In 1966 a "coup d'état" by the military against the historical leadership of Aflaq and Bitar led the Syrian and Iraqi parties to split into rival organizations — the Qotri (or regionalist) Syria-based party and the Qawmi (or nationalist) Iraq-based party. Both retained the Ba'ath name and parallel structures within the Arab world, but hostilities between them grew to the point that the Syrian Ba'ath government became the only Arab government to support Iran (a non-Arabic nation) against Iraq during the First Persian Gulf War.