Lots of media outlets are jumping today on an Iraqi media report that Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the nominal head of the Iraqi Baʿath Party (“nominal” because the Baʿath Party is legally banned in Iraq nowadays) and one of the leaders (or possibly the leader, or possibly just an occasional adviser) of the ISIS-aligned (sort of, at least by convenience) Naqshbandi Army, was killed by the Iraqi army outside of Tikrit. Douri was the number 2 man in the Iraqi Baʿath Party while Saddam was still alive, then assumed the top spot when Saddam was executed in 2006. He was designated the “King of Clubs” in that deck of cards the Bush administration produced to designate “Iraq’s Most Wanted” following the 2003 invasion, and was easily the biggest name on that list still remaining at large.
Being “King of Clubs” in that deck meant that Douri was around #6 on the most wanted list, and that was back in 2003. If anything, he’s become even more infamous since then. As the military commander/spiritual leader of the Naqshbandi Army (Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqah al-Naqshbandiyah, or JRTN, in Arabic) he’s been leading a group of somewhere north of 5000 angry Baʿathists (heck of a job, Bushies!) looking to restore the old Saddam-era order to the country. It seems that (probably) in 2006, a militant part of the Iraqi Baʿath Party assumed the name “Naqshbandi,” after a very popular Sufi order that was founded in the 14th century and was popular in Iraq under Saddam, despite the fact that the actual Naqshbandi order has never been known for practicing violence.
In spite of their nationalist, secular/Sufi orientation, JRTN started working with the pan-Islamist, Sunni extremist ISIS years ago, back when it was still just ISI (Islamic State in Iraq). Back then JRTN provided money and technical expertise to ISI, which then carried out attacks, but when ISIS began to recast itself as a real army in the caliphal (empire-building) style, it looked to JRTN’s experienced Baʿathist officers to command its fighters on the battlefield and capitalized on JRTN’s prestige to cultivate support within Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. This is a pure alliance of convenience that probably wouldn’t last 10 minutes if these folks actually managed to conquer Iraq (and in fact there have been reported clashes between JRTN and ISIS fighters in the past), but a mutual hatred of Baghdad and the US has kept them mostly together so far.
Assuming Douri really is dead, and it sounds like he is although these kinds of reports sometimes wind up being wrong, then that’s definitely a blow to JRTN’s, and thus ISIS’s, capabilities. I mean, let’s be realistic; Douri was 72, and it’s not clear whether he was actively running JRTN or just serving as a sort of inspiration or figurehead. Still, it’s usually not a bad thing when somebody like this kicks the bucket.
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 
