Ammar al-Hakim

Sayyed Ammar al-Hakim ( _ar. سید عمار الحكيم) is the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim leader of SIIC and he serves as Secretary General of Al-Mihrab Martyr Foundation. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6391059.stm] On February 23, 2007, he was detained by U.S. forces at a border when he was returning from Iran for 12 hours and he was released. The U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad apologized for the arrest and stressed that Washington did not mean any disrespect to al-Hakim or his family. [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/world/middleeast/23cnd-Iraq.html?hp] While Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is undergoing cancer treatment, Ammar who is 36, is the leader of the SIIC. [http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKYAT54817620071005] He is considered the heir apparent to replace his father. He has strongly favoured a federalism for Iraq, giving Shiites more control in the south. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-10-13-saturday_N.htm?csp=34]

Ammar Hakim wears the black turban of those who claim descent from Muhammad and was educated in the Islamic seminaries of Iran. He is far from the urbane, secular, Western-educated men whom US policymakers once hoped could govern Iraq.

Yet his family and the party they founded have the closest ties to Washington of any Iraqi Shi'a faction. Recently, Hakim has taken the helm of the party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council SIIC, stepping into the role of his more reticent father, Abdulaziz Hakim, who is being treated for lung cancer.

On the occasion of the birth of Great Imam Mahdi on the 27th of August 2007, guards in the holy city of Karbala waved Ammar’s convoy through a security cordon and into the Imam Hussain shrine. They incensed a crowd of Mahdi militia men and sparked fighting between two rival militias that claimed the lives of at least 50 and left parts of the city smouldering.

The Supreme Council is the largest Shiite party in Iraq's parliament, but has been losing influence on Iraq's streets to anti-US cleric Moqtada Al Sadr. Hakim's ability to counter Al Sadr could be crucial to the Bush administration's hopes to maintain support within Iraq for a continued US presence in Iraq. Theirs is an increasingly violent feud that couples ideological division with dynastic rivalry. It pits the well trained men of the Supreme Council's Badr Corps against Al Sadr's seemingly less disciplined, but larger, Mahdi Army.

The battle in Karbala forced the closure of a major religious pilgrimage and sparked reprisal attacks against Supreme Council offices across Baghdad. Shiite leaders, including the Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri Al Maliki (from Islamic Dawa Party) who rarely accuse each other publicly, blamed the violence on remnants of Saddam Hussain's regime and the Al Qaida. Muqtada Al Sadr and Ammar are close in age, and both are charismatic sons of clerical families that have long vied for leadership among Iraq's Shiite majority. But Hakim, a polished orator with a classical Arabic diction, is a sharp contrast with the Al Sadr, who speaks in the colloquial dialect of the Iraqi poor.

Hakim was groomed from an early age to take on a leadership role. The family home in Najaf was a frequent hideout for wanted men. In an interview with the Times, Hakim said that from the age of four, it was his job to pass food in secret to the party's fugitives. By the time he was 7, he would help his father elude Saddam Hussain's henchmen by acting as lookout. "I was able to spot the security men even if they were dressed in civilian clothing," he said. From the age of nine, Hakim would address thousands of Shiite faithful at mosques and religious festivals in Iran where his family fled in 1979 to escape Saddam's persecutions.

Many are suspicious of Hakim's close ties to Iran, where he spent more than half his life. By contrast, Al Sadr is an Iraqi nationalist who routinely denounces both Americans and Iranian influence although he, too, has taken assistance from Iran. Hakim has alienated Sunni Arabs by pushing for greater regional autonomy and until summer 2007 resisted proposals to give members of Saddam's ousted regime jobs in the government and military. His tendency to travel in flashy convoys studded with gunmen have led some to dub him "Udai" Hakim after Saddam's corrupt and violent son.

In February, US troops detained him for several hours because of what they said were questions about his passport as he crossed into Iraq from Iran in a heavily-armed convoy. He complained at the time of being blindfolded and strip-searched. After this he begun to avoid the American troops in his conveys, diminished his appearance in public especially after his speech in the city of Afik in which the people had hit him with shoes. He continues for leadership of the South portion of Iraq.

External links

* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/world/middleeast/23cnd-Iraq.html?hp Son of Key Iraq Shiite Arrested at Iran’s Border]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6391059.stm US troops 'release' Iraq official]