Al Maliki will have to shun his hardline Shiite image

Baghdad: Jawad Al Maliki may win the respect of many with his tough decision-making but will have to shake off his hardline Shiite image to unite the country.

Unlike the soft-spoken Ebrahim Al Jaafari, Al Maliki is seen as a decisive figure in a country where many Iraqis say only a strong man can lead them. But like all Iraqi politicians, he offers no magic solution to the security crisis, economic malaise and sectarian carnage that has raised fears of open civil war.

Al Maliki's years in the Dawa party fighting former President Saddam Hussain may give him the endurance to guide Iraq through political minefields. But that may not be easy for a man accused of sectarianism.

To win over Iraqis, he faces the task of demonstrating that his long years in exile will not prevent him from measuring Iraq's complex pulse.

Al Maliki, who escaped a death sentence handed down by Saddam, spent years in neighbouring Syria and some time in Iran after fleeing Iraq in 1980.

He returned after the US-led invasion in 2003 but did not appear in the spotlight like other politicians who some Iraqis described as people who rode in on American tanks.

Al Maliki emerged as a key behind-the-scenes player, helping draft the contentious constitution and serving on a panel to purge Iraq of former members of Saddam's Baath party. Born in the town of Hindiya in 1950, he headed a national defence committee in Iraq's previous parliament and was instrumental in creating tough 'anti-terrorism' laws against the insurgency that are yet to be enforced.

Al Maliki, a father of five, received a Masters degree in Arabic literature.

Country's top leaders confirmed by parliament

President Jalal Talabani: A leader of Iraq's Kurdish minority, he is serving a second term as president. Talabani, born in 1933, founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in 1975, one of the two main Kurdish parties that fought Saddam Hussain and has jointly ruled the Kurds' autonomous zone in the north since the 1990s. He had open disputes with outgoing prime minister Ebrahim Al Jaafari, a key cause of his removal.

Parliament Speaker Mahmoud Al Mashhadani: A Sunni Arab activist with Islamic fundamentalist groups opposed to Saddam's rule in the 1980s and 1990s, he succeeds Sunni Hajim Al Hassani in the post. Born in 1948 in a Shiite district of Baghdad, Al Mashhadani trained as a doctor was arrested twice by Saddam's regime, in the 1980s and in 2000. He was elected to parliament as part of the main Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front.

Vice-President Adil Abdul Mahdi: A leading member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the biggest Shiite party, he is serving a second term as vice president. He served as minister of finance in Eyad Allawi's government. Born in 1942, he is the French-educated son of a respected Shiite cleric who was a Cabinet minister in Iraq's monarchy. Abdul Mahdi lost the alliance's nomination for the prime minister's position to Al Jaafari by a single vote last February.

Vice-President Tariq Al Hashimi: Head of the Iraqi Islamic party, which now operates under the umbrella of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the first major alliance established within the Sunni Arab community. He is loosely associated with Egypt's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood and his party was the sole Sunni group to participate in the January 2005 elections. He was born in Baghdad in 1942 and is the grandson of an Ottoman general. Al Hashimi strongly opposes autonomous regions in Iraq, supports removing Shiite militiamen from security forces, and undoing the purging of former Baathists.

Deputy Speaker Khalid Al Attiyah: A cleric who is an independent lawmaker within the Shiite alliance that holds the majority in parliament. Born in 1949 outside the southern city of Diwaniyah, he studied Islamic jurisprudence at the Shiite seminary in the holy city of Najaf. He fled Iraq in 1979 after being arrested several times, moving between Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Latin America and Britain, working in academic and religious institutions. Was head of the Islamic Studies department at Oxford University from 2000 to 2004.

Deputy Speaker Arif Tayfour: A leading member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, he spent short periods in exile in Iran and Austria. He returned to the northern Kurdistan region when it gained de facto autonomy after the 1991 Gulf War and served in the KDP's Political Bureau. Born in 1945 in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah.