The Iraqi Islamic Party is the largest Sunni Islamist political party in Iraq as well as the most prominent member of the Iraqi Accord Front political coalition. It is part of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Osama Tawfiq al-Tikriti succeeded Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi as the party's secretary-general on May 24, 2009, who was succeeded in July 2011 by Ayad al-Samarrai.
The IIP evolved out of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and was banned from 1961 during Iraqi nationalist rule, something which continued throughout the reign of the Pan-Arab Ba'ath Party right up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the IIP's religious rather than ethno-political ideology made the party systematically incompatible under the Iraqi governments between 1961 and 2003.
During the 1970s, the IIP began operating in exile in Great Britain and published a newspaper called Dar as-Salam. Iyad al-Samara'i was elected to serve as secretary-general.
Read more about Iraqi Islamic Party: Party Leaders, Post-Invasion, Government Participation, Relationship With US
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