Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi

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Baqir Jabr Al-Zubeidi (Arabic: باقر جبر الزبيدي ), also known as Bayan Jabr Solagh, is currently serving as the Finance Minister of Iraq in the government of Nouri al-Maliki. He served as Minister of Interior, in charge of the police, in the Iraqi Transitional Government and was Minister of Housing and Reconstruction of the Iraqi Governing Council. He is a senior member of the Shi'a United Iraqi Alliance as well as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Unlike most Shia of Iraq, Baqir Jabr is of mixed Turkish and Kurdish ancestry.

Born in 1946 in the Maysan Governorate [1], Jabr became a Shi'a activist while studying engineering at Baghdad University in the 1970s. He fled to Iran amid Saddam Hussein's crackdown on Shi'a political groups and joined the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). He later headed SCIRI's office in Syria.

As Minister of Interior he was disliked among Sunni Arabs for heading an agency that is alleged to operate death squads and torture camps that target the Sunni civilian population. While acknowledging that some death squads have operated from inside the Interior Ministry, he claims that their existence within his agency is exaggerated. In one press conference, he has claimed that most sectarian killings are perpetrated by private militias.

On January 3rd 2006, his sister was reported kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents.[2] She was released two weeks later for ransom.

[edit] References

• BBC News (2003). Iraq's post-war cabinet. Retrieved on 2006-02-24.
• "Iraq official defends 'torture' facility", CNN, November 18, 2005.
• "Death squads operated from inside Iraqi government, officials say", Knight Ridder, March 12, 2006.
• "Iraq Begins to Rein In Paramilitary Force", Washington Post, May 14, 2006.
• "The Minister of Civil War", Harper's, July 20, 2006.
• "Iraq - The Death Squads", Channel 4, November 7, 2006.

Preceded by Ali Adbul-Amir Allawi

Minister of Finance May 2006–Present

Succeeded by incumbent

Preceded by Falah Al-Naqib

Minister of Interior April 2005–May 2006

Succeeded by Jawad Bulani

Preceded by Coalition Provisional Authority

Minister of Housing and Reconstruction September 2003–June 2004

Succeeded by Omar Farouk