Profile: Iraq's new Prime Minister Nouri Maliki

Saturday, 20 May 2006

Iraq's new Prime Minister Nouri Maliki - who is also sometimes called Jawad Maliki - is a stalwart of the Dawa party, the Shia political group that for years led an armed underground resistance to the secular Baathist leadership of Saddam Hussein.

As the Baathist government hunted down its opponents, Mr Maliki followed other Dawa leaders into exile - fleeing the country in 1980 and eventually finding refuge in Syria.

After Saddam Hussein's overthrow in April 2003, Dawa emerged as a major political force - with Mr Maliki among its vanguard.

He recently served as a spokesman for the party as well as for the broader coalition of Shia parties that won the most seats in elections in December 2005.

He was also the top adviser to the Dawa leader who served as Iraq's interim Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari.

Sunni and Kurd opposition to Mr Jaafari staying in office after the election forced the Shia bloc to nominate Mr Maliki as an alternative candidate for prime minister.

Critic of US tactics

Nouri Maliki was born near the Iraqi town of Hilla in 1950.

He studied Arabic literature at Baghdad University and is married with four children.

In media interviews, he explained that for many years he was known publicly as Jawad, rather than his real name, because he had adopted a pseudonym when he joined the clandestine resistance against Saddam Hussein.

A relatively unknown figure internationally until his nomination for the office of prime minister, Mr Maliki nonetheless played a major role in shaping Iraq after the US invasion.

He helped draft the country's new constitution and was a member of a committee, set up by the US, that was tasked with purging Iraq of its Baathist legacy.

The work of the committee attracted criticism for apparently extending its crackdown to officials that had been Baathist only in name.

Following the election, Mr Maliki helped formulate agreements over the possible structure of a government that could unify Iraq's different religious and political groups.

He is known to be a strong critic of attacks on Iraq's Shia community and of the tactics used by US forces countering a Sunni-led insurgency.

'Pluralist Iraq'

He was initially not considered a likely candidate for prime minister, partly because of his proximity to Mr Jaafari, whose nomination was so vociferously opposed by Sunni and Kurdish politicians.

According to the BBC's James Reynolds, whether Mr Maliki now manages to win over some of Mr Jaafari's opponents will depend more on his personality than his policies.

Before his return from exile, he was asked about what kind of society he wanted his country to become in the future.

Mr Maliki said he wanted to see a pluralist Iraq whose various ethnic and sectarian groups regarded each other as equals.