According to Iraqi media, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) last month elected Ayad Al-Samarra’i as head of the Party. According to the report:
Iraqi Islamic Party re-elected today Ayad Al-Samarra’i as chairman, pointing out that he rejected any US forces stay, and expressed concern over the extension of the security agreement without resorting to the parliament and warning that any change in border lines of any province will lead to a dangerous sectarian conflict, official sources said here. The source told Aswat al-Iraq that the electorates decided the political bureau of the party. On the security agreement, Samarra’i stressed “the rejection of any foreign presence on the Iraqi soil, and the government failed to use the previous period to strengthen its security forces”. “The presence of some political parties is attached to the existence of foreign forces, thus they try to renew the agreement”, he confirmed. He pointed out that the party adopts ” high non-centralism with the provinces so they do not need to make regions”. Samarra’i warned that any change in the existing border demarcations will be the beginning of a new sectarian conflict. Mr. Samarra’i is an MP for the Tawafuq bloc, affiliated with the Iraqi Middle Coalition, and was the head of the financial commission in the previous parliamentary session, then was elected a the speaker of the parliament. “
Although the report says Al-Samarra’s was “re-elected”, this appears to be an error as the IIP website lists him as the Party’s Deputy-Secretary General who was chosen for that post in May 2009. As discussed in a post from May 2009, Usama al-Tikriti had previously been chosen to head the IIP. Knowledgable sources report that Usama Al-Tikriti has also been serving as the General Guide (leader) for the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq and is likely to retain that position. Usama al-Tikriti is also the father of Anas al-Tikriti, the former leader of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and now a leader in the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), both part of the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood.
According to a profile posted on globalsecurity.org, the IIP is strongly tied to Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood:
The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), established in 1960, is the major Sunni political organization in the country …The party was suppressed during the regime of former President Saddam Hussein. Many of its members were forced to flee the country. The party returned to public life after coalition forces occupied Iraq. The IIP seeks to preserve the leading role Sunnis have had in running the country starting with the establishment of the modern Iraqi state in the beginning of the 20th century. The Iraqi Islamic Party was formed as an Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood organization, and conducted underground work during the Baathist period. Thee party does not considers itself a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood Group, established in Egypt in 1994, nor a political front for it in Iraq. The Iraqi Islamic Party acknowledges strong ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood through political and intellectual alliances.