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Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani
Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani
محمد شياع السوداني
	Al Sudani in 2024
Prime Minister of Iraq
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; 27 October 2022
President	Abdul Latif Rashid
Preceded by	Mustafa Al-Kadhimi
Minister of Industry and Minerals
	In office; 14 August 2016 – 25 October 2018
Prime Minister	Haider al-Abadi
Preceded by	Nasser Al Esawi
Succeeded by	Salih Abdullah al-Jubouri
Minister of Labour and Social Affairs
	In office; 14 September 2014 – 25 October 2018
Prime Minister	Haider al-Abadi
Preceded by	Nassar al-Rubaye
Succeeded by	Bassem al-Rubaye
Minister of Human Rights
	In office; 21 December 2010 – 18 October 2014
Prime Minister	Nouri al-Maliki
Preceded by	Wijdan Michael Salim
Succeeded by	Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati
Governor of Maysan Province
	In office; 2009–2010
Prime Minister	Nouri al-Maliki
Preceded by	Adil Mahwadar Radi
Succeeded by	Ali Dawai Lazem
Personal details
Born	Mohammed Shia' Sabbar Hatem al-Sudani; 4 March 1970 (age 54); Baghdad, Iraqi Republic
Political party	Al-Furatayn (2019–present) ; Dawa (until 2019)
Alma mater	University of Baghdad
Profession	Politician
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Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani (Arabic: محمد شياع السوداني; born 4 March 1970) is an Iraqi politician who has been the Prime Minister of Iraq since 27 October 2022. Prior to his premiership, he held a number of ministerial positions; namely, Minister of Industry and Minerals, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, acting Minister of Trade, acting Minister of Finance, acting Minister of Migration and Displacement,^[3] acting Minister of Agriculture,^[4] and Minister of Human Rights.^[5]^[6] He was Governor of Maysan in 2009–2010.^[7]

Early life

Al-Sudani was born in Baghdad, on 4 March 1970, to a middle-class Shia Arab family.^[8] Hailing originally from the province of Maysan in southern Iraq, his father worked as an employee at the Agricultural Cooperative Bank of Iraq.^[9] At the age of 10, al-Sudani witnessed the execution of his father and five other family members for being members of the Islamic Dawa Party; a banned party at the time, that opposed Ba'athist rule in Iraq.

Al-Sudani holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Baghdad in Agricultural Science and a master's degree in Project Management. He is married and has four sons.

Sudani participated in the 1991 uprisings that began after the end of the Gulf War. In 1997, he was appointed to Maysan Agriculture Office, in which he was the Head of Kumait City Agriculture department, Head of Ali Al-Sharqi City Agriculture department, Head of Agricultural Production department and the supervisor Engineer in the National Research Program with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

After the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies in 2003, Sudani worked as a coordinator between the Maysan Province administration and the Coalition Provisional Authority. In 2004 he was appointed Mayor of Amarah City. In 2005 he was elected as a member of Maysan Province Council. He was reelected in 2009 and appointed governor by the council.

Career

Iraqi Minister of Human Rights

He was appointed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as the Minister of Human Rights after the 2010 parliamentary election, being approved by parliament on 21 December 2010.

His ministry was in charge of finding Mass graves in Iraq that occurred during the regime of Saddam Hussein. Two such instances were reported in 2011, One in Anbar and another in Al Diwaniyah.^[10]^[11]

During 2011, he was briefly chairman of the Supreme National De-Baathification Commission|Justice and Accountability Commission for De-Ba'athification, which had the power to bar individuals from government for links to the former ruling Ba'ath Party.^{[citation needed]}

He coordinated with the ministry of migration to help Iraqi citizens residing in Syria to return to Iraq during the Syrian Civil War.^[12]

He was minister in August 2014 when thousands of Yazidis were massacred in northern Iraq by the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh). He described it as "a vicious atrocity" and said it was the "responsibility of the international community to take a firm stand against the Daesh" and to "start the war on Daesh to stop genocides and atrocities against civilians".^[13] He asked the United Nations Human Rights Council to launch an investigation into crimes against civilians committed by ISIS. He described their crimes as amounting to genocide and crimes against humanity.^[14] "We are facing a terrorist monster", he explained. "Their movement must be curbed. Their assets should be frozen and confiscated. Their military capacities must be destroyed."^[15]

He was moved to the ministry of Labor in 2014, and his post in the ministry of human rights was succeeded by Mohammed Mahdi Ameen al-Bayati in October 2014, when the government of Haider al-Abadi took office.^[16]

Prime minister

In a bid to end the 2022 Iraqi political crisis, the coordination framework officially nominated al-Sudani for the post of prime minister in May 2022.^[17] He succeeded in forming a government, which was approved by the Council of Representatives on 27 October.^[18]

In January 2023, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, al-Sudani defended the presence of U.S. troops in his country and set no timetable for their withdrawal, referring to the U.S. and NATO troop contingents that train and assist Iraqi units in countering Islamic State, but largely stay out of combat, though he mentioned that the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq is no longer needed.^[19]

The Economist has said that al-Sudani is affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the state-sponsored militia umbrella organization that unites different armed factions, and his tenure has seen their influence further increase in Iraq.^[20] His government has increased the number of troops for the PMF by 116,000, increasing the total number to around 230,000, and has set its budget to US$2.7 billion. It has also launched a building company affiliated with the PMF, named after killed PMF commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis; the company gives preferential access to government contractors and the government has awarded the company with strategic land.^[20]

On 20 July 2023, al-Sudani expelled the Swedish ambassador to Iraq and revoked work permits for Swedish companies after Sweden approved a planned Quran burning.^[21]

On 10 October 2023, al-Sudani arrived in Moscow and met with Russian president Vladimir Putin.^[22] On 21 October 2023, he called for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war.^[23] During a meeting with Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, he described the Hamas attack on Israel as "a result of years of criminal policies of the Zionist regime against the people of Gaza."^[24]

On 17 February 2024, he met with German chancellor Olaf Scholz in Munich while he was attending the Munich Security Conference where he met with various world leaders.^[25]

In April 2024, al-Sudani condemned the Israeli bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus.^[26] Also in this same month he visited the United States and met with President Joe Biden.^[27] Also he received the Turkish president Recep Teyyip Erdogan and they signed a revolutionary project called the Iraq Development Road.^[28]

In May 2024, he attended the memorial ceremony for late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash, in Iranian capital, Tehran.^[29]

In September of 2024 at the UNGA he condemned the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and met various leaders who discussed with him bilateral relations.^[30]