Editing Gamal Abdel Nasser (section)

=== Free Officers ===
{{Main|Free Officers Movement (Egypt)}}
[[File:Free Officers, 1953.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Eight men in dressed in military uniform, posing in a room around a rectangular table. All the men, except for third and fifth persons from the left are seated. The third and fifth person from the left are standing.|The Free Officers after the coup, 1953. Counterclockwise: [[Zakaria Mohieddin]], [[Abdel Latif Boghdadi (politician)|Abdel Latif Boghdadi]], [[Kamel el-Din Hussein]] (standing), Nasser (seated), [[Abdel Hakim Amer]], [[Mohamed Naguib]], [[Youssef Seddik (revolutionary)|Youssef Seddik]], and Ahmad Shawki.]]

Nasser's return to Egypt coincided with [[Husni al-Za'im]]'s Syrian [[coup d'état]].<ref name="Aburish27">{{Harvnb|Aburish|2004|pp=27–28}}</ref> Its success and evident popular support among the Syrian people encouraged Nasser's revolutionary pursuits.<ref name="Aburish27" /> Soon after his return, he was summoned and interrogated by Prime Minister [[Ibrahim Abdel Hadi]] regarding suspicions that he was forming a secret group of dissenting officers.<ref name="Aburish27" /> According to secondhand reports, Nasser convincingly denied the allegations.<ref name="Aburish27" /> Abdel Hadi was also hesitant to take drastic measures against the army, especially in front of its chief of staff, who was present during the interrogation, and subsequently released Nasser.<ref name="Aburish27" /> The interrogation pushed Nasser to speed up his group's activities.<ref name="Aburish27" />

After 1949, the group adopted the name "[[Free Officers Movement (Egypt)|Association of Free Officers]]" and advocated "little else but freedom and the restoration of their country's dignity".<ref name="Heikal17">{{Harvnb|Heikal|1973|p=17}}</ref> Nasser organized the Free Officers' founding committee, which eventually comprised fourteen men from different social and political backgrounds, including representation from Young Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Communist Party, and the aristocracy.<ref name="Aburish27" /> Nasser was unanimously elected chairman of the organization.<ref name="Aburish27" />

In the 1950 parliamentary elections, the [[Wafd Party]] of [[Mostafa El-Nahas|el-Nahhas]] gained a victory—mostly due to the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which boycotted the elections—and was perceived as a threat by the Free Officers as the Wafd had campaigned on demands similar to their own.<ref name="Aburish30">{{Harvnb|Aburish|2004|p=30}}</ref> Accusations of corruption against Wafd politicians began to surface, however, breeding an atmosphere of rumor and suspicion that consequently brought the Free Officers to the forefront of Egyptian politics.<ref name="Aburish32">{{Harvnb|Aburish|2004|p=32}}</ref> By then, the organization had expanded to around ninety members. According to [[Khaled Mohieddin]], "nobody knew all of them and where they belonged in the hierarchy except Nasser".<ref name="Aburish32" /> Nasser felt that the Free Officers were not ready to move against the government and, for nearly two years, he did little beyond officer recruitment and underground news bulletins.<ref name="Aburish33">{{Harvnb|Aburish|2004|p=33}}</ref>

On 11 October 1951, the Wafd government abrogated the unpopular [[Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936|Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936]] by which the United Kingdom had the right to maintain its military forces in the Suez Canal Zone.<ref name="Aburish33" /> The popularity of this move, as well as that of government-sponsored guerrilla attacks against the British, put pressure on Nasser to act.<ref name="Aburish33" /> According to Sadat, Nasser decided to wage "a large scale assassination campaign".<ref name="Aburish34">{{Harvnb|Aburish|2004|p=34}}</ref> In January 1952, he and [[Hassan Ibrahim]] attempted to kill the royalist general [[Hussein Sirri Amer]] by firing their submachine guns at his car as he drove through the streets of Cairo.<ref name="Aburish34" /> Instead of killing the general, the attackers wounded an innocent female passerby.<ref name="Aburish34" /> Nasser recalled that her wails "haunted" him and firmly dissuaded him from undertaking similar actions in the future.<ref name="Aburish34" />

Sirri Amer was close to King Farouk, and was nominated for the presidency of the Officer's Club—normally a ceremonial office—with the king's backing.<ref name="Aburish34" /> Nasser was determined to establish the independence of the army from the monarchy, and with Amer as the intercessor, resolved to field a nominee for the Free Officers.<ref name="Aburish34" /> They selected [[Mohamed Naguib]], a popular general who had offered his resignation to Farouk in 1942 over British high-handedness and was wounded three times in the Palestine War.<ref name="Aburish34-5">{{Harvnb|Aburish|2004|pp=34–35}}</ref> Naguib won overwhelmingly and the Free Officers, through their connection with a leading Egyptian daily, ''al-Misri'', publicized his victory while praising the nationalistic spirit of the army.<ref name="Aburish34-5" />