red-haired sufi devil putting in the work...,

telegraph |  Defying the odds after a dozen years as Iraq’s most wanted man, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam Hussein’s former deputy, has emerged as a key figure in the Sunni advances in the north of the country. 

The septagenarian ex-regime hardman has been reported to have joined fighters near his home town Tikrit and even to have paid a visit to the grave of the former dictator in a symbolic moment of return.

The last surviving top ranked member of the US deck of cards of former Ba’athist leaders, Douri is believed to have fled to neighbouring Syria after the US invasion. His death from kidney failure or leukemia has been rumoured several times.

US officials have however insisted that the deck’s King of Spades has played a key role in the insurgency since at least 2004 and offered a $10 million (£5.9m) bounty for his capture or killing.

The former regime loyalists have regrouped into the Naqshabandi Army, whose fighters are believed to have played just as important role as Isis in the blitz on Mosul and other Sunni areas.

Douri surfaced in a video posting at the start of last year that confirmed his continued survival. Using the vivid language that was well known in Saddam’s Iraq, he vowed to destroyed the “Persian” government of Nouri al-Malaki.

It was a key sectarian message that now demonstrates his common cause with the jihadists of Isis.
But the red-headed, dapper Douri was never one to shy away from stark language.

In a confrontation with the Kuwaiti foreign minister just weeks before the 2003 war, he branded the diplomat a “monkey”, adding “I curse your moustache” - a grave insult in the Arab world