Izzat Ibrahim Ad-Douri - After The US Invasion

After The US Invasion

On 20 March 2003, U.S. forces invaded Iraq, leading to the toppling of the regime of President Saddam Hussein on 9 April 2003. Following the fall of Baghdad, Al-Douri went into hiding. U.S. officials claimed that he was involved in the subsequent Iraqi insurgency against U.S. forces, directing and funding attacks, as well as brokering an alliance between Ba'athist insurgents and militant Islamists. In a June 2008 interview, Al-Douri detailed his strategy, indicating that "any negotiations with the invaders without it represents a desertion and treason, and is refused by all national, Pan-Arab and Islamic factions of the resistance."

1. An official pronounced recognition of the armed and unarmed national resistance, including all its factions and (political) parties, as the sole legitimate representative of the people of Iraq.
2. An official declaration of unconditional withdrawal from Iraq by the U.S. leadership.
3. Declaring null and void all the political and legislative institutions, as well as all the laws and legislations issued by them, since the occupation, with the de-Ba'athfication law in the forefront, and compensating all who were adversely affected by them.
4. A stop to raids, prosecutions, arrests, killings and displacement.
5. Release of all prisoners of war (POWs), prisoners and detainees without exception and compensating all for their physical and psychological damage.
6. Reinstating the army and the national security forces in service in accordance with their pre-occupation laws and regulations, and compensating all who were adversely affected by dissolving them.
7. A pledge to compensate Iraq for all the material and moral losses it incurred because of the occupation.

Al-Douri is reportedly the head of the Iraqi insurgency groups Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order and Supreme Command for Jihad and Liberation based on his longstanding positions of leadership in the Naqshbandi sect in Iraq. In 2009 General David Petraeus, who was at the time heading the United States Central Command, told reporters from Al Arabiya that ad-Douri was residing in Syria.