the American adventurer Richard Halliburton and pilot Moye Stephens. They buzzed the school yard so his school mates could see him in the biplane and stopped in Samarra to have a picnic atop the famed spiral minaret.

On the 8 September 1933 King Faisal died and Ghazi was crowned as Ghazi I. On the same day, Ghazi was appointed Admiral of the Fleet in the Royal Iraqi Navy, Field Marshal of the Royal Iraq Army and Marshal of the Royal Iraqi Air Force. A staunch pan-Arab nationalist, opposed to British interests in his country, Ghazi's reign was characterized by tensions between civilians and the army, which sought control of the government. He supported General Bakr Sidqi in his coup, which replaced the civilian government with a military one. This was the first coup d'état to take place in the Arab world. He was rumored to harbor sympathies for Nazi Germany and also put forth a claim for Kuwait to be annexed to Iraq. For this purpose he had his own radio station in al-Zuhoor royal palace in which he promoted that claim. He died in 1939 in a mysterious accident involving a sports car he was driving. Some believe he was killed on the orders of Nuri as-Said. His only son Faisal succeeded him.

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Ghazi of Iraq

When the Prince was a school boy he was taken for a biplane ride by Moye Stephens, pilot of The Flying Carpet and Richard Halliburton, traveler-adventurist, during their round-the-world flight, shortly after Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. An account of a young prince Ghazi's experience flying over his country can be found in Richard Halliburton's The Flying Carpet.

• Ali, Tariq. Bush in Babylon: the Recolonisation of Iraq. W.W. Norton, 2003. ISBN 1-85984-583-5.

v • d • e Heads of state of Iraq
Kingdom of Iraq (1921-1958) (under British mandate, 1920-1932) Kings of Iraq	Faisal I · Ghazi · Faisal II
Republic of Iraq (since 1958) Presidents of Iraq	Muhammad Najib ar-Ruba'i† · Abdul Salam Arif† · Abd ar-Rahman al-Bazzaz*†  · Abdul Rahman Arif† · Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr† · Saddam Hussein · occupation  · Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer  · Jalal Talabani
* acting     † military