Abadi, Haidar Jawad Kadhim al-

Abadi, Haidar Jawad Kadhim al-,

1952–, Iraqi political leader. A Shiite, Abadi received a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Univ. of Manchester (1981), then lived and worked in exile in Britain during the rule of Saddam HusseinHussein, Saddam
, 1937–2006, Iraqi political leader. A member of the Ba'ath party, he fled Iraq after participating (1959) in an assassination attempt on the country's prime minister; in Egypt he attended law school.
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. Returning to Iraq (2003), he was named communications minister (2003–4). A member of the Dawa party, he was first elected to parliament in 2005, and chaired that body's economic, investment, and reconstruction committee (2006–10) and the finance committee (2011–13), then was deputy speaker of parliament (2014). In 2014, he became Iraqi prime minister, succeeding Nuri Kamal al-MalikiMaliki, Nuri Kamal al-
, 1950–, Iraqi political leader. A Shiite who worked as an education official in Hilla, he was a member and, later, deputy leader of the Dawa party, a Shiite religious party that engaged in armed resistance to Saddam Hussein.
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, whose government had experienced battlefield reverses against the Islamic StateIslamic State
(IS), Sunni Islamic militant group committed to the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that would unite Muslims in a transnational, strict-fundamentalist Islamic state.
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 (IS) and who had lost the confidence of Kurds and Sunni Muslims. A compromise choice, Abadi oversaw the defeat of the IS, successfully balancing relations with the United States and Iran, and generally reduced sectarian and ethnic tensions, although he also forcefully quashed a Kurdish bid for independence. In the 2018 elections, his coalition placed third, and he stepped aside as prime minister.