Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq
The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is a Shia Islamist political party in Iraq. It was established in Iran in 1982 by Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and changed its name to the current Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq in 2007. Its political support comes from Iraq's Shia Muslim community.
SCIRI's leader Abdal Aziz al-Hakim meeting President George W. Bush, 2006
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, casts his ballot at a poll station in Baghdad in the January, 2005 election.
Ayatollah al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Muhsin al-Hakim at-Tabataba'i, also known as Shaheed al-Mehraab, was a senior Iraqi Shia Islamic Scholar and the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Al-Hakim spent more than 20 years in exile in Iran and returned to Iraq on 12 May 2003 following the US-led invasion. Al-Hakim was a contemporary of Ayatollah Khomeini, and The Guardian compared the two in terms of their times in exile and their support in their respective homelands. After his return to Iraq, al-Hakim's life was in danger because of his work to encourage Shiite resistance to Saddam Hussein and from a rivalry with Muqtada al-Sadr, the son of the late Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who had himself been assassinated in Najaf in 1999. Al-Hakim was assassinated in a bomb attack in Najaf in 2003 when aged 63 years old. At least 75 others in the vicinity also died in the bombing.
Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim