31.01.2005 - Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Iraqi National Unity Grouping ("original document (English)") [ID 9967]

"Led by 35-year-old Nihru Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Kasanzan al-Husayni, the grouping calls for a national reconciliation among Iraqi ethnic and political groups. He believes that Kirkuk should be a city for all ethnic groups, and claims to have good relations with Kurdish, Arab, and Turkoman parties. He supports a federal Kurdistan. Al-Husayni told "Al-Mashriq" in an 8 December interview that his party did not join the Governing Council "because we felt that this council posed a danger that would entrench abhorrent sectarianism and unleash the hand of political groups that want to meddle in the future of Iraq." Al-Husayni claims that his party lost 50 members who either were killed or disappeared under the regime of Saddam Hussein; he added that members of his family were arrested. He is the son of Sheikh Muhammad al-Kasanzan al-Husayni, who leads the Qadiriyah Al-Kasanzaniyah religious school. Al-Husayni has said that his party will contest January elections on an independent list, rather than forming an alliance with other political parties."

Document(s): original document (English)