Yasin al-Hashimi

Head of state or government

Yasin al-Hashimi was an Iraqi military officer and politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Iraq. Like many of Iraq's early leaders, al-Hashimi served as a military officer during the Ottoman control of the country. He made his political debut under the government of his predecessor, Jafar al-Askari, and replaced him as prime minister shortly after, in August 1924. Al-Hashimi served for ten months before he was replaced, in turn by Abdul Muhsin al-Sa'dun. Over the next ten years he filled a variety of governmental positions finally returning to the office of prime minister in March 1935. On 30 October 1936, Hashimi became the first Iraqi prime minister to be deposed in a coup, which was led by General Bakr Sidqi and a coalition of ethnic minorities. Unlike al-Askari, who was then his minister of defense, al-Hashimi survived the coup and made his way to Beirut, Lebanon, where he died three months later. His older brother and close ally, Taha al-Hashimi, served as Prime Minister of Iraq in 1941.