PROFILE: Osama al-Nejaifi, Iraqi leader who avoided exile

Thu, 11 Nov 2010

Baghdad - Osama al-Nejaifi was Thursday appointed speaker of parliament, completing his rise to the top of Iraqi politics.

He is a newcomer to the senior positions of power, this being his highest role to date. What also differentiates him from other Iraqi leaders in the highest offices, is that al-Nejaifi did not live in exile and spent the years of Baathist rule under Saddam Hussein in the country.

A Sunni Arab, al-Nejaifi was born in 1956 to an influential and wealthy family in Mosul in the northern province of Nineveh, on the banks of the Tigris River.

Al-Nejaifi's brother, Athiel, is the governor of Nineveh, an area that has seen bitter disputes between the Kurdish and Arab residents in recent years, including ethnic violence.

The new speaker has himself accused the Kurds of various alleged crimes, at one point saying they were responsible for Christians fleeing Mosul.

He also accused Kurdish parties of backtracking on a pledge to support his political bloc for the premiership in the latest negotiations.

He is chairman of a party, the Iraqi Assembly, within the Iraqiya List grouping headed by secular Shiite and former premier Iyad Allawi.

A member of parliament since 2006, al-Najaifi briefly served as minister of industry for a few months in Iraq's transitional period following the ousting of Saddam Hussein. He is by training an electrical engineer.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/353133,iraqi-leader-avoided-exile.html.