Majid, Ali Hassan al-

Majid, Ali Hassan al-

(ä`lē hā`sän äl-mäjēd`), 1941–2010, Iraqi general and Ba'athist, cousin of Saddam HusseinHussein, Saddam
, 1937–2006, Iraqi political leader. A member of the Ba'ath party, he fled Iraq after participating (1959) in an assassination attempt on the country's prime minister; in Egypt he attended law school.
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. After Hussein took power (1979), Majid played a pivotal role in the Ba'ath partyBa'ath party
, Arab political party, in Syria and in Iraq. Its main ideological objectives are secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism. Founded in Damascus in 1941 and reformed, with the name Ba'ath, in the early 1950s, it rapidly achieved political power in Syria.
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 purge and occupied a number of government positions, including defense and interior minister, security chief, and head of the Revolutionary Command Council. Named (1987) governor of N Iraq, he became known as "Chemical Ali" for the Anfal Campaign (1988), in which he used chemical weapons to kill an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds; he also employed torture and committed other atrocities. As military governor of Kuwait (1990) he was responsible for the brutalization and murder of many Kuwaitis, and as defense minister (1991–95) he savagely suppressed a Shi'ite revolt and destroyed much of the Marsh Arab population. Commander of the southern region during the U.S. invasion, he was captured in Aug., 2003; later convicted of atrocities in four trials in Iraqi courts, he was sentenced (2007–2010) to death in each and executed after the last trial.