In Iraq, the Iraqi Regional Branch had supported Abd al-Karim Qasim's seizure of power and its ensuing abolishment of the Iraqi Monarchy. The Iraqi Ba'athists supported Qasim on the ground that they believed he would enter Iraq into the UAR, enlarging the Arab nationalist republic. However, this was proven to be a ruse, and after taking power Qasim launched an Iraq first policy. In retaliation, the Ba'ath Party tried to assassinate Qasim in February 1959, but the operation (which was led by a young Saddam Hussein) failed. Qasim was overthrown in the Ramadan Revolution led by young Ba'athist officer Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and rumoured to be supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Declassified documents and the testimony of former CIA officers indicate there was no direct American involvement, although the CIA had been previously notified of an earlier Ba'athist coup plot in July 1962 by a high-ranking informant within the Party. The CIA official working with Archie Roosevelt Jr. on a separate plan to instigate a military coup against Qasim, and who later became the head of the CIA's operations in Iraq and Syria "from late 1968 to June 1970," has "denied any involvement in the Ba'ath Party's actions." The Iraqi Regional Branch, when it took power, was so riven by factionalism that its purported allies launched a counter-coup forcing them out of power in November 1963.