Michel Aflaq; Founder of Iraq’s Ruling Party

Michel Aflaq, 79, the founder and leader of Iraq’s ruling Baath party. With the late Salah Bitar, Aflaq founded the party in 1947 as a secular party advocating Arab unity and non-communist socialism. Aflaq was in and out of jail in the early 1950s as the party struggled for influence in Syria. It took control there in 1963 in a bloody coup. Factional fighting forced Aflaq to go underground in 1966 and flee to Syria. However, the party seized power the same year in Iraq, and Aflaq was appointed secretary general. He worked out of Beirut but moved to Baghdad after civil war in Lebanon broke out in 1975. The Iraqi Baath party is now a bitter rival of the Syrian party. In Paris on Friday after heart surgery.