Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi

Baqir Jabr Al-Zubeidi ( _ar. 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.Fact|date=July 2008

Born in 1946 in the Maysan Governorate [http://www.iraqigovernment.org/Content/Biography/Arabic/governemt.htm] , 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. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gangsofiraq/view/] 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 3, 2006, his sister was reported kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300524_2.html?sub=AR] She was released two weeks later for ransom.

References

* cite web
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3199561.stm
title=Iraq's post-war cabinet
accessdate=2006-02-24
author=BBC News
year=2003
* cite news
url=http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/17/iraq.detainees/index.html
title=Iraq official defends 'torture' facility
publisher=CNN
date=2005-11-18

* cite news
url=http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14083330.htm
title=Death squads operated from inside Iraqi government, officials say
publisher=Knight Ridder
date=2006-03-12

* cite news
url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/14/AR2006051400254.html
title=Iraq Begins to Rein In Paramilitary Force
publisher=Washington Post
date=2006-05-14

* cite news
url=http://www.harpers.org/the-minister-of-civil-war-399309.html
title=The Minister of Civil War
publisher=Harper's
date=2006-07-20

* cite news
url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2672821173995817383
title=Iraq - The Death Squads
publisher=Channel 4
date=2006-11-07