Saddam Hussein Assassination Attempt……
July 8, 1982……
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein‘s motorcade is ambushed in Dujail in an assassination attempt. Saddam’s retaliation for this assassination attempt led to his 2006 execution. As Saddam’s motorcade was traveling in Dujail, a dozen gunmen used the cover of the date palm orchards lining both sides of the road to ambush his motorcade. Two of his bodyguards were killed and most of the attackers were either killed or captured in the ensuing four-hour firefight. Saddam arrested suspected members of the plot and their family members as well. Over 140 people were executed, including four people who had been found not guilty but were mistakenly executed as well. The suspects were members of the Shiite Dawa Party, an organization viewed as a terrorist organization by the West. These executions were the primary charges for which Saddam was convicted and executed in 2006. Saddam’s half-brother and Iraqi intelligence chief, Barzan Hassan, and Awad Bandar, the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, were also hanged in 2007 for “aiding and abetting” in crimes against humanity for naming the suspected Dawa Party members to be arrested. This event became known as the Dujail Massacre.