leader of the Ba'ath Party's National Guard, led the civilian wing. President Arif led the military wing and Talib El-Shibib led the pro-Aflaq wing. However, a bigger schism was underway in the international Ba'athist movement. Four major factions were being created: the Old Guard led by Aflaq; a civilian alliance between the secretary-generals of the Regional Commands of Syria and Iraq, led by Hammud al-Shufi and al-Sadi respectively; the Syrian Ba'ath Military Committee, represented by Salah Jadid, Muhammad Umran, Hafez al-Assad, Salim Hatum and Amin al-Hafiz; and the Iraqi military wing, which supported Arif's presidency, represented by al-Bakr, Salih Mahdi Ammash, Tahir Yahya and Hardan Tikriti. The military wings in Syria and Iraq opposed the creation of a pan-Arab state, whereas al-Shufi and al-Sadi supported it. Aflaq officially supported it, but privately opposed it because he was afraid al-Sadi would challenge his position as secretary-general of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party, the leader of the international Ba'athist movement. Bilateral union Both Syria and Iraq were under Ba'athist rule in 1963. When President Arif visited Syria on a state visit, Sami al-Jundi, a Syrian cabinet minister, proposed the creation of a bilateral union between the two countries. Both Arif and Amin al-Hafiz, President of Syria, supported the idea. al-Jundi was given the task of setting up a committee to begin establishing the union. al-Jundi selected al-Sadi as Iraq's chief representative in the committee in a bid to strengthen al-Sadi's position within the Ba'ath Party. Work on the union continued with the signing of the Military Unity Charter which established the Higher Military Council, an organ which oversaw the integration and control over the Syrian and Iraqi military. Ammash, the Iraqi Minister of Defence, became the chairman of the Higher Military Council. The unified headquarters was in Syria. The establishment of the military union became evident on 20 October 1963, when Syrian soldiers were found fighting alongside the Iraqi military in Iraqi Kurdistan. At this stage, both Iraqi and Syrian Ba'athists feared excluding Nasser from the union talks since he had a large following. The Syrian state and its Ba'ath Party criticised the fall of al-Bakr's first government but relented when they discovered that some members of the Iraqi cabinet were Ba'ath Party members. However, the remaining Ba'athists were slowly removed from office. The Syrian Revolutionary Command Council responded by abrogating the Military Unity Charter on 26 April 1964, ending