Interrogation of Saddam Hussein age of 20, Saddam Hussein joined the nascent Ba'ath Party, which was founded on a socialist form of Pan-Arabism. After participating in an unsuccessful 1959 assassination attempt on then Prime Minister of Iraq Abd al-Karim Qasim, Saddam became a fugitive, and eventually fled to Syria and then Egypt. Following the Ba'athists overthrow of the prime minister in the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, and the counter-coup half a year later, Saddam was jailed in Iraq from 1964 to 1966. The Ba'ath party returned to power after another successful coup in 1968. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, a relative of Saddam Hussein,
Jordanian Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party been led by Akram al-Homsi. Khalil Haddadeen, Jordan's former Minister of Information, was elected to Parliament during the 1993 and 1997 elections on a pro-Iraqi and pro-Saddam Hussein stance. At the time of the 1966 split, the party had an estimated 1,000 members. It was active in the Arab Liberation Front (ALF). The ALF's first leader was Jordanian, Zaid Haydar. Munif al-Razzaz, who joined the party in 1966, eventually became an ALF leader. From there, he climbed the party ladder and became a member of the National Command before he was placed under house arrest by Iraqi authorities. Shahir Abu