David Baltimore (Cal Tech) Part 1: Introduction to Viruses and HIV

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AHMED MOHAMMED HAMED ALI

Aliases: Shuaib, Abu Islam Al-Surir, Ahmed Ahmed, Ahmed The Egyptian, Ahmed Hemed, Hamed Ali, Ahmed Shieb, Abu Islam, Ahmed Mohammed Ali, Ahmed Hamed, Ahmed Mohammed Abdurehman, Abu Khadiijah, Abu Fatima, Ahmad Al-Masri

DESCRIPTION

Date of Birth Used: Approximately 1965 Hair: Dark
Place of Birth: Egypt Eyes: Dark
Height: Approximately 5'6" to 5'8" Sex: Male
Weight: Unknown Complexion: Olive
Build: Medium Citizenship: Egyptian
Language: Arabic
Scars and Marks: None known
Remarks: Ali may have formal training in agriculture and may have worked in this field. He lived in Kenya until fleeing that country on August 2, 1998, to Karachi, Pakistan.

CAUTION

Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali was indicted in the Southern District of New York, for his alleged involvement in the bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998.

REWARD

The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST AMERICAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.
Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali (Arabic: أحمد محمّد حامد علي‎) (born about 1965) is an Egyptian national wanted by the United States government in connection with the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi.
Contents


* 1 Aliases
* 2 Life before the bombings
* 3 Role in the 1998 American embassy bombings
* 4 Current operations


Aliases
Shuaib شعيب
Abu Islam Al-Surir أبو إسلام أل-سورير
Ahmed the Egyptian أحمد المصري
Ahmed Hemed أحمد حمد
Hamed Ali حامد علي
Ahmed Shieb أحمد شعب
Abu Islam أبو إسلام
Ahmed Mohammed Ali أحمد محمّد علي
Ahmed Hamed أحمد حامد
Ahmed Mohammed Abdurehman احمد محمّد عبدالرحمن
Abu Khadiijah أبو خديجة
Abu Fatima أبو فاطمة
Ahmad Al-Masri حمد ال-مصري
Life before the bombings

It is thought that, before becoming an accomplice in bombing various American embassies, Hamed Ali worked in the field of agriculture, with formal training in the industry.[1] Hamed Ali lived in Kenya until fleeing the country on August 2, 1998. He located himself in Karachi, Pakistan until the bombings on August 7, 1998.[1]
Role in the 1998 American embassy bombings

For his role in the 1998 American embassy bombings, Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali was indicted for conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy national defense utilities of the United States by a grand jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.[2][1] The United States Government is currently offering a five million dollar reward for information directly leading to the capture of Hamed Ali.
Current operations

Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali is considered a current operative of Al-Qaeda.[3]

He was suspected of being in Afghanistan as of October 2001.

On October 10, 2001, Ali was placed on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by former President Bush.

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Aliases: Anas Al-Sabai, Anas Al-Libi, Nazih Al-Raghie, Nazih Abdul Hamed Al-Raghie

DESCRIPTION

Dates of Birth Used: March 30, 1964;
May 14, 1964 Hair: Dark
Place of Birth: Tripoli, Libya Eyes: Dark
Height: 5'10" to 6'2" Sex: Male
Weight: Unknown Complexion: Olive
Build: Medium Citizenship: Libyan
Languages: Arabic, English
Scars and Marks: Al-Liby has a scar on the left side of his face.
Remarks: Al-Liby recently lived in the United Kingdom, where he has political asylum. He usually wears a full beard.

CAUTION

Anas Al-Liby was indicted in the Southern District of New York, for his alleged involvement in the bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998.

REWARD

The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Anas Al-Liby.

SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THIS PERSON, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL FBI OFFICE OR THE NEAREST AMERICAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.
Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai'i alias[1] Anas al-Liby (أنس الليبي) (born March 30, 1964 or May 14, 1964 ), a Libyan, is under indictment[2] in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He worked as a computer specialist for al-Qaeda.[3]

His aliases in the indictment are Nazih al Raghie and Anas al Sebai. In the FBI and State Department wanted posters[4][5] about this individual, another variant of his name is transliterated Nazih Abdul Hamed Al-Raghie.

The indictment accuses al-Liby of surveillance of potential British, French, and Israeli targets in Nairobi, in addition to the American embassy in that city, as part of a conspiracy by al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Life

Believed to have been tied to al-Qaeda since its 1994 roots in the Sudan,[6] al-Liby had lived in the United Kingdom, where he was granted political asylum, and was later believed to have fled to Afghanistan to avoid prosecution for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.

He speaks Arabic and English. Because he was tall and bore a passing resemblance to Osama bin Laden, he was often used as a decoy when Bin Laden traveled.[6]

In January 2002, news reports stated that al-Liby had been captured by American forces in Afghanistan [7]. Following this, in March 2002 news reports stated that al-Liby had been arrested by the Sudanese government and was being held in a prison in Khartoum.[8] However U.S. officials soon denied those reports[9] and al-Liby is still being sought.[10]

Al-Liby has been on the USA's list of Most Wanted Terrorists since its inception on October 10, 2001. The United States Department of State, through the Rewards for Justice Program, is offering up to US$5,000,000 (formerly $25,000,000) for information about the location of Anas al-Liby.[4]
“ Mr. Williams' allegations about McMaster [are] on par a par with UFO reports and JFK conspiracy theories...that notion that because there are people on faculty from Egypt that McMaster is then a haven for terrorism is not only logically offensive, it smack of racism. ”

—Lawyer Peter Downard[11]

In October, FBI consultant Paul Williams wrote a book Dunces of Doomsday in which he claimed that Amer el-Maati, Jaber A. Elbaneh and al-Liby had all been seen around Hamilton, Ontario the previous year, and that Shukrijumah had been seen at McMaster University where he "wasted no time in gaining access to the nuclear reactor and stealing more than 180 pounds of nuclear material for the reation of radiological bombs". He was subsequently sued by the University for libel, as there had been no evidence to suggest any part of his story was true. The publisher later apologise for allowing Williams to print statements which "were without basis in fact".[11][12]

A February 2007 Human Rights Watch document[13] claims that al-Liby and others "may have once been held" in secret detention by the CIA, but the document includes no evidence or testimony to support that assertion.

On June 6, 2007, al-Liby was listed as a possible CIA "Secret Prisoner" by Amnesty International, without giving any reason or evidence, and despite the fact he remains on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list as of the published date (June 6, 2007). [14]
Aliases
Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai'i نزيه عبد الحمد نبيه الرقيعي The surname is spelled لراجعي in the UN list.[1]
Anas al-Liby أنس الليبي
Abu Anas al-Liby أبو أنس الليبي Some Arabic press reports call him by this name.
Anas al-Sebai أنس السباعي
Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Raghie نزيه عبد الحمد الراغي

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Ayman Al-Zawahiri

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"Abu Muhammad" redirects here. For the Muslim lecturer called Abu Muhammad, see Khalid Yasin.
Ayman al-Zawahiri

Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2007.
Born June 19, 1951 (1951-06-19) (age 59)
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
Occupation Pediatrician, Al-Qaeda leader

Dr. Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri[1] (Arabic: أيمن محمد ربيع الظواهري‎, Ayman Muḥammad Rabayaḥ aẓ-Ẓawāhirī; born June 19, 1951) is a prominent leader of al-Qaeda, and was the second and last "emir" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zummar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zummar to life imprisonment. Al-Zawahiri is a qualified surgeon, and is an author of works including numerous al-Qaeda statements. He speaks Arabic, English[2][3] and French.[citation needed] Al-Zawahiri is under worldwide embargo by the UN 1267 Committee as a member or affiliate of al-Qaeda.[4]

In 1998 al-Zawahiri formally merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda. According to reports by a former al-Qaeda member, he has worked in the al-Qaeda organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group's shura council. He is often described as a "lieutenant" to Osama bin Laden, though bin Laden's chosen biographer has referred to him as the "real brains" of al-Qaeda.[5] He was criticized by peoples for branding President-elect Barack Obama a "house negro".[6]
Contents


* 1 Alternate names and sobriquets
* 2 Biography
o 2.1 Upbringing and education
o 2.2 Marriage and family
o 2.3 Attempted coup
o 2.4 Imprisonment and torture
o 2.5 Leaving Egypt
o 2.6 Relation with Islamic Republic of Iran
o 2.7 Attacks in Egypt
o 2.8 Expulsion from Sudan and time spent in Russia
o 2.9 Fatwa with Osama bin Laden
* 3 Views on female combatants
* 4 Video and audio messages
* 5 Wanted in the USA and Egypt
* 6 Online Q&A
* 7 Emergence as Al Qaeda's Chief Commander
* 8 Bibliography
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 External links
o 11.1 Video

[edit] Alternate names and sobriquets

Ayman al-Zawahiri is usually spelled Zawahiri (the pronunciation of his name in his native Egyptian Arabic), but is sometimes spelled "Dhawahiri" if transliterated directly from Modern Standard Arabic, aka Literary Arabic, in certain academic circles. Using the Intelligence Community Standard for the Transliteration of Arabic Names, it is spelled Zawahiri.

Al-Zawahiri has also gone under the names of Abu Muhammad (Abu Mohammed), Abu Fatima, Muhammad Ibrahim, Abu Abdallah, Abu al-Mu'iz, The Doctor, The Teacher, Nur, Ustaz, Abu Mohammed Nur al-Deen, Abdel Muaz (Abdel Moez, Abdel Muez).[7] Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri is pronounced [ˈʔæjmæn mʊˈħæmːæd rɑˈbiːʕ azˤːɑˈwæːhɪriː] or [aðˤːɑˈwæːhɪriː] in Arabic (the latter is in the Classical).
[edit] Biography
[edit] Upbringing and education

Ayman al-Zawahiri was born to a prominent upper middle class family in Maadi, Egypt, a suburb of Cairo, and was reportedly a studious youth. His father, Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, was a pharmacologist and a chemistry professor[8] coming from a large family of doctors and scholars, while his mother, Umayma Azzam, came from a wealthy, politically active clan. He excelled in school, loved poetry, "hated violent sports" — which he thought were 'inhumane' — and had a deep affection for his mother.[9]

His family was "religious but not overly pious",[10] and attended the Hussein Sedqi Mosque.[11] Zawahiri became both quite pious and political, under the influence of his uncle Mahfouz Azzam, and lecturer Mostafa Kamel Wasfi.[11]

Qutb preached that to restore Islam and free Muslims, a vanguard of true Muslims modeling itself after the original Companions of the Prophet had to be developed.[12]

By the age of 14, al-Zawahiri had joined the Muslim Brotherhood. The following year the Egyptian government executed Qutb for conspiracy, and al-Zawahiri, along with four other secondary school students, helped form an "underground cell devoted to overthrowing the government and establishing an Islamist state." It was at this early age that al-Zawahiri developed a mission in life, "to put Qutb's vision into action."[13] His cell eventually merged with others to form al-Jihad or Egyptian Islamic Jihad.[14] Al-Zawahiri graduating from Cairo University in 1974 with gayyid giddan. Following that he served three years as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army after which he established a clinic near his parents.[14] In 1978, he also earned a master's degree in surgery.[15]
[edit] Marriage and family

In 1978 he married his wife Azza Ahmed Nowari, who was studying philosophy at Cairo University.[11] Their wedding, at the Continental Hotel in Opera Square,[11] was very pious, with separate areas for both men and women, and no music, photographs, or light hearted humour.[16] Many years later, when the United States attacked Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Azza denied ever knowing that Zawahiri had been a jihadi emir (commander) for the last decade, although at least one acquaintance is skeptical of her ignorance of this fact.[17]

The couple had four daughters, Fatima (b. 1981), Umayma, Nabila (b. 1986) and Khadiga (b. 1987), and a son Mohammed, who was a "delicate, well-mannered boy" and "the pet of his older sisters," subject to teasing and bullying in a traditional all-male environment who preferred to "stay at home and help his mother."[18] Ten years after the birth of Mohammed, Azza gave birth to Assha, who had Down syndrome. In February 2004, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded, and subsequently stated that Abu Turab Al-Urduni had married one of al-Zawahiri's daughters.[19]

Zaynab Khadr recalled celebrating the engagement of Umayma at the family's house for an all-day party, and al-Zawahiri knocking softly at Umayma's door asking the two girls to please keep their singing and partying quiet as it was nighttime.[20]

Azza and Aisha both died following 9/11. After American bombardment of a Taliban officials building at Gardez, Azza was pinned under debris of a guesthouse roof. Concerned for her modesty, she "refused to be excavated" because "men would see her face." Her four-year-old daughter Aisha had not been hurt by the bombing but died from exposure in the cold night while the rescuers tried to save Azza.[21]

In the first half of 2005, another daughter was born, named Nawwar.[22]
[edit] Attempted coup

He eventually became one of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's leading organizers and recruiters. Zawahiri's hope was to recruit military officers and accumulate weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order."[23] Chief strategist of Al-Jihad was Aboud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose

plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing – he expected – a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."[23]

The plan was derailed when authorities were alerted to Al-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information, in February 1981. President Anwar Sadat ordered the roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Al-Jihad members, but missed a cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Sadat during a military parade that October.[24]
[edit] Imprisonment and torture

Al-Zawahiri was one of hundreds arrested following Sadat's assassination. Al-Zawahiri's lawyer, Montasser el-Zayat, contends that Zawahiri was tortured in prison.[25]

In his book, Al-Zawahiri as I Knew Him, Al-Zayyat maintains that under torture of the Egyptian police, following his arrest in connection with the murder of Sadat in 1981, Al-Zawahiri revealed the hiding place of Essam al-Qamari, a key member of the Maadi cell of al-Jihad, which led to Al-Qamari's "arrest and eventual execution."[26]

Al-Zawahiri was convicted of dealing in weapons and received a three-year sentence, which he completed in 1984 shortly after his conviction.[27]
[edit] Leaving Egypt

In 1985, al-Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and stayed to practice medicine in Jeddah for a year.[28]

He then traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan where he worked in a Red Crescent hospital treating wounded refugees. There he became friends with the Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, and the two shared a number of conversations about the need for Islamic government and the needs of the Afghan people.[29] During this time, al-Zawahiri also began reconstituting the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) along with other exiled militants.[30] The group had "very loose ties to their nominal imprisoned leader, Abud al-Zumur."

In Peshwar, al-Zawahiri is thought to have become radicalized by other Al-Jihad members, abandoning his old strategy of a swift coup d'etat to change society from above, and embracing the idea of takfir.[31] In 1991, EIJ broke with al-Zumur, and al-Zawahiri grabbed "the reins of power" to become EIJ leader.[32]

In Peshawar, he met Osama bin Laden, who was running a base for mujahideen called Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK); founded by the Palestinian Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. The radical position of al-Zawahiri and the other militants of Al-Jihad put them at odds with Sheikh Azzam, with whom they competed for bin Laden's financial resources.[33] Zawahiri carried two false passports, a Swiss one in the name of Amin Uthman and a Dutch one in the name of Mohmud Hifnawi.[34]
[edit] Relation with Islamic Republic of Iran

Zawahiri has allegedly worked with the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of al-Qaeda. Lawrence Wright reports that EIJ operative Ali Mohammed "told the FBI that al-Jihad had planned a coup in Egypt in 1990." Zawahiri had studied the 1979 Islamist Islamic Revolution and "sought training from the Iranians" as to how to duplicate their feat against the Egyptian government.

He offered Iran information about an Egyptian government plan to storm several islands in the Persian Gulf that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates lay claim to. According to Mohammed, in return for this information, the Iranian government paid Zawahiri $2 million and helped train members of al-Jihad in a coup attempt that never actually took place.[35]

However, in public Zawahiri has harshly denounced the Iranian government. In December 2007 he said, "We discovered Iran collaborating with America in its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq."[36] In the same video messages, he moreover chides Iran for "repeating the ridiculous joke that says that al-Qaida and the Taliban are agents of America," before playing a video clip in which Ayatollah Rafsanjani says, "In Afghanistan, they were present in Afghanistan, because of Al-Qa'ida; and the Taliban, who created the Taliban? America is the one who created the Taliban, and America's friends in the region are the ones who financed and armed the Taliban."[36]

Zawahiri's criticism of Iran's government continues when he states,

Despite Iran's repetition of the slogan 'Death to America, death to Israel,' we haven't heard even one Fatwa from one Shiite authority, whether in Iran or elsewhere, calling for Jihad against the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.[36]

Zawahiri has dismissed that there is any cooperation between Iran and Al Qaeda against their common enemy, to wit, the United States.[37] He also said that "Iran Stabbed a Knife into the Back of the Islamic Nation."[38]

In April 2008, Zawahri blamed Iranian state media and Al-Manar for perpetuating the "lie" that "there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history" in order to discredit the Al Qaeda network.[39] Zawahri was referring to some 9/11 conspiracy theories which posit that Al Qaeda itself wasn't responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

On the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th 2001, Zawahri released a 90-minute tape[40] in which he blasted "The guardian of Muslims in Tehran" for recognizing "the two hireling governments"[41] in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[edit] Attacks in Egypt

In 1993, Zawahiri traveled to the United States where he addressed several California mosques under his Abdul Mu'iz moniker and relying on his credentials from the Kuwaiti Red Crescent to raise money "for Afghan children who had been injured by Soviet land mines", but only managed to raise $2000.[42]

One result of Zawahiri and EIJ's connection with Iran may have been the use of suicide bombing in August 1993 in an attempt on the life of Egyptian Interior Minister Hasan al-Alfi, the man heading the effort to quash the campaign of Islamist killings in Egypt. It failed, as did an attempt to assassinate Egyptian prime minister Atef Sidqi three months later. The bombing of Sidqi's car did succeed in injuring 21 Egyptians and killing a young schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel-Halim. It also came following two years of killings by another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, that had killed over 200. Her funeral became a public spectacle, with her coffin carried through the streets of Cairo and crowds shouting, "Terrorism is the enemy of God!"[43] The police arrested 280 more of al-Jihad's members and executed six.

Zawahiri later wrote of his anger with the public reaction. "This meant that they wanted my daughter, who was two at the time, and the daughters of other colleagues, to be orphans. Who cried or cared for our daughters?"[43]

The 1995 attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad was the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's first success under Zawahiri's leadership, but Bin Laden had disapproved of the operation. The bombing alienated the host of the embassy, Pakistan, and Pakistan was "the best route into Afghanistan"[44]
[edit] Expulsion from Sudan and time spent in Russia

Following the 1994 execution of the sons of Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Mohammed Sharaf for betraying Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the militants were ordered to leave the Sudan.[45][46] At this time he is said to have "become a phantom"[47] but is thought to have traveled widely to "Switzerland and Sarajevo. A fake passport he was using shows that he traveled to Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong."

On December 1, 1996, Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi – both carrying false passports – accompanied al-Zawahiri on a trip to Chechnya, where they hoped to re-establish the faltering al-Jihad. Their leader was traveling under the name Abdullah Imam Mohammed Amin, and trading on his medical credentials for legitimacy. The group switched vehicles three times, but were arrested within hours of entering Russian territory and spent five months in a Makhachkala prison awaiting trial. The trio pled innocence, maintaining their disguise and having other al-Jihad members from Bavari-C send the Russian authorities pleas for leniency for their "merchant" colleagues who had been wrongly arrested; and Russian Member of Parliament Nadyr Khachiliev echoed the pleas for their speedy release as al-Jihad members Ibrahim Eidarous and Tharwat Salah Shehata traveled to Dagestan to plead for their release. Shehata received permission to visit the prisoners, and is believed to have smuggled them $3000 which was later confiscated from their cell, and to have given them a letter which the Russians didn't bother to translate.[48] In April 1997, the trio were sentenced to six months, and were subsequently released a month later and ran off without paying their court-appointed attorney Abulkhalik Abdusalamov his $1,800 legal fee citing their "poverty".[48] Shehata was sent on to Chechnya, where he met with Ibn Khattab.[47][48][49][50] However, some have raised doubts as to the true nature of al-Zawahiri's encounter with the Russians: Jamestown Foundation scholar Evgenii Novikov has argued that it seems unlikely that the Russians would not have been able to determine who he was, given their well-trained Arabists and the obviously suspicious act of Muslims crossing illegally a border with multiple false identities and encrypted documents in Arabic.[51][52] Assassinated former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko alleged, among other things, that during this time, al-Zawahiri was indeed being trained by the FSB,[53] and that he was not the only link between al-Qaeda and the FSB.[54] Former KGB officer and writer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy supported Litvinenko's claim and said that Litvinenko "was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996–1997."[55]

Zawahiri and other EIJ members found refuge in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda families had settled. About 250 people were gathered there altogether.[citation needed]

While there Zawahiri learned of a "Nonviolence Initiative" being organized in Egypt to end the terror campaign that had killed hundreds and resulting government crackdown that had imprisoned thousands. Zawahiri angrily opposed this "surrender" in letters to the London newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat.[56] Together with members of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, he helped organize a massive attack on tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut to sabotage the initiative by provoking the government into repression.[57]
Main article: November 1997 Luxor massacre

The attack by six men dressed in police uniforms, succeeded in machine-gunning and hacking to death 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians, including "a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons," and devastated the Egyptian tourist industry for a number of years. Nonetheless the Egyptian reaction was not what Zawahiri had hoped for. The attack so stunned and angered Egyptian society that Islamists denied responsibility. Zawahiri blamed the police for the killing, but also held the tourists responsible for their own deaths for coming to Egypt,

The people of Egypt consider the presence of these foreign tourists to be aggression against Muslims and Egypt, ... The young men are saying that this is our country and not a place for frolicking and enjoyment, especially for you.[58]

The massacre was so unpopular that no terror attacks occurred in Egypt for several years thereafter. Zawahiri was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999 by an Egyptian military tribunal.[59]
[edit] Fatwa with Osama bin Laden
Zawahiri profile released by FBI.

On February 23, 1998, he issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders". Zawahiri, not bin Laden, is thought to have been the actual author of the fatwa.[60]

Following the 2000 USS Cole bombing, Mohammed Atef was moved to Kandahar, Zawahiri to Kabul, and Bin Laden fled to Kabul, later joining Atef when he realised no American reprisal attacks were forthcoming.[61]

Hamid Mir is reported to have said that he believed that Ayman al-Zawahiri was the operational head of al-Qaeda, and that "[h]e is the person who can do the things that happened on Sept. 11."[5] Within days of the attacks, Zawahiri's name was put forward as Bin Laden's second-in-command, with reports suggesting he represented "a more formidable US foe than bin Laden.".[62]

On October 10, 2001, al-Zawahiri appeared on the initial list of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by U.S. President George W. Bush. In early November 2001, the Taliban government announced they were bestowing official Afghan citizenship on him, as well as Bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Saif al-Adl, and Shaykh Asim Abdulrahman.[63]

In December 2001, al-Zawahiri published the book Knights Under the Prophet's Banner outlining al-Qaeda's ideology.[64] English translations of this book were published; excerpts are available online.[65]

Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri's whereabouts are unknown, but he is generally thought to be in tribal Pakistan. Although he releases videos of himself frequently (see Messages of Ayman al-Zawahiri), al-Zawahiri has not appeared alongside bin Laden in any of them since 2003. In 2003, it was rumored that he was under arrest by Iran, although no later confirmation appeared.[66]

On January 13, 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, where they believed al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike was supposed to have killed al-Zawahiri and was thus reported in international news the following days. Many victims were buried without being identified. Anonymous U.S. government officials claimed that some terrorists were killed and the Bajaur tribal area government confirmed that at least four terrorists were among the dead.[67] Anti-American protests broke out around the country and the Pakistani government condemned the U.S. attack and the loss of innocent life.[68] On January 30, a new video was released showing al-Zawahiri unhurt. The video did discuss the airstrike, but did not reveal if al-Zawahiri was present in the village at that time.

Al-Zawahiri supplied direction for the Lal Masjid siege in July 2007. Pakistani Army troops taking control of the Red Mosque in Islamabad found letters from al-Zawahiri directing Islamic militants Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Abdul Aziz Ghazi, who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah. This conflict resulted in 100 deaths.[69]

On August 1, 2008, CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter dated July 29, 2008, from unnamed sources in Pakistan, which urgently requested a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The letter indicated that al-Zawahiri was critically injured in a US missile strike at Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan on July 28 that also reportedly killed al Qaeda explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri. Taliban Mehsud spokesman Maulvi Umar told the Associated Press on August 2, 2008, that the report of al-Zawahiri's injury was false.[70]

In early September 2008, Pakistan military claimed that they "almost" captured al-Zawahiri after getting information that he and his wife were in the Mohmand Agency, in northwest Pakistan. After raiding the area, officials didn't find him.[71]
[edit] Views on female combatants
See also: Sex segregation and Islam

Zawahri has said in an interview that the group does not have women combatants and that a woman's role is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaeda fighters.[72] This resulted in a debate regarding the role of mujahid women like Sajida al-Rishawi.
[edit] Video and audio messages
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Author:Ayman al-Zawahiri
Main article: Videos of Ayman al-Zawahiri

* May 2003: Tape was broadcast by al-Jazeera and included the directives (interpreted) "Raze/Singe the floor out from under their feet... the political and corporate interests of the United States... and Norway." which caused a global lockdown and extensive confusion for the country of Norway.
* Early September 2003: A video showing al-Zawahiri and bin Laden walking together, as well as an audiotape, is released to the al-Jazeera network.
* September 9, 2004: Another video is released announcing more assaults.
* August 4, 2005: He issues a televised statement blaming Tony Blair and his government's foreign policy for the July 2005 London bombings.[citation needed]
* September 1, 2005: al-Jazeera broadcasts a video message from Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of bombers of the London metro. His message is followed by another message from al-Zawahiri, blaming again Blair for the bombings.[citation needed]
* 19 September 2005: He claims responsibility for the London bombings.[citation needed]
* December 7, 2005: The full 40 minute interview from September is posted on the Internet with previously unseen video footage. See below for links.
* 3 April 2008: He said Al Qaeda does not kill innocents and that its leader Osama bin Laden is healthy. The questions asked his views about Egypt and Iraq as well as Hamas, the militant Islamic group that seized control of Gaza 2007.[73]
* 22 April 2008: An audio interview in which, among other subjects, Ayman al-Zawahiri attacks the Shiite Iran and Hezbollah for blaming the 9/11 attacks on Israel, and thus discrediting Al-Qaeda.[74]
* On the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Zawahri released a 90-minute tape[40] in which he blasted "The guardian of Muslims in Tehran" for "the two hireling governments"[41] in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* 7 January 2009: An audio message released where al-Zawahiri vows revenge for Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza and calls the Jewish state's actions against Hamas militants "a gift" from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for the recent uprising conflict in Gaza.[75]
* 2 June 2009: Audio messages claiming Barack Obama is not welcome in Egypt.
* 15 July 2009: Al-Zawahiri urges Pakistanis to support the Taliban.
* October 4, 2009: The New York Times reported that Al Zawahiri had asserted that Libya had tortured Ibn Al Sheikh Al Libi to death.[76] Al Libi was a key source the George W. Bush Presidency had claimed established that Iraq had provided training to Al Qaeda in Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
* December 14, 2009: In an audio recording released on December 14, 2009, Zawahiri renewed calls to establish an Islamic state in Israel and urged his followers to “seek jihad against Jews” and their supporters. He also called for jihad against America and the West, and labeled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia as the “brothers of Satan”.[77]

[edit] Wanted in the USA and Egypt

* For their leading role in anti-Egyptian Government attacks in the 1990s, Ayman al-Zawahiri and his brother Muhammad al-Zawahiri were sentenced to death in the 1999 Egyptian case of the Returnees from Albania.
* Ayman al-Zawahiri is under indictment[78] in the United States for this role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The Rewards for Justice Program of the U.S. Department of State is offering a reward of up to US$25 million for information about his location.[7][79]

[edit] Online Q&A

In mid-December 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri's spokespeople announced plans for an "open interview" on a handful of Islamic Web sites. The administrators of four known jihadist web sites have been authorized to collect and forward questions, "unedited," they pledge, and "regardless of whether they are in support of or are against" al-Qaida, which would be forwarded to al-Zawahiri on 16 January.[80] Zawahiri responded to the questions later in 2008; among the things he said were that al-Qaeda did not kill innocents, and that al-Qaeda would move to target Israel once it was finished in Iraq.[81][82]
[edit] Emergence as Al Qaeda's Chief Commander

On April 30, 2009, the US State Department reported that Zawahiri had now emerged as the Al Qaeda's operational and strategic commander[83] and that Osama Bin Laden was now only the ideological figurehead of the organization.[83]
[edit] Bibliography

* Gilles Kepel & Jean-Pierre Milelli, Al Qaeda in its own words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge & London, ISBN 978-0-674-02804-3.
* Ayman al-Zawahiri, L'absolution, Milelli, Villepreux, ISBN 978-2-916590-05-9 (French translation of Al-Zawahiri's latest book).

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Alligator gar

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Alligator Gar
This ten-foot alligator gar was caught and photographed at Moon Lake in Mississippi in 1910
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Lepisosteiformes
Family: Lepisosteidae
Genus: Atractosteus
Species: A. spatula
Binomial name
Atractosteus spatula
(Lacépède, 1803)
Synonyms

Lepisosteus spatula Lacépède, 1803
Atractosteus adamantinus Rafinesque, 1818

The Alligator Gar ("Gator Gar"), Atractosteus spatula, is a primitive ray-finned fish. Unlike other Gars, the mature Alligator Gar possesses a dual row of large teeth in the upper jaw. Its name derives from the alligator-like appearance of these teeth along with the fish's elongated snout. The dorsal surface of the Alligator Gar is a brown or olive-color, while the ventral surface tends to be lighter. Their scales are diamond-shaped and interlocking (ganoid) and are sometimes used by Native Americans for jewelry.

Along with its status as the largest species of Gar, the Alligator Gar is the largest exclusively freshwater fish found in North America, measuring eight to ten feet and weighing at least 200 lb (91 kg) at maturity. The current world record for the largest Alligator Gar caught on rod and reel is 279 lb (127 kg).The largest taken by Bowfishing is 365 lb (166 kg).[citation needed] The fish is also known for its ability to survive outside the water, being able to last for up to two hours above the surface.
Contents


* 1 Location
o 1.1 Natural
o 1.2 Outside the Natural Habitat
* 2 Behavior
o 2.1 Feeding
o 2.2 Breeding
* 3 Taxonomic history
* 4 Human usage
o 4.1 Sport fish
o 4.2 Food source
o 4.3 Aquaria
* 5 References
* 6 External links

Location
Natural

Alligator gar are found in the Lower Mississippi River Valley and Gulf Coast states of the Southeastern United States and Mexico as far south as Veracruz, encompassing the following US states: Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, and Georgia.They have also been known historically to come as far north as central Kansas, Nebraska, Kentucky, Ohio, Iowa, and west-central Illinois, where the most northerly verified catch was at Meredosia, Illinois in 1922 and an 8.5 ft (2.6 m) specimen, now preserved, was caught at nearby Beardstown.Specimens at locations further south in Illinois have been verified as recently as 1976, with the Illinois Academy of Sciences verifiying a total of 122 captures to that date.They inhabit sluggish pools and backwaters or large rivers, bayous, and lakes. They are found in brackish or saltwater, and are more adaptable to the latter than are other gars. In Louisiana it is common to see these large gar striking the surface in brackish marshes.
Outside the Natural Habitat

There have been a few notable sightings of Alligator Gar outside North America.

In February 2007, a 1.5 m (4.9 ft) Alligator Gar was found roaming far in the city of Jakarta, Indonesia, when the city was hit by a major flood (see External Links below). In January 2008, a 3 kg (6.6 lb) Gator Gar was found by fishermen in Bera, Pahang (East Coast State of Malaysia), when it was caught entangled in a fishing net.

In November 2008, a 0.5 to 0.6 m (1.6 to 2.0 ft) long Alligator gar was caught in the north of Esenguly, Turkmenistan by two officials of Turkmenistan Fishery Protection. Dr. R. Mayden, Saint Louis University and Dr. Eric Hilton, Virginia Institute of Marine Science confirmed that it was probably an Atractosteus spatula.

On September 4, 2009 a 1 m (3.3 ft) long Alligator Gar was found in Tak Wah Park in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. In the next two days, at least 16 other Alligator Gars, with the largest one measuring 1.5 m (4.9 ft) long, were found in ponds in public parks in Hong Kong.As reported by nearby residents, the fish were released in the ponds by aquarium hobbyists and had lived there for some years. However, after a complaint made by a citizen who falsely identified the fish as crocodiles, terms like "Horrible Man-eating Fish" were found in the headlines of some major local newspapers.Government officials decided to remove all the fish from the ponds as they claimed the species had no conservation value and would affect the local ecology if left in the ponds. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department said it would offer non-dangerous fish to animal welfare groups and charities. The fish that was caught first died later that day, and claims have been made that the local government does not treat the gars in an animal-friendly way - they were seen catching the fish with improvised nets and garbage cans.On September 6 the government euthanized all of the fish as it said that there were no organizations willing to take them.On September 8 however, the Hong Kong Ocean Park announced that it was willing to take the fish for exhibition and education to the public. Five surviving gars, caught on September 7, were sent to the Ocean Park.[citation needed]
Behavior
This Alligator Gar was swept onto the beach at North Padre Island following a storm
Feeding

The Alligator Gar is a relatively passive, solitary fish that lives in fresh and brackish water bodies in the southeastern U.S. It is carnivorous. The Alligator Gar feeds by lurking amongst reeds and other vegetation, ambushing prey.
Breeding

Though the Alligator Gar prefers slow-moving waters of rivers, bayous, and oxbows throughout most of the year, it appears to need spring time inundated floodplain fields or wetland vegetation in order to spawn.
Taxonomic history

Until relatively recently all gars have generally been classified in the genus Lepisosteus Lacepède, 1803. The Alligator Gar had been given the name Atractosteus adamantinus by the eccentric Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz in 1818, and for a long time Atractosteus was simply viewed as a junior synonym of Lepisosteus. E. O. Wiley resurrected this genus in 1976, in his work The phylogeny and biogeography of fossil and Recent Gars.

Based on Wiley's work, after 1976 the Gars were officially split into Lepisosteus and Atractosteus, and ever since then zoos, aquarium books, anglers, and so on have been gradually catching up with the proper terminology.
Human usage
Sport fish
This six-foot 129 pound Alligator Gar was caught in the Brazos River in Texas

Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana allow regulated sport fishing of the Alligator Gar.

The fish is popular amongst bowfishers because of its size and tendency to brawl. An interesting anatomical feature of this fish is that its buoyancy bladder is directly connected to its throat, giving it the ability to draw in air from above the water. For this reason, Alligator Gar are often found near the surface of a body of water.
Food source

In several Southern U.S. states, Alligator Gar are served in restaurants and considered a delicacy or novelty food akin to the American Alligator or crocodile.
Aquaria

Despite their large adult size, Alligator Gar are kept as aquarium fish, although many fish labelled as "Alligator Gar" in the aquarium trade are actually smaller species. This fish requires a very large aquarium or pond and ample resources to keep. They are also popular fish for public aquariums. True Gars are illegal as pets in multiple areas but will occasionally show up in fish stores.

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This article is about the Colombian drug lord. For the Colombian footballer, see Pablo Andrés Escobar. For the Paraguayan-Bolivian footballer, see Pablo Daniel Escobar.
This is a Spanish name; the first family name is Escobar and the second is Gaviria.
Pablo Escobar
Born December 1, 1949 (1949-12)
Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia
Died December 2, 1993 (1993-12-03) (aged 44)
Medellín, Colombia
Alias(es) El Patrón, Don Pablo, El Senor
Conviction(s) drug trafficking and smuggling, assassinations, bombing, bribery, racketeering, money laundering, murder, political corruption
Status Deceased
Occupation Head of the Medellín Cartel
Spouse Maria Victoria Henao
Children Juan Pablo, Manuela Escobar

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949 - December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug lord. Often referred to as the "World's Greatest Outlaw," Pablo Escobar was perhaps the most elusive cocaine trafficker to have ever existed.[1] He is regarded as the richest and most successful criminal in world history because, in the year 1989, Forbes magazine declared Escobar as the seventh richest man in the world, with an estimated personal fortune of US$ 9 billion.[2] He owned innumerable luxury residences and automobiles and in 1986 he attempted to enter Colombian politics, even offering to pay off the nation's $10 billion national debt.[3] It is said that Pablo Escobar once burnt $2m in cash just to keep warm while on the run.[4]
Contents


* 1 Early life
* 2 Rise to power
* 3 Height of power
* 4 Personal life
o 4.1 La Catedral prison
o 4.2 Search Bloc and Los Pepes
* 5 Death and afterward
o 5.1 Exhumation
o 5.2 Virginia Vallejo's version
o 5.3 Relatives
* 6 Quotes
* 7 Popular depiction
* 8 In popular culture
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 External links

Early life

Escobar was born to a peasant farmer, named Abel de Jesus Escobar[citation needed], and an elementary school teacher, Hemilda Gaviria (died 2006).[5] Pablo was one of six children in the Escobar home. Pablo and his family lived in a house that had no electricity but had running water. He and his brother were once sent home from school because Pablo had no shoes. Escobar studied political science at the Universidad de Antioquia, but he was forced to drop out when he couldn't afford to pay the necessary fees. This was when he began his criminal career allegedly stealing gravestones and sanding them down for resale to smugglers. His brother refutes this, claiming that the gravestones came from cemetery owners whose clients had stopped paying for site care and that they had a relative who had a legitimate monuments business.[6]

After this alleged hustling business, Pablo started doing whatever else he could to make money—from running petty street scams with his gang to selling contraband cigarettes and fake lottery tickets. He even conned people out of their cash when they'd leave the bank. By the time he was 20, he was already an accomplished car thief.[1] In the early 1970s, he was a thief and bodyguard, and he made a quick $100,000 on the side kidnapping and ransoming a Medellin executive before entering the drug trade.[7] His next step on the ladder was to become a millionaire by working for the multi-millionaire contraband smuggler, Alvaro Prieto. Through his dedication and guile, Pablo became a millionaire by the time he was 22. [8]
Rise to power

A book released by Pablo's brother, Roberto Escobar, called The Accountant's Story discusses how Pablo rose from poverty and obscurity to become one of the richest men of the world. Arguably the largest and most successful criminal enterprise in world history, at times the Medellin drug cartel was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day, worth more than half a billion dollars, into the United States. According to Roberto, Pablo's accountant, he and his brother's operation spent $1,000 a week just purchasing rubber bands to wrap the stacks of cash—and since they had more illegal money than they could deposit in the banks, they stored the bricks of cash in their warehouses, annually writing off 10% as "spoilage" when the rats crept in at night and nibbled on the hundred dollar bills.[9]

In 1975, Escobar started developing his cocaine operation. He even flew a plane himself to smuggle a load into the United States. He then decommissioned the plane and hung it above the gate to his ranch at Hacienda Napoles. His reputation grew after a well known Medellín dealer named Fabio Restrepo was murdered in 1975 ostensibly by Escobar, from whom he had purchased 14 kilograms. Afterwards, all of Restrepo's men were informed that they now worked for Pablo Escobar. In May 1976 Escobar and several of his men were arrested and were found in possession of 39 pounds (18 kg) of white paste after returning to Medellín with a heavy load from Ecuador. Initially, Pablo tried unsuccessfully to bribe the Medellín judges who were forming the case against him. Instead, after many months of legal wrangling Pablo had the two arresting officers killed and the case was dropped. It was here that he began his pattern of dealing with the authorities by either bribing them or killing them.[10] Roberto Escobar maintains Pablo fell into the business simply because contraband became too dangerous to traffic. He could make more money with one truck loaded with cocaine than 40 carrying booze and cigarettes. There were no drug cartels then and only a few drug barons, so there was plenty of business for everyone. In Peru, they bought the cocaine paste, which they refined in a laboratory in a two-storey house in Medellín. On his first trip, Pablo bought a paltry £30 worth of paste in what was to become the first step towards the building of his empire. At first, he smuggled the cocaine in old plane tyres and a pilot could earn as much as £500,000 a flight depending on how much he could smuggle.[11]

Soon the demand for cocaine was skyrocketing in the United States and Pablo organized more smuggling shipments, routes, and distribution networks in South Florida, California and other parts of the USA. He and Carlos Lehder worked together to develop a new island trans-shipment point in the Bahamas, called Norman's Cay. Carlos and Robert Vesco purchased most of the land on the Island which included a 3,300 foot airstrip, a harbor, hotel, houses, boats, aircraft and even built a refrigerated warehouse to store the cocaine. From 1978–1982, this was used as a central smuggling route for the Medellin Cartel. (According to his brother's account, Pablo did not purchase Normans Cay. It was, instead, a sole venture of Carlos Lehder.) Escobar was able to purchase the 7.7 square miles (20 km2) of land, which included Hacienda Napoles, for several million dollars. He created a zoo, a lake and other diversions for his family and organization.[12] At one point it was estimated that 70 to 80 tonnes of cocaine were being shipped from Colombia to the U.S. every month. At the peak of his power in the mid-1980s, he was shipping as much as 11 tonnes per flight in jetliners to the United States (the biggest load shipped by pablo was 23,000 kg mixed with fish paste and shipped via boat, this is confirmed by his brother in the book Escobar). In addition to using the planes, Pablo's brother, Roberto Escobar said he also used two small remote-controlled submarines as a way to transport the massive loads (these subs were, in fact, manned and this is again documented in Roberto's book).[1]

In 1982, Escobar was elected as a deputy/alternative representative to the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia's Congress, as part of the Colombian Liberal Party.[13] During the 1980s, Escobar became known internationally as his drug network gained notoriety; the Medellín Cartel controlled a large portion of the drugs that entered into the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic with cocaine brought mostly from Peru and Bolivia, as Colombian coca was initially of substandard quality. Escobar's product reached many other nations, mostly around the Americas, although it is said that his network reached as far as Asia.

Corruption and intimidation characterized Escobar's dealings with the Colombian system. He had an effective, inescapable policy in dealing with law enforcement and the government, referred to as "plata o plomo," (literally silver or lead, colloquially [accept] money or [face] bullets). This resulted in the deaths of hundreds of individuals, including civilians, policemen and state officials. At the same time, Escobar bribed countless government officials, judges and other politicians. Escobar was responsible for the murder of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, one of three assassinated candidates who were all competing in the same election, as well as the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 and the DAS Building bombing in Bogotá in 1989. The Cartel de Medellín was also involved in a deadly drug war with its primary rival, the Cartel de Cali, for most of its existence. It is sometimes alleged that Escobar backed the 1985 storming of the Colombian Supreme Court by left-wing guerrillas from the 19th of April Movement, also known as M-19, which resulted in the murder of half the judges on the court. Some of these claims were included in a late 2006 report by a Truth Commission of three judges of the current Supreme Court. One of those who discusses the attack is "Popeye", a former Escobar hitman. At the time of the siege, the Supreme Court was studying the constitutionality of Colombia's extradition treaty with the U.S.[14]
Height of power

Pablo Escobar once said that the essence of the cocaine business was 'simple - you bribe someone here, you bribe someone there, and you pay a friendly banker to help you bring the money back.'[15] In 1987 Forbes magazine estimated Escobar to be the seventh-richest man in the world with a personal wealth of close to $9 billion,[citation needed] while his Medellín cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market. In most businesses, seeing a return on investment (ROI) of 100% would be more than enough for a company to thrive. By some estimates, Pablo Escobar enjoyed an ROI of as much as 20,000%. Put another way, for every $1 he put into his business, he got about $200 in return. It is said that rats ate $1 billion of Pablo Escobar's profits each year.[16]

While seen as an enemy of the United States and Colombian governments, Escobar was a hero to many in Medellín (especially the poor people); he was a natural at public relations and he worked to create goodwill among the poor people of Colombia. A lifelong sports fan, he was credited with building football fields and multi-sports courts, as well as sponsoring little league football teams.[17]

Escobar was responsible for the construction of many churches in Medellín, which gained him popularity inside the local Roman Catholic Church.[18] He worked hard to cultivate his "Robin Hood" image, and frequently distributed money to the poor through housing projects and other civic activities, which gained him notable popularity among the poor. The population of Medellín often helped Escobar by serving as lookouts, hiding information from the authorities, or doing whatever else they could do to protect him.

Despite his popular image among the Medellín community Escobar was well-known among his business associates to be an insecure, paranoid, ruthless murderer. It has been reported that his brother said Pablo was so violently committed to loyalty that he once threatened him at gun point over a minor misunderstanding. His brother said his ability to befriend the dangerous and intimidate the powerful is what made him as unstoppable as he was. At the height of his power, drug traffickers from Medellín and other areas were handing over between 20 and 35% of their Colombian cocaine-related profits to Escobar.

Escobar’s continuing struggles to maintain supremacy resulted in Colombia's quickly becoming the world’s murder capital with 7,081 victims in 1991 alone.[citation needed] This increased murder rate was fueled by Escobar's giving money to poor youths as a reward for killing police officers, over 600 of whom died in this way.[19] Today, Colombia is surpassed by several countries, such as Guatemala, South Africa and Venezuela.[20][21]
Personal life

In March 1976 at the age of 26, Escobar married Maria Victoria who was 15 years old. Together they had two children: Juan Pablo and Manuela. Escobar created and lived in a luxurious estate called Hacienda Nápoles (Spanish for Naples Estate) and had planned to construct a Greek-style citadel near it. Construction of the citadel was begun but never finished. The ranch, the zoo and the citadel were expropriated by the government and given to low-income families in the 1990s under a law called extinción de dominio (domain extinction). The property has been converted to a theme park.[22]
La Catedral prison
Main article: La Catedral

After the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán, a presidential candidate, the administration of César Gaviria moved against Escobar and the drug cartels. Eventually, the government negotiated with Escobar, convincing him to surrender and cease all criminal activity in exchange for a reduced sentence and preferential treatment during his captivity.

After declaring an end to a series of previous violent or terrorist acts meant to pressure authorities and public opinion, Escobar turned himself in. He was confined in what became his own luxurious private prison, La Catedral. Before Escobar gave himself up, the extradition of Colombian citizens had been prohibited by the newly approved Colombian Constitution of 1991. That was controversial, as it was suspected that Escobar or other drug lords had influenced members of the Constituent Assembly.

Accounts of Escobar's continued criminal activities began to surface in the media. Escobar brought the Moncada and Galeano brothers to La Catedral and had them murdered because he alleged that they were stealing from the cartel.[citation needed] When the government found out that Escobar was continuing his criminal activities within La Catedral, it attempted to move Escobar to another jail on July 22, 1992. Escobar's influence allowed him to discover the plan in advance and make a well-timed, unhurried escape. He was still worried that he could be extradited to the United States.
Search Bloc and Los Pepes
Main articles: Los Pepes and Search Bloc

In 1992 United States Operators from Delta Force, and Centra Spike joined the all-out manhunt for Escobar. They trained and advised a special Colombian police task force, known as the Search Bloc, which had been created to locate Escobar. Later, as the conflict between Escobar and United States and Colombian governments dragged on and the numbers of his enemies grew, a vigilante group known as Los Pepes (Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar) - or "People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar," financed by his rivals and former associates, including the Cali Cartel and right-wing paramilitaries led by Carlos Castaño, who would later found the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá. Los Pepes carried out a bloody campaign fueled by vengeance in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates and relatives were slain and large amounts of his cartel's property were destroyed.

Rumors abounded[18] that members of the Search Bloc, and also of Colombian and the United States intelligence agencies, in their efforts to find and punish Escobar, either colluded with Los Pepes or moonlighted as both Search Bloc and Los Pepes simultaneously. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly through the sharing of intelligence in order to allow Los Pepes to bring down Escobar and his few remaining allies, but there are reports that some individual Search Bloc members directly participated in missions of the Los Pepes death squads.[18] One of the leaders of Los Pepes was Diego Murillo Bejarano (also known as "Don Berna"), a former Medellín Cartel associate who became a drug kingpin and eventually emerged as a leader of one of the most powerful factions within the AUC.
Death and afterward
Colombian policemen standing by Pablo Escobar's dead body.

The war against Escobar ended on December 2, 1993, as he tried to elude the Search Bloc one more time and that was his demise. Using radio triangulation technology provided as part of the United States efforts, a Colombian electronic surveillance team found him hiding in a middle-class barrio in Medellín. With authorities closing in, a firefight with Escobar and his bodyguard, Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo AKA El Limón, ensued. The two fugitives attempted to escape by running across the roofs of adjoining houses to reach a back street, but both were shot and killed by Colombian National Police.[23] He suffered gunshots to the leg, torso, and the fatal one in his ear. It has never been proven who actually fired the final shot into Escobar's head, whether this shot was made during the gunfight or as part of possible execution, and there is wide speculation about the subject. One very popular theory is that Hugo Aguilar shot Escobar with just one shot with his 9 mm pistol.[citation needed] Some of the family members believe that Escobar could have committed suicide.[24][25] His two brothers, Roberto Escobar and Fernando Sánchez Arellano, believe that he shot himself through the ears: "He committed suicide, he did not get killed. During all the years they went after him, he would say to me every day that if he was really cornered without a way out, he would shoot himself through the ears."[26] During the autopsy however, there was no stippling pattern found around the ear, which suggested that the shot which killed Escobar was fired from further than an arm's length away.[27]

After Escobar's death and the fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel the cocaine market soon became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel, until the mid-1990s when its leaders, too, were either killed or captured by the Colombian government.

The Robin Hood image that he had cultivated continued to have lasting influence in Medellín. Many there, especially many of the city's poor that had been aided by him while he was alive, lamented his death.
Exhumation

On 28 October 2006, Escobar's body was exhumed by request of his nephew Nicolás Escobar, two days after the death of mother Hermilda Gaviria (who opposed exhumation) to verify that the body in the tomb was in fact that of Escobar and also to collect DNA for a paternity test claim. According to the report by the El Tiempo newspaper, Escobar's ex-wife Maria Victoria was present recording the exhumation with a video camera.
Virginia Vallejo's version
See also: Virginia Vallejo, Alberto Santofimio, Alfonso López Michelsen, Ernesto Samper, and Álvaro Uribe

On July 4, 2006, Virginia Vallejo, the television anchorwoman who was romantically involved with Escobar from 1983 to 1987, offered her testimony in the trial against former Senator Alberto Santofimio, accused of conspiracy in the 1989 assassination of Presidential Candidate Luis Carlos Galán, to the Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran. Mr. Iguaran acknowledged that, although Vallejo contacted his office on the 4th, the judge had decided to close the trial on the 9th, several weeks before the prospective closing date and, in (Iguaran's) opinion, “too soon”.[28]

On July 16, 2006, Vallejo was taken to the United States in a special flight of the Drug Enforcement Administration.[29] According to the American Embassy in Bogotá, this was done for "safety and security reasons" because Ms. Vallejo’s cooperation was needed in high-profile criminal cases.[30] On July 24, 2006, a video in which Virginia Vallejo accused former Senator Alberto Santofimio of instigating Escobar to eliminate presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in her presence was aired on Colombian television. In 2007, Vallejo published her book Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar (Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar), where she describes her relationship with the drug lord during the early years of the cocaine boom and his charity projects for the poor when he was a deputy congressman. She gives her account of Escobar’s relationship with Caribbean governments and dictators and his role in the birth of the M.A.S (Death to Kidnappers) and Los Extraditables (The Extraditables). Vallejo also gives her account of numerous incidents throughout Escobar's criminal career, such as the assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984, her lover’s feud with the Cali Cartel and the era of narcoterrorism that began after the couple's separation in September 1987.

In July 2008, Vallejo testified in the reopened case of the Palace of Justice siege [31] and she stated that Escobar had financed the coup. In August 2009, she testified in the case of Luis Carlos Galán's assassination, which had also been reopened .[32] Vallejo also claimed that several politicians, including Colombian presidents Alfonso López Michelsen, Ernesto Samper and Álvaro Uribe, were involved with the drug cartels in different ways. Uribe denied Vallejo's allegations.[33]
Relatives

Escobar's widow, Victoria Henao Vallejo's (now Maria Isabel Santos Caballero), son, Juan Pablo (now Juan Sebastian Marroquín Santos), and daughter, Manuela, fled Colombia in 1995 after failing to find a country that would grant asylum.[34] Argentinian filmmaker Nicolas Entel's documentary "Sins of My Father" chronicles Marroquín's efforts to seek forgiveness from the sons of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombia's justice minister in the early 1980s, who was assassinated in 1984, as well as the sons of Luis Carlos Galán, the presidential candidate, who was assassinated in 1989.[35]

He is also survived by his godson, Daniel Ray Rodríguez Gacha, the son of Jose Rodríguez Gacha.[citation needed]

The rest of Escobar's family is thought to have migrated to Venezuela, including his aunt Leticia Escobar and her 2 daughters, one of whom now lives in Texas.[citation needed] Some have fled to the United States.[citation needed]
Quotes

Some of Pablo Escobar's memorable quotations are:

* "I prefer to be in a grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States."[36]
* "I'm a decent man who exports flowers."[36]
* "All empires are created of blood and fire."[36]
* "I can replace things, but I could never replace my wife and kids."[36]
* "Everyone has a price, the important thing is to find out what it is."[36]
* "There can only be one king."[36]
* "Sometimes I am God, if I say a man dies, he dies that same day."[36]
* "There are two hundred million idiots, manipulated by a million intelligent men."[36]
* "Plata o Plomo?" - lit. "Silver or Lead?"; figuratively, "a bribe or death".
* "The difference between a good man and a bad man is and will always be the one who does not get caught."

Popular depiction

Two major feature films on the Colombian drug lord, Escobar and Killing Pablo, were announced in 2007,[37] around the same time. Escobar has been delayed due to producer Oliver Stone's involvement with the George W. Bush biopic W. The date of Escobar’s release is still unconfirmed.[38] Producer Oliver Stone even said "This is a great project about a fascinating man who took on the system. I think I have to thank, Scarface, and maybe even Ari Gold."[39]

Killing Pablo, in development for several years and directed by Joe Carnahan, is based on Mark Bowden’s book Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw.[40][41] The plot tells the true story of how the Colombian gangster Pablo Escobar was killed and his Medellín cocaine cartel dismantled by US special forces and intelligence, the Colombian military, and a vigilante gang called Los Pepes, controlled by the Cali cartel. The cast was reported to include Christian Bale as Major Steve Jacoby and Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez as Escobar.[42][43] In December 2008, Bob Yari, producer of Killing Pablo, filed for bankruptcy.[44]
In popular culture
Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (June 2010)

* Escobar is the inspiration behind Mexican Death Metal band Brujeria's song "El Patron" on their 1995 album "Raza Odidada"

Artist Fernando Botero, a native of Antioquia, the same region as Escobar, portrayed Pablo Escobar's death in one of his paintings about the violence in Colombia.

* Escobar is depicted in the 2001 drama film Blow in which Escobar becomes a business contact of the main character George Jung. The movie highlights George Jung's role in Escobar's early cocaine smuggling operation.

* Photographer James Mollison's book The Memory of Pablo Escobar tells Pablo's story with over 350 photographs and documents. The journalist Rainbow Nelson conducted over 100 interviews with family members, Medellin Cartel associates, Colombian police & judges, and survivors of Escobar's killing sprees.

* Escobar is mentioned as a cartel leader in the 2006 documentary film Cocaine Cowboys.

* In the HBO television series Entourage, actor Vincent Chase (played by Adrian Grenier) plays Escobar in a fictional film entitled Medellin.

* Gabriel García Márquez' book, News of a Kidnapping,[45] details the series of abductions that Escobar masterminded to pressure the then Colombian government into guaranteeing him non-extradition if he turned himself in.

* Escobar is also the subject of an episode in a documentary series called Situation Critical, in production as of September 2007.

* In the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City the airport is named after him ("Escobar International").[citation needed]

* Colombian writer Laura Restrepo uses Escobar as a character to move part of the plot in Delirio.

* Rapper Nas called himself Nas Escobar.

* Argentine rock and roll band Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota made a song about Escobar's death called "Me matan Limón" ("They kill me Limón") which is based upon the last days of the drug lord and his only loyal bodyguard Álvaro de Jesús Agudelo known as "El Limón" (The Lemon). Limon was killed while fleeing police with Escobar, giving his life attempting to protect him.

* Escobar is compared to Attila the Hun in episode 2 of the History Channel program Ancients Behaving Badly.

* On The Boondocks character Riley Freeman has various nicknames but one of them is Riley Escobar.

* In late 2007 a street mix version of Rick Ross song Hustlin' featuring Busta Rhymes emerged, in which Busta Rhymes makes reference to Escobar, his children and his publicized route of drug smuggling into the USA.

* In January 2010 after several failed attempts to take Pablo Escobar's life to the big screen by numerous Hollywood filmmakers, the documentary "Sins of My Father", directed by Nicolas Entel premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It was received with wide acclaim, The Hollywood reporter called it "masterwork". US rights were quickly nabbed by HBO which is planning to air the film in late 2010.

* In episode 8 series 3 of the television show Breaking Bad, Pablo Escobar is mentioned. One of the characters is reading a book about some of the members of the police who were responsible for finding him.

* An episode of Deadliest Warrior had the Medellín Drug Cartel pitted against the Somali Pirates. In the simulated battle, Pablo Escobar and his men are under attack by the Somali Pirates. Escobar tries to escape, but is shot by the pirates' leader. However, he manages to survive long enough to detonate a nearby car bomb, killing both him and the head pirate.

* In the 2010 ESPN broadcast "30 for 30", a series of sports-themed documentaries timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Entertainment and Sports Network. "The Two Escobars" by directors Jeff and Michael Zimbalist looked back at Colombia's World Cup run in 1994 and the relationship of sports and the country's criminal gangs—notably the Medellin narcotics cartel run by Escobar. The other Escobar in the film title refers to former Colombian National Team defender Andrés Escobar, who was shot and killed one month after an own goal cost Colombia in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

* In 2010 tour operator ZORBA began Pablo Escobar tours in Medellin to satisfy the hundreds of tourists whom each year travel to the city to find out more about the drug lord.
* In the 2008 video game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Escobar is mentioned by the character Victor Sullivan.
External links

* Pablo Escobar - King of Cocaine doc on YouTube
* Cocaine Cowboys (documentary about the Medellín Cartel)
* Pablo Escobar, the coke's tzar
* Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar
* Video of Pablo Escobar's home, Hacienda Napoles, with private zoo and hippos
* My Father, the Drug Lord: Pablo Escobar's Son
* In the shame of the father
* Sins of the Father
* Pablo Escobar Tours in the news

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Escobar"
Categories: 1949 births | 1993 deaths | People from Antioquia Department | Folk saints | Medellín Cartel traffickers | Deaths by firearm in Colombia | Mob bosses | Colombian drug traffickers | Colombian people convicted of murder | People convicted of murder by Colombia

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SADDAM HUSSEIN

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti
صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي

President of Iraq
In office
16 July 1979 – 9 April 2003
Prime Minister Sa'dun Hammadi
Mohammed Amza Zubeidi
Ahmad Husayn Khudayir as-Samarrai
Preceded by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by Jay Garner (Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq)
Prime Minister of Iraq
In office
29 May 1994 – 9 April 2003
Preceded by Ahmad Husayn Khudayir as-Samarrai
Succeeded by Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum (Acting President of the Governing Council of Iraq)
In office
16 July 1979 – 23 March 1991
Preceded by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Succeeded by Sa'dun Hammadi
Born 28 April 1937(1937-04-28)
Al-Awja, Iraq
Died 30 December 2006 (aged 69)
Kadhimiya, Iraq
Political party Ba'ath Party
Spouse(s) Sajida Talfah, Samira Shahbandar
Children Uday
Qusay
Raghad
Rana
Hala
Religion Orthodox Sunni Islam
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrītī[1]; 28 April 1937[2] – 30 December 2006)[3] was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.[4][5] A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power.

As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam spearheaded Iraq's nationalization of the Western-owned Iraq Petroleum Company, which had long held a monopoly on the country's oil. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as Iraq's economy grew at a rapid pace.[6]

As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 through 1988, and throughout the Persian Gulf War of 1991. During these conflicts, Saddam suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs venerated him for his aggressive stance against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians,[7] other Arabs and Western leaders vilified him as the force behind both a deadly attack on northern Iraq in 1988 and, two years later, an invasion of Kuwait to the south.

By 2003, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush perceived that Saddam remained sufficiently relevant and dangerous to be overthrown. In March of that year, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, eventually deposing Saddam. Captured by U.S. forces on 13 December 2003, Saddam was brought to trial under the Iraqi interim government set up by U.S.-led forces. On 5 November 2006, he was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites convicted of planning an assassination attempt against him, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam was executed on 30 December 2006.[8] By the time of his death, Saddam had become a prolific author.[9][10][11][12] Among his works are multiple novels dealing with themes of romance, politics, and war.[13][14][15][16]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Youth
* 2 Rise to power
o 2.1 Modernization program
o 2.2 Succession
* 3 Secular leadership
* 4 Foreign affairs
o 4.1 Iran–Iraq War
o 4.2 Tensions with Kuwait
* 5 Gulf War
* 6 Postwar period
* 7 2003 invasion of Iraq
* 8 Incarceration and trial
o 8.1 Capture and incarceration
o 8.2 Trial
* 9 Execution
* 10 Marriage and family relationships
* 11 List of government positions held
* 12 See also
* 13 References
* 14 Further reading
* 15 External links

Youth

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was born in the town of Al-Awja, 13 km (8 mi) from the Iraqi town of Tikrit, to a family of shepherds from the al-Begat tribal group, a sub-group of the Al-Bu Nasir (البو ناصر) tribe. His mother, Subha Tulfah al-Mussallat, named her newborn son Saddam, which in Arabic means "One who confronts"; he is always referred to by this personal name, which may be followed by the patronymic and other elements. He never knew his father, Hussein 'Abid al-Majid, who disappeared six months before Saddam was born. Shortly afterward, Saddam's 13-year-old brother died of cancer. The infant Saddam was sent to the family of his maternal uncle Khairallah Talfah until he was three.[17]

His mother remarried, and Saddam gained three half-brothers through this marriage. His stepfather, Ibrahim al-Hassan, treated Saddam harshly after his return. At around 10 Saddam fled the family and returned to live in Baghdad with his uncle Kharaillah Tulfah. Tulfah, the father of Saddam's future wife, was a devout Sunni Muslim and a veteran from the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War between Iraqi nationalists and the United Kingdom, which remained a major colonial power in the region.[18] Later in his life relatives from his native Tikrit became some of his closest advisors and supporters. Under the guidance of his uncle he attended a nationalistic high school in Baghdad. After secondary school Saddam studied at an Iraqi law school for three years, dropping out in 1957 at the age of 20 to join the revolutionary pan-Arab Ba'ath Party, of which his uncle was a supporter. During this time, Saddam apparently supported himself as a secondary school teacher.[19]
Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959–63

Revolutionary sentiment was characteristic of the era in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In Iraq progressives and socialists assailed traditional political elites (colonial era bureaucrats and landowners, wealthy merchants and tribal chiefs, monarchists).[20] Moreover, the pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt profoundly influenced young Ba'athists like Saddam. The rise of Nasser foreshadowed a wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, with the collapse of the monarchies of Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. Nasser inspired nationalists throughout the Middle East by fighting the British and the French during the Suez Crisis of 1956, modernizing Egypt, and uniting the Arab world politically.[21]

In 1958, a year after Saddam had joined the Ba'ath party, army officers led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew Faisal II of Iraq. The Ba'athists opposed the new government, and in 1959 Saddam was involved in the unsuccessful United States-backed plot to assassinate Abdul Karim Qassim.[22]
Rise to power
Saddam Hussein after the successful 1963 Ba'ath party coup
Saddam Hussein in Cairo after fleeing there following the failed assassination attempt against Qassim

Army officers with ties to the Ba'ath Party overthrew Qassim in a coup in 1963. Ba'athist leaders were appointed to the cabinet and Abdul Salam Arif became president. Arif dismissed and arrested the Ba'athist leaders later that year. Saddam returned to Iraq, but was imprisoned in 1964. Just prior to his imprisonment and until 1968, Saddam held the position of Ba'ath party secretary.[23] He escaped from prison in 1967 and quickly became a leading member of the party. In 1968, Saddam participated in a bloodless coup led by Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr that overthrew Abdul Rahman Arif. Al-Bakr was named president and Saddam was named his deputy, and deputy chairman of the Baathist Revolutionary Command Council. According to biographers, Saddam never forgot the tensions within the first Ba'athist government, which formed the basis for his measures to promote Ba'ath party unity as well as his resolve to maintain power and programs to ensure social stability.

Saddam Hussein in the past was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism in the 1960s and 1970s.[24] Although Saddam was al-Bakr's deputy, he was a strong behind-the-scenes party politician. Al-Bakr was the older and more prestigious of the two, but by 1969 Saddam Hussein clearly had become the moving force behind the party.
Modernization program
Promoting women's literacy and education in the 1970s

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, formally the al-Bakr's second-in-command, Saddam built a reputation as a progressive, effective politician.[25] At this time, Saddam moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country's major domestic problems and expanding the party's following.

After the Baathists took power in 1968, Saddam focused on attaining stability in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and economic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant.[26] Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required both massive repression and the improvement of living standards.[26]

Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.

At the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On 1 June 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.

Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).[27][28]

To diversify the largely oil-based Iraqi economy, Saddam implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries. The campaign revolutionized Iraq's energy industries. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, and many outlying areas.

Before the 1970s, most of Iraq's people lived in the countryside, where Saddam himself was born and raised, and roughly two-thirds were peasants. This number would decrease quickly during the 1970s as the country invested much of its oil profits into industrial expansion.

Nevertheless, Saddam focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athist government in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the countryside, mechanizing agriculture on a large scale, and distributing land to peasant farmers.[19] The Ba'athists established farm cooperatives, in which profits were distributed according to the labors of the individual and the unskilled were trained. The government also doubled expenditures for agricultural development in 1974–1975. Moreover, agrarian reform in Iraq improved the living standard of the peasantry and increased production.

Saddam became personally associated with Ba'athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, widening his appeal both within his traditional base and among new sectors of the population. These programs were part of a combination of "carrot and stick" tactics to enhance support in the working class, the peasantry, and within the party and the government bureaucracy.

Saddam's organizational prowess was credited with Iraq's rapid pace of development in the 1970s; development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million people from other Arab countries and even Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.
Succession

In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. As the ailing, elderly al-Bakr became unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de facto leader of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon accumulated a powerful circle of support within the party.

In 1979 al-Bakr started to make treaties with Syria, also under Ba'athist leadership, that would lead to unification between the two countries. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would become deputy leader in a union, and this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.

Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on 22 July 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped (viewable via this reference[29]), Saddam claimed to have found a fifth column within the Ba'ath Party and directed Muhyi Abdel-Hussein to read out a confession and the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators. These members were labelled "disloyal" and were removed from the room one by one and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently tried together and found guilty of treason. 22 were sentenced to execution. Other high-ranking members of the party formed the firing squad. By 1 August 1979, hundreds of high-ranking Ba'ath party members had been executed.[30][31]
Secular leadership

To the consternation of Islamic conservatives, Saddam's government gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia courts, except for personal injury claims.

Domestic conflict impeded Saddam's modernizing projects. Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity; Saddam's government rested on the support of the 20% minority of largely working class, peasant, and lower middle class Sunnis, continuing a pattern that dates back at least to the British colonial authority's reliance on them as administrators.

The Shi'a majority were long a source of opposition to the government's secular policies, and the Ba'ath Party was increasingly concerned about potential Shi'a Islamist influence following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Kurds of northern Iraq (who are Sunni but not Arabs) were also permanently hostile to the Ba'athist party's pan-Arabism. To maintain power Saddam tended either to provide them with benefits so as to co-opt them into the regime, or to take repressive measures against them. The major instruments for accomplishing this control were the paramilitary and police organizations. Beginning in 1974, Taha Yassin Ramadan, a close associate of Saddam, commanded the People's Army, which was responsible for internal security. As the Ba'ath Party's paramilitary, the People's Army acted as a counterweight against any coup attempts by the regular armed forces. In addition to the People's Army, the Department of General Intelligence (Mukhabarat) was the most notorious arm of the state security system, feared for its use of torture and assassination. It was commanded by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's younger half-brother. Since 1982, foreign observers believed that this department operated both at home and abroad in their mission to seek out and eliminate Saddam's perceived opponents.[32]

Saddam justified Iraqi nationalism by claiming a unique role of Iraq in the history of the Arab world. As president, Saddam made frequent references to the Abbasid period, when Baghdad was the political, cultural, and economic capital of the Arab world. He also promoted Iraq's pre-Islamic role as Mesopotamia, the ancient cradle of civilization, alluding to such historical figures as Nebuchadnezzar II and Hammurabi. He devoted resources to archaeological explorations. In effect, Saddam sought to combine pan-Arabism and Iraqi nationalism, by promoting the vision of an Arab world united and led by Iraq.

As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam's personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports, and shops, as well as on Iraqi currency. Saddam's personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant (which he essentially wore during his childhood), and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca.
Foreign affairs
See also: Saddam Hussein – United States relations
See also: Iraq–Russia relations
Donald Rumsfeld, at the time Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, meeting Saddam Hussein on 19–20 December 1983. During the 1980s, the United States maintained cordial relations with Saddam as a bulwark against Iran.

In foreign affairs, Saddam sought to have Iraq play a leading role in the Middle East. Iraq signed an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972, and arms were sent along with several thousand advisers. However, the 1978 crackdown on Iraqi Communists and a shift of trade toward the West strained Iraqi relations with the Soviet Union; Iraq then took on a more Western orientation until the Persian Gulf War in 1991.[33]

After the oil crisis of 1973, France had changed to a more pro-Arab policy and was accordingly rewarded by Saddam with closer ties. He made a state visit to France in 1976, cementing close ties with some French business and ruling political circles. In 1975 Saddam negotiated an accord with Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border disputes. In return, Iran agreed to stop supporting opposition Kurds in Iraq. Saddam led Arab opposition to the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel (1979).

Saddam initiated Iraq's nuclear enrichment project in the 1980s, with French assistance. The first Iraqi nuclear reactor was named by the French "Osirak". Osirak was destroyed on 7 June 1981[34] by an Israeli air strike (Operation Opera).

Nearly from its founding as a modern state in 1920, Iraq has had to deal with Kurdish separatists in the northern part of the country.[35] Saddam did negotiate an agreement in 1970 with separatist Kurdish leaders, giving them autonomy, but the agreement broke down. The result was brutal fighting between the government and Kurdish groups and even Iraqi bombing of Kurdish villages in Iran, which caused Iraqi relations with Iran to deteriorate. However, after Saddam had negotiated the 1975 treaty with Iran, the Shah withdrew support for the Kurds, who suffered a total defeat.
Iran–Iraq War
Main article: Iran–Iraq War
Saddam Hussein greeting Carlos Cardoen, a Chilean businessman who provided the regime with cluster bombs in the 1980s

In 1979 Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution, thus giving way to an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The influence of revolutionary Shi'ite Islam grew apace in the region, particularly in countries with large Shi'ite populations, especially Iraq. Saddam feared that radical Islamic ideas—hostile to his secular rule—were rapidly spreading inside his country among the majority Shi'ite population.

There had also been bitter enmity between Saddam and Khomeini since the 1970s. Khomeini, having been exiled from Iran in 1964, took up residence in Iraq, at the Shi'ite holy city of An Najaf. There he involved himself with Iraqi Shi'ites and developed a strong, worldwide religious and political following against the Iranian Government, whom Saddam tolerated. However, when Khomeini began to urge the Shi'ites there to overthrow Saddam and under pressure from the Shah, who had agreed to a rapprochement between Iraq and Iran in 1975, Saddam agreed to expel Khomeini in 1978 to France. However this turned out to be an imminent failure and a political catalyst, for Khomeini had access to more media connections and also collaborated with a much larger Iranian community under his support whom he used to his advantage.

After Khomeini gained power, skirmishes between Iraq and revolutionary Iran occurred for ten months over the sovereignty of the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, which divides the two countries. During this period, Saddam Hussein publicly maintained that it was in Iraq's interest not to engage with Iran, and that it was in the interests of both nations to maintain peaceful relations. However, in a private meeting with Salah Omar Al-Ali, Iraq's permanent ambassador to the United Nations, he revealed that he intended to invade and occupy a large part of Iran within months. Later (probably to appeal for support from the United States and most Western nations), he would make toppling the Islamic government one of his intentions as well. Iraq invaded Iran, first attacking Mehrabad Airport of Tehran and then entering the oil-rich Iranian land of Khuzestan, which also has a sizable Arab minority, on 22 September 1980 and declared it a new province of Iraq. With the support of the Arab states, the United States, and Europe, and heavily financed by the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Saddam Hussein had become "the defender of the Arab world" against a revolutionary Iran. The only exception was The Soviet Union, who initially refused to supply Iraq on the basis of Neutrality in the conflict, although in his memoirs, Mikhail Gorbachev claimed that Leonid Brezhnev refused to aid Saddam over infuriation of Saddam's treatment of Iraqi Communists. Consequently, many viewed Iraq as "an agent of the civilized world".[36] The blatant disregard of international law and violations of international borders were ignored. Instead Iraq received economic and military support from its allies, who conveniently overlooked Saddam's use of chemical warfare against the Kurds and the Iranians and Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.[36]

In the first days of the war, there was heavy ground fighting around strategic ports as Iraq launched an attack on Khuzestan. After making some initial gains, Iraq's troops began to suffer losses from human wave attacks by Iran. By 1982, Iraq was on the defensive and looking for ways to end the war.

At this point, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. Health Minister Dr Riyadh Ibrahim suggested that Saddam temporarily step down to promote peace negotiations. Initially, Saddam Hussein appeared to take in this opinion as part of his cabinet democracy. A few weeks later, Dr Ibrahim was sacked when held responsible for a fatal incident in an Iraqi hospital where a patient died from intravenous administration of the wrong concentration of Potassium supplement.

Dr Ibrahim was arrested a few days after he started his new life as a sacked Minister. He was known to have publicly declared before that arrest that he was "glad that he got away alive." Pieces of Ibrahim's dismembered body were delivered to his wife the next day.[37]

Iraq quickly found itself bogged down in one of the longest and most destructive wars of attrition of the twentieth century. During the war, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces fighting on the southern front and Kurdish separatists who were attempting to open up a northern front in Iraq with the help of Iran. These chemical weapons were developed by Iraq from materials and technology supplied primarily by West German companies.[38]

Saddam reached out to other Arab governments for cash and political support during the war, particularly after Iraq's oil industry severely suffered at the hands of the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf. Iraq successfully gained some military and financial aid, as well as diplomatic and moral support, from the Soviet Union, China, France, and the United States, which together feared the prospects of the expansion of revolutionary Iran's influence in the region. The Iranians, demanding that the international community should force Iraq to pay war reparations to Iran, refused any suggestions for a cease-fire. Despite several calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988.

On 16 March 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with a mix of mustard gas and nerve agents, killing 5,000 civilians, and maiming, disfiguring, or seriously debilitating 10,000 more. (see Halabja poison gas attack)[39] The attack occurred in conjunction with the 1988 al-Anfal campaign designed to reassert central control of the mostly Kurdish population of areas of northern Iraq and defeat the Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces. The United States now maintains that Saddam ordered the attack to terrorize the Kurdish population in northern Iraq,[39] but Saddam's regime claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for the attack[40] and US analysts supported the claim until several years later. (See also Halabja poison gas attack - Early U.S. allegations of Iranian involvement.)

The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties with estimates of up to one million dead. Neither side had achieved what they had originally desired and at the borders were left nearly unchanged. The southern, oil rich and prosperous Khuzestan and Basra area (the main focus of the war, and the primary source of their economies) were almost completely destroyed and were left at the pre 1979 border, while Iran managed to make some small gains on its borders in the Northern Kurdish area. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.

Borrowing money from the U.S. was making Iraq dependent on outside loans, embarrassing a leader who had sought to define Arab nationalism. Saddam also borrowed a tremendous amount of money from other Arab states during the 1980s to fight Iran, mainly to prevent the expansion of Shiite radicalism. However, this had proven to completely backfire both on Iraq and on the part of the Arab states, for Khomeini was praised as a hero for managing to defend Iran and maintain the war with little foreign support against the heavily backed Iraq, and only managed to boost Islamic radicalism in the Arab states. Faced with rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, Saddam desperately sought out cash once again, this time for postwar reconstruction.
Tensions with Kuwait
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The end of the war with Iran served to deepen latent tensions between Iraq and its wealthy neighbor Kuwait. Saddam urged the Kuwaitis to forgive the Iraqi debt accumulated in the war, some $30 billion, but they refused.[41]

Saddam pushed oil-exporting countries to raise oil prices by cutting back production; Kuwait refused, however. In addition to refusing the request, Kuwait spearheaded the opposition in OPEC to the cuts that Saddam had requested. Kuwait was pumping large amounts of oil, and thus keeping prices low, when Iraq needed to sell high-priced oil from its wells to pay off a huge debt.

Saddam had always argued that Kuwait was historically an integral part of Iraq, and that Kuwait had only come into being through the maneuverings of British imperialism; this echoed a belief that Iraqi nationalists had voiced for the past 50 years. This belief was one of the few articles of faith uniting the political scene in a nation rife with sharp social, ethnic, religious, and ideological divides.[41]

The extent of Kuwaiti oil reserves also intensified tensions in the region. The oil reserves of Kuwait (with a population of 2 million next to Iraq's 25) were roughly equal to those of Iraq. Taken together, Iraq and Kuwait sat on top of some 20 percent of the world's known oil reserves; as an article of comparison, Saudi Arabia holds 25 percent.[41]

Saddam complained to the U.S. State Department that the Kuwaiti monarchy had slant drilled oil out of wells that Iraq considered to be within its disputed border with Kuwait. Saddam still had an experienced and well-equipped army, which he used to influence regional affairs. He later ordered troops to the Iraq–Kuwait border.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Catherine Glaspie meets Saddam for an emergency meeting.

As Iraq-Kuwait relations rapidly deteriorated, Saddam was receiving conflicting information about how the U.S. would respond to the prospects of an invasion. For one, Washington had been taking measures to cultivate a constructive relationship with Iraq for roughly a decade. The Reagan administration gave Saddam roughly $40 billion in aid in the 1980s to fight Iran, nearly all of it on credit. The U.S. also gave Saddam billions of dollars to keep him from forming a strong alliance with the Soviets.[42] Saddam's Iraq became "the third-largest recipient of US assistance".[43]

U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam in an emergency meeting on 25 July, where the Iraqi leader stated his intention to give negotiations only.. one more brief chance before forcing Iraq's claims on Kuwait.[44] U.S. officials attempted to maintain a conciliatory line with Iraq, indicating that while George H. W. Bush and James Baker did not want force used, they would not take any position on the Iraq–Kuwait boundary dispute and did not want to become involved.[45] Whatever Glapsie did or did not say in her interview with Saddam, the Iraqis assumed that the United States had invested too much in building relations with Iraq over the 1980s to sacrifice them for Kuwait.[46] Later, Iraq and Kuwait met for a final negotiation session, which failed. Saddam then sent his troops into Kuwait. As tensions between Washington and Saddam began to escalate, the Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, strengthened its military relationship with the Iraqi leader, providing him military advisers, arms and aid.[47]
Gulf War
Saddam Hussein with the flag of Iraq he implemented during the Gulf War
Main articles: Invasion of Kuwait and Gulf War

On 2 August 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, thus sparking an international crisis. Just two years after the 1988 Iraq and Iran truce, "Saddam Hussein did what his Gulf patrons had earlier paid him to prevent." Having removed the threat of Iranian fundamentalism he "overran Kuwait and confronted his Gulf neighbors in the name of Arab nationalism and Islam."[36]

The U.S. had provided assistance to Saddam Hussein in the war with Iran, but with Iraq's seizure of the oil-rich emirate of Kuwait in August 1990 the United States led a United Nations coalition that drove Iraq's troops from Kuwait in February 1991. The ability for Saddam Hussein to pursue such military aggression was from a "military machine paid for in large part by the tens of billions of dollars Kuwait and the Gulf states had poured into Iraq and the weapons and technology provided by the Soviet Union, Germany, and France."[36]

U.S. President George H. W. Bush responded cautiously for the first several days. On one hand, Kuwait, prior to this point, had been a virulent enemy of Israel and was the Persian Gulf monarchy that had had the most friendly relations with the Soviets.[48] On the other hand, Washington foreign policymakers, along with Middle East experts, military critics, and firms heavily invested in the region, were extremely concerned with stability in this region.[49] The invasion immediately triggered fears that the world's price of oil, and therefore control of the world economy, was at stake. Britain profited heavily from billions of dollars of Kuwaiti investments and bank deposits. Bush was perhaps swayed while meeting with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who happened to be in the U.S. at the time.[50]

Co-operation between the United States and the Soviet Union made possible the passage of resolutions in the United Nations Security Council giving Iraq a deadline to leave Kuwait and approving the use of force if Saddam did not comply with the timetable. U.S. officials feared Iraqi retaliation against oil-rich Saudi Arabia, since the 1940s a close ally of Washington, for the Saudis' opposition to the invasion of Kuwait. Accordingly, the U.S. and a group of allies, including countries as diverse as Egypt, Syria and Czechoslovakia, deployed a massive amount of troops along the Saudi border with Kuwait and Iraq in order to encircle the Iraqi army, the largest in the Middle East.

During the period of negotiations and threats following the invasion, Saddam focused renewed attention on the Palestinian problem by promising to withdraw his forces from Kuwait if Israel would relinquish the occupied territories in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. Saddam's proposal further split the Arab world, pitting U.S.- and Western-supported Arab states against the Palestinians. The allies ultimately rejected any linkage between the Kuwait crisis and Palestinian issues.

Saddam ignored the Security Council deadline. Backed by the Security Council, a U.S.-led coalition launched round-the-clock missile and aerial attacks on Iraq, beginning 16 January 1991. Israel, though subjected to attack by Iraqi missiles, refrained from retaliating in order not to provoke Arab states into leaving the coalition. A ground force consisting largely of U.S. and British armoured and infantry divisions ejected Saddam's army from Kuwait in February 1991 and occupied the southern portion of Iraq as far as the Euphrates.

On 6 March 1991, Bush announced:
“ What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea — a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law. ”

In the end, the over-manned and under-equipped Iraqi army proved unable to compete on the battlefield with the highly mobile coalition land forces and their overpowering air support. Some 175,000 Iraqis were taken prisoner and casualties were estimated at over 85,000. As part of the cease-fire agreement, Iraq agreed to scrap all poison gas and germ weapons and allow UN observers to inspect the sites. UN trade sanctions would remain in effect until Iraq complied with all terms. Saddam publicly claimed victory at the end of the war.
Postwar period

Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions, together with the brutality of the conflict that this had engendered, laid the groundwork for postwar rebellions. In the aftermath of the fighting, social and ethnic unrest among Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds, and dissident military units threatened the stability of Saddam's government. Uprisings erupted in the Kurdish north and Shi'a southern and central parts of Iraq, but were ruthlessly repressed.

The United States, which had urged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, did nothing to assist the rebellions. The Iranians, who had earlier called for the overthrow of Saddam, were in no state to even intervene on behalf of the rebellions due to the disastrous state of its economy and military. Turkey opposed any prospect of Kurdish independence, and the Saudis and other conservative Arab states feared an Iran-style Shi'ite revolution. Saddam, having survived the immediate crisis in the wake of defeat, was left firmly in control of Iraq, although the country never recovered either economically or militarily from the Gulf War. Saddam routinely cited his survival as "proof" that Iraq had in fact won the war against the U.S. This message earned Saddam a great deal of popularity in many sectors of the Arab world. John Esposito, however, claims that "Arabs and Muslims were pulled in two directions. That they rallied not so much to Saddam Hussein as to the bipolar nature of the confrontation (the West versus the Arab Muslim world) and the issues that Saddam proclaimed: Arab unity, self-sufficiency, and social justice." As a result, Saddam Hussein appealed to many people for the same reasons that attracted more and more followers to Islamic revivalism and also for the same reasons that fueled anti-Western feelings. "As one U.S. Muslim observer noted: People forgot about Saddam's record and concentrated on America...Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct him." A shift was, therefore, clearly visible among many Islamic movements in the post war period "from an initial Islamic ideological rejection of Saddam Hussein, the secular persecutor of Islamic movements, and his invasion of Kuwait to a more populist Arab nationalist, anti-imperialist support for Saddam (or more precisely those issues he represented or championed) and the condemnation of foreign intervention and occupation."[36]

Saddam, therefore, increasingly portrayed himself as a devout Muslim, in an effort to co-opt the conservative religious segments of society. Some elements of Sharia law were re-introduced, and the ritual phrase "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), in Saddam's handwriting, was added to the national flag.

Relations between the United States and Iraq remained tense following the Gulf War. The U.S. launched a missile attack aimed at Iraq's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad 26 June 1993, citing evidence of repeated Iraqi violations of the "no fly zones" imposed after the Gulf War and for incursions into Kuwait.

The UN sanctions placed upon Iraq when it invaded Kuwait were not lifted, blocking Iraqi oil exports. This caused immense hardship in Iraq and virtually destroyed the Iraqi economy and state infrastructure. Only smuggling across the Syrian border, and humanitarian aid ameliorated the humanitarian crisis.[51] On 9 December 1996 the United Nations allowed Saddam's government to begin selling limited amounts of oil for food and medicine. Limited amounts of income from the United Nations started flowing into Iraq through the UN Oil for Food program.

U.S. officials continued to accuse Saddam of violating the terms of the Gulf War's cease fire, by developing weapons of mass destruction and other banned weaponry, and violating the UN-imposed sanctions and "no-fly zones." Isolated military strikes by U.S. and British forces continued on Iraq sporadically, the largest being Operation Desert Fox in 1998. Western charges of Iraqi resistance to UN access to suspected weapons were the pretext for crises between 1997 and 1998, culminating in intensive U.S. and British missile strikes on Iraq, 16–19 December 1998. After two years of intermittent activity, U.S. and British warplanes struck harder at sites near Baghdad in February 2001.

Saddam's support base of Tikriti tribesmen, family members, and other supporters was divided after the war, and in the following years, contributing to the government's increasingly repressive and arbitrary nature. Domestic repression inside Iraq grew worse, and Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein, became increasingly powerful and carried out a private reign of terror.

Iraqi co-operation with UN weapons inspection teams was intermittent throughout the 1990s.
2003 invasion of Iraq
Main article: 2003 invasion of Iraq
Satellite channels broadcasting the besieged Iraqi leader among cheering crowds as U.S.-led troops push toward the capital city.[52]
4 April 2003.

The U.S. continued to view Saddam as a bellicose tyrant who was a threat to the stability of the region. During the 1990s, President Bill Clinton maintained sanctions and ordered air strikes in the "Iraqi no-fly zones" (Operation Desert Fox), in the hope that Saddam would be overthrown by political enemies inside Iraq.

The domestic political equation changed in the U.S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks; in his January 2002 state of the union address to Congress, President George W. Bush spoke of an "axis of evil" consisting of Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. Moreover, Bush announced that he would possibly take action to topple the Iraqi government, because of the alleged threat of its "weapons of mass destruction". Bush claimed, "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade... Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror."[53][54] Saddam Hussein claimed that he falsely led the world to believe Iraq possessed nuclear weapons in order to appear strong against Iran.[55]

With war looming on 24 February 2003, Saddam Hussein took part in an interview with CBS News reporter Dan Rather. Talking for more than three hours, he expressed a wish to have a live televised debate with George W. Bush, which was declined. It was his first interview with a U.S. reporter in over a decade.[56] CBS aired the taped interview later that week.

The Iraqi government and military collapsed within three weeks of the beginning of the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq on 20 March. The United States made at least two attempts to kill Saddam with targeted air strikes, but both failed to hit their target, killing civilians instead. By the beginning of April, U.S.-led forces occupied much of Iraq. The resistance of the much-weakened Iraqi Army either crumbled or shifted to guerrilla tactics, and it appeared that Saddam had lost control of Iraq. He was last seen in a video which purported to show him in the Baghdad suburbs surrounded by supporters. When Baghdad fell to U.S-led forces on 9 April, Saddam was nowhere to be found.
Incarceration and trial
Capture and incarceration
Main articles: Operation Red Dawn and Interrogation of Saddam Hussein

Saddam shortly after capture by American forces, and after being shaved to confirm his identity

In April 2003, Saddam's whereabouts remained in question during the weeks following the fall of Baghdad and the conclusion of the major fighting of the war. Various sightings of Saddam were reported in the weeks following the war but none was authenticated. At various times Saddam released audio tapes promoting popular resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.

Saddam was placed at the top of the U.S. list of "most-wanted Iraqis". In July 2003, his sons Uday and Qusay and 14-year-old grandson Mustapha were killed in a three-hour[57] gunfight with U.S. forces.

On 14 December 2003, U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer announced that Saddam Hussein had been captured at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr near Tikrit.[58] Bremer presented video footage of Saddam in custody.

Saddam was shown with a full beard and hair longer than his familiar appearance. He was described by U.S. officials as being in good health. Bremer reported plans to put Saddam on trial, but claimed that the details of such a trial had not yet been determined. Iraqis and Americans who spoke with Saddam after his capture generally reported that he remained self-assured, describing himself as a "firm but just leader."

According to U.S. military sources, following his capture by U.S. forces on 13 December Saddam was transported to a U.S. base near Tikrit, and later taken to the U.S. base near Baghdad. The day after his capture he was reportedly visited by longtime opponents such as Ahmed Chalabi.

British tabloid newspaper The Sun posted a picture of Saddam wearing white briefs on the front cover of a newspaper. Other photographs inside the paper show Saddam washing his trousers, shuffling, and sleeping. The United States Government stated that it considers the release of the pictures a violation of the Geneva Convention, and that it would investigate the photographs.[59][60] During this period Hussein was interrogated by FBI agent George Piro.[61]

The guards at the Baghdad detention facility called their prisoner "Vic," and let him plant a little garden near his cell. The nickname and the garden are among the details about the former Iraqi leader that emerged during a 27 March 2008 tour of prison of the Baghdad cell where Saddam slept, bathed, and kept a journal in the final days before his execution.[62]
Trial
Main article: Trial of Saddam Hussein
Saddam speaking at a pre-trial hearing

On 30 June 2004, Saddam Hussein, held in custody by U.S. forces at the U.S. base "Camp Cropper", along with 11 other senior Baathist leaders, were handed over legally (though not physically) to the interim Iraqi government to stand trial for crimes against humanity and other offences.

A few weeks later, he was charged by the Iraqi Special Tribunal with crimes committed against residents of Dujail in 1982, following a failed assassination attempt against him. Specific charges included the murder of 148 people, torture of women and children and the illegal arrest of 399 others.[63][64]
Main article: Dujail Massacre

Among the many challenges of the trial were:

* Saddam and his lawyers' contesting the court's authority and maintaining that he was still the President of Iraq.[65]
* The assassinations and attempts on the lives of several of Saddam's lawyers.
* The replacement of the chief presiding judge, midway through the trial.

On 5 November 2006, Saddam Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam's half brother, Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court in 1982, were convicted of similar charges. The verdict and sentencing were both appealed but subsequently affirmed by Iraq's Supreme Court of Appeals.[66] On 30 December 2006, Saddam was hanged.[8]
Execution
Main article: Execution of Saddam Hussein

Saddam was hanged on the first day of Eid ul-Adha, 30 December 2006, despite his wish to be shot (which he felt would be more dignified).[67] The execution was carried out at Camp Justice, an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya, a neighborhood of northeast Baghdad.

The execution was videotaped on a mobile phone and his captors could be heard insulting Saddam. The video was leaked to electronic media and posted on the Internet within hours, becoming the subject of global controversy.[68] It was later claimed by the head guard at the tomb where his body remains that Saddam's body was stabbed six times after the execution.[69]

Not long before the execution, Saddam's lawyers released his last letter. The following includes several excerpts:
“ To the great nation, to the people of our country, and humanity,

Many of you have known the writer of this letter to be faithful, honest, caring for others, wise, of sound judgment, just, decisive, careful with the wealth of the people and the state ... and that his heart is big enough to embrace all without discrimination.

You have known your brother and leader very well and he never bowed to the despots and, in accordance with the wishes of those who loved him, remained a sword and a banner.

This is how you want your brother, son or leader to be ... and those who will lead you (in the future) should have the same qualifications.

Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will send it to heaven with the martyrs, or, He will postpone that ... so let us be patient and depend on Him against the unjust nations.

Remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love, forgiveness and brotherly coexistence ... I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave a space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking and keeps away one from balanced thinking and making the right choice.

I also call on you not to hate the peoples of the other countries that attacked us and differentiate between the decision-makers and peoples. Anyone who repents - whether in Iraq or abroad - you must forgive him.

You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered for the legal defence of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein ... some of these people wept profusely when they said goodbye to me.

Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any faithful, honest believer ... God is Great ... God is great ... Long live our nation ... Long live our great struggling people ... Long live Iraq, long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine ... Long live jihad and the mujahedeen (the insurgency).

Saddam Hussein President and Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Mujahed Armed Forces

Additional clarification note:

I have written this letter because the lawyers told me that the so-called criminal court—established and named by the invaders—will allow the so-called defendants the chance for a last word. But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence—dictated by the invaders—without presenting the evidence. I wanted the people to know this.[70]
”

— Letter by Saddam Hussein

A second unofficial video, apparently showing Saddam's body on a trolley, emerged several days later. It sparked speculation that the execution was carried out incorrectly as Saddam Hussein had a gaping hole in his neck.[71]

Saddam was buried at his birthplace of Al-Awja in Tikrit, Iraq, 3 km (2 mi) from his sons Uday and Qusay Hussein, on 31 December 2006.[72]
Marriage and family relationships
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Saddam Hussein's family (clockwise from top L), son-in-law Saddam Kamel and daughter Rana, son Qusay and daughter-in-law Sahar, daughter Raghad and son-in-law Hussein Kamal, son Uday, daughter Hala, Saddam Hussein and his first wife Sajda Talfah, pose in this undated photo from the private archive of an official photographer for the regime.

While Saddam has no official marital history he is believed to have been married to at least four women, two of whom have been confirmed as his wives, and had five children.[citation needed]

* Saddam married his first wife and cousin Sajida Talfah (or Tulfah/Tilfah) [73] in 1958[74] in an arranged marriage. Sajida is the daughter of Khairallah Talfah, Saddam's uncle and mentor. Their marriage was arranged for Hussein at age five when Sajida was seven; however, the two never met until their wedding. They were married in Egypt during his exile. The couple had five children.[73]

* Uday Hussein (18 June 1964 – 22 July 2003), was Saddam's oldest son, who ran the Iraqi Football Association, Fedayeen Saddam, and several media corporations in Iraq including Iraqi TV and the newspaper Babel. Uday, while originally Saddam's favorite son and raised to succeed him he eventually fell out of favour with his father due to his erratic behavior; he was responsible for many car crashes and rapes around Baghdad, constant feuds with other members of his family, and killing his father's favorite valet and food taster Kamel Hana Gegeo at a party in Egypt honoring Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak. He was widely known for his paranoia and his obsession with torturing people who disappointed him in any way, which included tardy girlfriends, friends who disagreed with him and, most notoriously, Iraqi athletes who performed poorly. He was briefly married to Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri's daughter but later divorced her. The couple had no children. He was killed in a gun battle with US Forces in Mosul.[citation needed]
* Qusay Hussein (17 May 1966 – 22 July 2003), was Saddam's second—and, after the mid-1990s, his favorite—son. Qusay was believed to have been Saddam's later intended successor as he was less erratic than his older brother and kept a low profile. He was second in command of the military (behind his father) and ran the elite Iraqi Republican Guard and the SSO. He was believed to have ordered the army to kill thousands of rebelling Marsh Arabs and frequently ordered airstrikes on Kurdish and Shi'ite settlements. He was also believed to have assisted Ali Hassan al-Majid in the 1988 Halabja chemical attack. He was married once and had three children. His oldest son, Mustapha Hussein, was killed along with Uday and Qusay in Mosul.[citation needed]

* Raghad Hussein (2 September 1968) is Saddam's oldest daughter. After the war, Raghad fled to Amman, Jordan where she received sanctuary from the royal family. She is currently wanted by the Iraqi Government for allegedly financing and supporting the insurgency and the now banned Iraqi Ba'ath Party.[75][76] The Jordanian royal family refused to hand her over. She married Hussein Kamel al-Majid and has five children from this marriage.[citation needed]
* Rana Hussein (c. 1969), is Saddam's second daughter. She like her sister fled to Jordan and has stood up for her father's rights. She was married to Saddam Kamel and has had four children from this marriage.
* Hala Hussein (c. 1972), is Saddam's third and youngest daughter. Very little information is known about her. Her father arranged for her to marry General Kamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti in 1998. She fled with her children and sisters to Jordan. The couple have two children.[citation needed]

* Saddam married his second wife, Samira Shahbandar,[73] in 1986. She was originally the wife of an Iraqi Airways executive but later became the mistress of Saddam. Eventually, Saddam forced Samira's husband to divorce her so he could marry her.[73] There have been no political issues from this marriage. After the war, Samira fled to Beirut, Lebanon. She is believed to have mothered Hussein's sixth son .[73] Members of Hussein's family have denied this.
* Saddam had allegedly married a third wife, Nidal al-Hamdani, the general manager of the Solar Energy Research Center in the Council of Scientific Research.[77] She bore him no children. Her current whereabouts are unknown.[citation needed]
* Wafa el-Mullah al-Howeish is rumoured to have married Saddam as his fourth wife in 2002. There is no firm evidence for this marriage. Wafa is the daughter of Abdul Tawab el-Mullah Howeish, a former minister of military industry in Iraq and Saddam's last deputy Prime Minister. There were no children from this marriage. Her current whereabouts are unknown.[citation needed]

In August 1995, Raghad and her husband Hussein Kamel al-Majid and Rana and her husband, Saddam Kamel al-Majid, defected to Jordan, taking their children with them. They returned to Iraq when they received assurances that Saddam would pardon them. Within three days of their return in February 1996, both of the Kamel brothers were attacked and killed in a gunfight with other clan members who considered them traitors. Saddam had made it clear that although pardoned, they would lose all status and would not receive any protection.[citation needed]

In August 2003, Saddam's daughters Raghad and Rana received sanctuary in Amman, Jordan, where they are currently staying with their nine children. That month, they spoke with CNN and the Arab satellite station Al-Arabiya in Amman. When asked about her father, Raghad told CNN, "He was a very good father, loving, has a big heart." Asked if she wanted to give a message to her father, she said: "I love you and I miss you." Her sister Rana also remarked, "He had so many feelings and he was very tender with all of us."[78]
List of government positions held

* Head of Iraqi Intelligence Service (1963)
* Vice President of the Republic of Iraq (1968–1979)
* President of the Republic of Iraq (1979–2003)
* Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq (1979–1991 and 1994–2003)
* Head of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council (1979–2003)

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