Here’s a look at the life of Iraq’s former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Personal:
Birth date: July 1, 1950
Birth place: Hindiya, Iraq (some sources say Hilla)
Birth name: Nuri Kamil al-Maliki
Marriage: Married
Children: Four daughters and a son
Education: Usul al-Din College, B.A., Islamic Studies, 1973; Salahaddin University, M.A., Arabic Literature, 1992
Religion: Shiite Muslim
Other Facts:
Prono: NOO-ree al-MAA-lick-ee
Changed his name to Jawad al-Maliki while he was in exile.
Negotiated with Sunnis and Kurds to help draft Iraq’s constitution.
Previously an adviser to former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Directed activists in Iraq during his exile in Syria and Iran.
Timeline:
1968 – Joins the Dawa Party.
1979-1980 – When he is sentenced to death for opposing Saddam Hussein and the Baathist party, al-Maliki flees Iraq and finds refuge in Iran and later Syria.
2003 – Returns to Iraq from Syria.
2003-2004 – Member of the de-Baathification Commission, which works to rid former Baathists from Iraq’s military and government.
January 2005 – Is elected to the new parliament as a member of the Dawa Party and serves as the head of the Security and Defense Committee of the National Assembly.
April 22, 2006 – Is chosen by the Shiite-dominated coalition United Iraqi Alliance to replace Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. He has one month to form a government.
May 20, 2006 – Iraq’s new government is sworn in, with 37 cabinet members and al-Maliki as prime minister.
July 26, 2006 – Addresses a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on the war in Iraq.
October 27, 2006 – Meets with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, telling him he considers himself “a friend of the U.S., but [he’s] not America’s man in Iraq.”
January 2, 2007 – States in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, “I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term.. I didn’t want to take this position… I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again.”
March 3-5, 2008 – Meets with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Baghdad.
June 7, 2008 – Arrives in Iran to talk with top Iranian officials about issues including alleged Iranian-backed insurgents.
February 2009 – Al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition wins a plurality in 9 of the 14 provinces that held elections.
March 7, 2010 – Parliamentary elections for Iraq’s second full-term legislature. The main rival to the State of Law coalition which includes al-Maliki’s Dawa Party, is the Iraqiya coalition headed by former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
March 26, 2010 – In Iraq’s parliamentary elections, Ex-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition edges out Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s coalition 91 seats to 89.
November 25, 2010 – Al-Maliki is named to a second term by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in a televised ceremony.
December 12, 2011 – Meets with President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss the shift in U.S.-Iraq relations with the end of the Iraq war.
June 10, 2012 – Al-Maliki survives the threat of a no-confidence vote by parliament when President Talabani announces that there is not enough support for the vote. Al-Maliki’s opponents accuse him of monopolizing power.
June 21, 2012 – Osama al-Nujaifi, speaker of parliament, announces that al-Maliki will be asked to appear before parliament in a continued effort to oust him.
January 4, 2014 – Al-Maliki vows to crush the insurgency in Anbar province, where the Sunni insurgency — al Qaeda in Iraq — flourished following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. “There will be no withdrawal,” al-Maliki says in a speech carried by Al-Arabiya.
April 30, 2014 – Al-Maliki’s party wins 92 seats in parliamentary elections, short of the 165 seats needed for a majority.
August 11, 2014 – President Fuad Masum appoints Haider al-Abadi as prime minister of Iraq, replacing a defiant Nuri al-Maliki with a member of his own party, despite al-Maliki’s pronouncement earlier in the day that he intends to stay in office for a third term. The new Prime Minister-nominee, al-Abadi, is the deputy speaker of the Iraqi Parliament and a former aide to al-Maliki.
August 14, 2014 – In a televised address, al-Maliki withdraws his candidacy for a third term and endorses al-Abadi.