Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi

Who is Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi?

Baqir Jabr Al-Zubeidi, also known as Bayan Jabr Solagh, served as the Finance Minister of Iraq in the government of Nouri al-Maliki. He served as Minister of Interior, in charge of the police, in the Iraqi Transitional Government and was Minister of Housing and Reconstruction of the Iraqi Governing Council. He is a senior member of the Shi'a United Iraqi Alliance as well as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Unlike most Shi'a of Iraq, Baqir Jabr is of mixed Turkish and Kurdish ancestry.

Born in 1946 in the Maysan Governorate, Jabr became a Shi'a activist while studying engineering at Baghdad University in the 1970s. He fled to Iran amid Saddam Hussein's crackdown on Shi'a political groups and joined the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He later headed SCIRI's office in Syria.

On 3 January 2006, his sister was reported kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. She was released two weeks later after ransom was paid.