Ibrahim al-Jaafari, 59, was Iraq's second prime minister after the downfall of Saddam Hussein regime. He emerged as the clear favourite for the most powerful position in Iraq's government after the country held its first free election in January 2005, choosing an interim government. The party al-Jaafari represented won the most seats in parliament.

Al-Jaafari, a Shia Muslim, represented a broad alliance of Shias in the United Iraqi Alliance party. Shias make up 60 per cent of the population of Iraq, but al-Jaafari said he was committed to including all the different groups in the country's political process.

The results of a December 2005 election to choose a full-term parliament again gave the Shias the most seats – but not enough to form a majority government. Although the Shia alliance nominated al-Jaafari to serve a second term as prime minister, Kurd and Sunni Muslim politicians objected.

Al-Jaafari stepped aside to allow fellow Shia, Jawad al-Maliki, to be nominated as prime minister-designate in April 2006.

Al-Jaafari's initial appointment after the January 2005 election marked a turnaround for Iraqi Shias and Kurds, who for decades were oppressed under the rule of Saddam's government.

"I'm faced with a big responsibility, and I pray to God that everyone will work hand in hand," al-Jaafari said at the National Assembly in Baghdad in 2005.

Spent 20 years in exile

Al-Jaafari spent more than 20 years in exile during Saddam's regime, working with the opposition in Iran and Britain.

A medical doctor by education, al-Jaafari first joined the Islamic Dawa party in 1968. The party organized a rebellion against Saddam in the late 1970s. The regime began to brutally oppress Dawa members, and al-Jaafari fled Iraq to escape persecution.

With the backing of the Shia regime in Iran, he continued his work in the opposition, first in Iran and then in Britain. Al-Jaafari belonged to the Dawa political wing when the group bombed the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait and the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut, but he has denied any involvement in these attacks.

Al-Jaafari returned to Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam's regime and was picked by the U.S. to serve in the interim governing council. Apparently, al-Jaafari and Paul Bremer, the top representative of the U.S. authority in Iraq at the time, bonded over their mutual passion for gourmet cuisine.

After the handover of power in June of 2004, al-Jaafari served as vice-president in the lead-up to the January 2005 election.

Touted as a moderate man

Al-Jaafari, married to a surgeon with whom he has five children, was widely seen as a soft-spoken, modest man with moderate views.

As prime minister, he supported an active role for women in government and in society. He said he believed in mending the divisions between Iraq's religious and ethnic groups. And he espoused a moderate view on the role of Islam in the country's politics.

Al-Jaafari's critics, such as his predecessor Iyad Allawi, said they did not believe that a leader of the Dawa party, with its close ties to Iran's Islamic government, could hold moderate views on religion. "We believe in liberal Iraq and not Iraq governed by political Islamists," said Allawi in February 2005.

One of Al-Jaafari's biggest challenges was to try to unify the government so that it included all of the different voices – including those of the Sunnis, who in large numbers had boycotted the first election that brought him to power. His other big political challenge was to justify the presence of the U.S. military in Iraq – which was unpopular with many citizens when he was appointed prime minister.

But al-Jaafari's position on the U.S. invasion of Iraq has stood firm. As he said in an interview with Time magazine, "The U.S. liberated Iraq from Saddam, and for that we will forever be grateful."