Palestinian-dominated National Guard, creating a 35,000-strong Jordanian Army, and established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Strained relations between the Palace and the Government reached its peak in March after Nabulsi provided Hussein with a list of senior officers in the military he wanted to dismiss, Hussein heeded initially, but then Nabulsi presented a new list which Hussein refused. Events at Zarqa Amid the political chaos in Jordan and two days before Nabulsi's forced resignation, an army unit from the First Armoured Brigade commanded by Captain Nadhir Rashid engaged in a maneuver, named "Operation Hashem" in honor of the Hashemite royal family, at the major intersections of Amman. The move raised Hussein's suspicions and prompted him to order Abu Nuwar to withdraw the unit, which he did. Hussein believed the move was a presage to an impending coup. Abu Nuwar sought to allay Hussein's concerns and told him it was a routine exercise executed numerous times in the preceding years to monitor the traffic into and out of the city, while Rashid later claimed it was part of a broader contingency plan to move troops to the West Bank in the event of an Israeli invasion. According to Pearson, Rashid's maneuver was meant to intimidate Hussein, while historian Betty Anderson has speculated that the "officers could have been testing the waters to see what they could achieve militarily". Whatever the actual reason for the maneuver, it heightened Hussein's suspicions of a coup by Abu Nuwar and the Arab nationalists, and it prompted warnings from veteran royalist officials, namely Bahjat al-Talhouni and Sharif Nasser, that such a coup was impending. On 13 April, rioting broke out at the army barracks in Zarqa, which contained the largest concentration of troops in the country, between mostly hadari (non-Bedouin) units loyal to Abu Nuwar and Bedouin-dominated units loyal to Hussein. Two main accounts emerged regarding this incident, known as the "Zarqa uprising" among other names, with one account having been advanced by Hussein and Western historiographers and the other by political dissidents and many in the Jordanian and Arab press. Pearson has said the "incident is steeped in mystery and persistent controversy", and Anderson likewise has written that "questions abound about whether this coup attempt originated with the military, led by Abu Nuwar and the Free Officers, or with the king and the Americans, who wanted an excuse to remove" the Arab nationalist movement