Hazza' Majali was appointed by Hussein to form a government; it consisted of loyalists who had persuaded Hussein to launch an offensive against the Iraqi government to restore the Hashemite monarchy. The expedition was cancelled amid British opposition and the weakened state of the Royal Jordanian Air Force. UAR agents assassinated Prime Minister Majali with a bomb planted in his office. Twenty minutes later, another explosion went off; it was intended for Hussein as it was expected he would run to the scene, which he didhe was a few minutes late. Hussein, persuaded by Habis Majali, Hazza's cousin and the army chief of staff, prepared for a retaliation against Syria, whose intelligence service was responsible for the assassination. He prepared three brigades in the north, but the operation was called off after combined pressures from the Americans and the British. Egyptian radios denounced Hussein as the "Judas of the Arabs."