Read MoreRuthless Iraqi politician and military leader once seen as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein
As vice-chairman of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) from 1979 until 2003, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, whose death at the age of 78 has been announced by the Ba’ath party, ranked second only to Saddam Hussein. The steadfastness he displayed in backing Saddam’s capture of power in 1979 or in crushing Shia and Kurdish revolts in 1991 led to him being regarded at one time as Saddam’s likely successor.
After the US-led routing of Iraq’s power structure in 2003, he survived to lead the remnants of the Ba’ath party, the movement through which Saddam had come to power. In 2014, his fighters helped Islamic State forces to capture the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit. Isis then relinquished control of a large part of Mosul to Douri’s Naqshbandi army militia, which did not share Isis’s Salafist fundamentalism and so proved more congenial to Mosul’s predominantly mainstream Sunni population. In 2015, it was rumoured that Douri had been killed by Iraqi government soldiers east of Tikrit at the time of the city’s liberation, but the following month the Ba’ath party’s TV station released an audio recording by him referring to contemporary events and distancing himself from Isis. Mosul was liberated from Isis in 2017.
Continue reading…Ruthless Iraqi politician and military leader once seen as a possible successor to Saddam HusseinAs vice-chairman of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) from 1979 until 2003, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, whose death at the age of 78 has been announced by the Ba’ath party, ranked second only to Saddam Hussein. The steadfastness he displayed in backing Saddam’s capture of power in 1979 or in crushing Shia and Kurdish revolts in 1991 led to him being regarded at one time as Saddam’s likely successor.After the US-led routing of Iraq’s power structure in 2003, he survived to lead the remnants of the Ba’ath party, the movement through which Saddam had come to power. In 2014, his fighters helped Islamic State forces to capture the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit. Isis then relinquished control of a large part of Mosul to Douri’s Naqshbandi army militia, which did not share Isis’s Salafist fundamentalism and so proved more congenial to Mosul’s predominantly mainstream Sunni population. In 2015, it was rumoured that Douri had been killed by Iraqi government soldiers east of Tikrit at the time of the city’s liberation, but the following month the Ba’ath party’s TV station released an audio recording by him referring to contemporary events and distancing himself from Isis. Mosul was liberated from Isis in 2017. Continue reading…