Ibrahim al-Jaafari

Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, a Shiite, is the main spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party, now based in Iraq. The party, once based in Iran, launched a bloody campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime in the late 1970's, but was crushed in 1982. The group said it lost 77,000 members in its war against Saddam. Born in Karbala, al-Jaafari was educated at Mosul University as a medical doctor.

He was picked in July 2003 for the first of several one-months stints as Iraq's president by the U.S.-backed Iraq interim governing council.