Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi

Baqir Jabr Al-Zubeidi (Arabic: باقر جبر الزبيدي‎), also known as Bayan Jabr Solagh, served 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 Shi'a of Iraq, Baqir Jabr is of mixed Turkish and Kurdish ancestry.^{[citation needed]}

Born in 1946 in the Maysan Governorate, 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.

On 3 January 2006, his sister was reported kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents.^[1] She was released two weeks later after ransom was paid.

References

• BBC News (1 September 2003). "Iraq's post-war cabinet". Retrieved 24 February 2006. 
• "Iraq official defends 'torture' facility". CNN. 18 November 2005. 
• "Death squads operated from inside Iraqi government, officials say". Knight Ridder. 12 March 2006. 
• Knickmeyer, Ellen (14 May 2006). "Iraq Begins to Rein In Paramilitary Force". Washington Post. Retrieved 26 April 2010. 
• "The Minister of Civil War". Harper's. 20 July 2006. 
• "Iraq - The Death Squads". Channel 4. 7 November 2006. 
• PBS FRONTLINE: Gangs of Iraq April 17, 2007
• Interview with Bayan Jabr, PBS FRONTLINE: Gangs of Iraq November 21, 2006