FACTBOX-Key facts about Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki

10 Oct 2011 08:40
Source: Reuters // Reuters

Oct 10 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says Washington still has options for keeping U.S. troops in Iraqi as trainers, even after the country's political leaders refused to grant them immunity as U.S. officials had requested.

Maliki last week won the support of political blocs to keep U.S. trainers past the year-end deadline for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Here are key facts about Maliki:

* Maliki was born at Hindiya, south of Baghdad, in 1950. He holds a master's degree in Arabic and worked at the Education Ministry before fleeing in 1980 to neighbouring Syria and then Iran under sentence of death for his political activism. He returned after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that overthrew former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

* Maliki came to the forefront of Iraqi politics in April 2006 with the image of a tough, Shi'ite Islamist strong enough to weld rival factions into a national unity government. He was sworn in as prime minister for the first time in May 2006.

* Maliki has struggled to control a fractious government forged of fragile alliances. But in the last three years he has emerged stronger after sending the army to fight Shi'ite militia and presiding over a sharp fall in overall violence.

* Seemingly quick to anger, Maliki has turned many former allies into foes. He bristled at criticism in 2007 from U.S. lawmakers and has difficult relations with some U.S. military officials in Iraq. He harbours evident hatred of the Saddam regime which repressed Iraq's Shi'ite majority and assassinated many of his political colleagues. Many Sunnis fear he has little interest in affording them a fair share of power.

* Maliki has pursued a fine line with Shi'ite Iran, a U.S. foe which fought a 1980-88 war with Saddam's Iraq. Some say he has bowed to Iranian demands, citing an occasion when he met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without a necktie, in deference to Iranian revolutionary fashion. Others said Tehran wanted Maliki replaced because it does not consider him friendly enough.

* He has managed recently to forge some consensus in Iraq's fractious power-sharing coalition over whether Baghdad should hold talks with Washington over U.S. troop trainers. But key issues such as the naming of a defense minister and a minister of interior - two security posts -- are still pending and could scuttle any agreement among Iraqi factions.

For a main story on Iraq's troop talks, please see (Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Alistair Lyon)