Lieutenant General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the battlefield, who was norma ...

Salah Aboud Mahmoud (, 1942 – 21 June 2024) was an Iraqi

military officer An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service. Broadly speaking, "officer" means a commissioned officer, a non-commissioned officer (NCO), or a warrant officer. However, absent c ...

, best known for his role in the battles of Khafji and 73 Easting, during the

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

Career

On 29 January 1991, Mahmoud took part in battle with coalition forces to take control of the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji. Mahmoud also took part in the

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Gulf War, was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, unti ...

of 1980–1988, along with the tank battle of 73 Easting in the

. Mahmoud was appointed commander of the Iraqi Third Corps in the aftermath of the Iran–Iraq War, a regular process in the Iraqi military to ensure that former high-ranking officers did not pose a threat to the Ba'athist Iraqi government. He was later governor of

Dhi Qar Province Dhi Qar Governorate (, ) is a governorate in southern Iraq, in the Arabian Peninsula. The provincial capital is Nasiriyah. Prior to 1976 the governorate was known as Muntafiq Governorate. Thi Qar was the heartland of the ancient Iraqi civilizatio ...

, a Shia province which had briefly been taken by the 1991 Iraqi uprising before it was brutally suppressed.

1990s

In December 1994, Major-General Wafiq Al-Samarrai defected to Jordan and called on officers to revolt against

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

's government. Mahmoud was one of them he called on. He did not, and despite his connections to many of the purged officers he was never executed. Rather, he was gradually forced out of his government roles. President Hussein divided Iraq into four administrative regions in 1998. Many expected Mahmoud would be recalled to the military and appointed to the Central Euphrates governorship as governor Mizban Khadr al-Hadi had been dismissed. However this did not come to pass and Mizban was reinstated.

Invasion of Iraq

After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Mahmoud disappeared and had not been heard from or seen since until he died on 21 June 2024, at the age of 82. He was buried in the Sahab Islamic Cemetery in

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

, Jordan.رحيل الفريق الركن صلاح عبود

References

* Kenneth Pollack, ''Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness 1948–1991'', University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 243–244. * Spencer C. Tucker and Priscilla Mary Roberts, ''The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars'', October 2010, page 763. 1942 births 2024 deaths 2000s missing person cases Iraqi generals Missing aviators Missing person cases in Iraq People from Fallujah {{Iraq-mil-bio-stub

Career

1990s

Invasion of Iraq

See also

References