Sheikh Khamis Farhan Ali al-Khanjar al-Issawi—The ‘Swashbuckling’ Millionaire Turned Sunni Iraqi Politician
Sheikh Khamis Farhan Ali al-Khanjar al-Issawi—The ‘Swashbuckling’ Millionaire Turned Sunni Iraqi Politician
The Salafist-jihadist Islamic State (IS) organization has been regaining strength in the Sunni Arab majority areas of central, western, and northern Iraq over the course of the last year. Leaders of the Iraqi Sunni Arab armed groups that have fought against IS, and other Iraqi Sunni Arab notables, have been the subject of a growing campaign of assassination and the targeted destruction of their properties by IS operatives. As a result of this IS campaign, an increasing number of Sunni Arab leaders are distancing themselves from the Shia-dominated Iraqi central government, which is currently led by Prime Minister Adil Abd al-Mahdi, who is believed to be close to Iran. One of the most powerful Sunni Arab Iraqi leaders who still works closely with the current Iraqi government under the leadership of Prime Minister al-Mahdi is Sheikh Khamis Farhan Ali al-Khanjar al-Issawi.
Sheikh Khamis, 54, is one of the most controversial and prominent Sunni Arab businessmen in Iraq, and increasingly since the campaign against IS began in 2014, one of the more public and important socio-political leaders within the Iraqi Sunni Arab community. In the period after the fall of the Saddam Hussein government in 2003 and prior to the start of the war against IS in 2014, Sheikh Khamis served more as a quiet powerbroker within Iraq’s Sunni Arab community, while retaining a public political role within that community, at times supporting the Shia-dominated central government in Baghdad, and at other times actively opposing it. [1] Currently, Sheikh Khamis is the secretary general of the “Arab Project in Iraq,” which is a political party that seeks to create pan-communal cooperation in Iraq after the war against IS, but is also especially concerned with the state of Iraq’s Sunni community, which has suffered mass casualties, mass displacement, and large-scale property loss over the course of the war against IS (Iraq Newspaper [Baghdad], September 26; YouTube, May 9, 2018; YouTube, February 15, 2017).
Sheikh Khamis is a native of the restive city of Fallujah, in central-western Iraq, and is also one of the powerbrokers within the Albu Issa Arab tribal confederation, one of the larger and more powerful Arab tribal organizations within Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. The Albu Issa Arab tribal confederation claims to have three million members, the majority of which are in central, western, and northern Iraq (YouTube, August 20; Ahewar, October 16, 2011). Although Sheikh Khamis does not come from a sheikhly lineage from within the Albu Issa, as a result of his personal fortune and the wide range of charitable and humanitarian projects that he finances, especially for Iraq’s Sunni Arab community, he is believed to have obtained the rank of sheikh within his tribe (YouTube, August 20; al-Jazeera [Doha], June 9, 2016). [2]
Prior to the removal of the Saddam Hussein government by the U.S.-led Coalition in 2003, Sheikh Khamis helped run his family’s mercantile agricultural business, which was based in Baghdad, utilizing the family’s farmland in Anbar and Salah al-Din governorates, and was especially focused on cross-border trade into and out of Iraq. Sheikh Khamis is believed to have run the family’s trade in sheep, which was especially dependent on the use of trucks to move livestock into and out of Iraq and allegedly allowed him the opportunity to oversee a burgeoning business in bringing illicit goods into Iraq (al-Balad News [Baghdad], April 17, 2013). He is further alleged to have gone into business with Saddam Hussein’s sons during the 1990s, at the height of the United Nations-imposed sanctions regime on Iraq, moving cigarettes and luxury goods into Iraq, and also oil out of Iraq to be sold on the black market (al-Masalah [Baghdad], November 11, 2016; Reuters, June 1, 2016; Ahewar, October 16, 2011).
It was during the 1990s that Sheikh Khamis first left Iraq to establish satellite offices of his family’s business in the Gulf, especially in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. During that time, he is believed to have developed a close friendship with the ruling family of Qatar and became familiar with several member of the Saudi royal family (al-Jazeera [Doha], June 9, 2016). Since the 1990s, Sheikh Khamis has steadily built up his business into a multinational enterprise with interests throughout the Middle East, in Europe, Asia, and in the United States (The Daily Beast, July 12, 2017; Reuters, June 1, 2016; Ahewar, October 16, 2011). He has actively tried to court policymakers in the United States, where he has retained an active lobbying effort through prominent Washington, D.C. firms (Politico, June 14; Reuters, June 1, 2016). Sheikh Khamis is believed to be a close personal friend of Qatar’s current ruler, Sheikh Tamim al-Thani, and although he is believed to be friendly with the Saudi royal family, his close relationship with the Emir of Qatar is believed to have led to tensions between Sheikh Khamis and leading Saudi officials. [3]
In addition to his role as a businessman and politician, Sheikh Khamis has also been a major financier of armed groups within the Sunni Arab community in Iraq, especially in and around his ancestral home in Fallujah. During the war against IS, he helped fund the recruitment, mobilization and arming of at least 5,000 fighters, especially from the Albu Issa tribe in and around Fallujah, to fight IS (YouTube, May 27, 2016). [4] These Sunni Arab tribal fighters, although not formally under the command of Sheikh Khamis, continue to be mobilized and are being incorporated into the Hash Shaabi (PMU-Popular Mobilization Units) structure (YouTube, November 14, 2016). His influence over Sunni Arab PMUs in Anbar governorate, an area of high interest for both the government in Baghdad and for foreign actors, increases his leverage on Iraq’s socio-politics and security dynamics. [5] However, prior to the war against IS, Sheikh Khamis was notoriously linked to providing funds for Sunni Arab armed groups that fought against the U.S.-led Coalition and the Iraqi government in Anbar and Salah al-Din governorates, including allegations that his funding supported armed groups that were tied to Salafist-jihadist organizations, including al-Qaeda in Iraq (The Daily Beast, July 12, 2017; Reuters, June 1, 2016; Kitabat [Baghdad], February 1, 2013). In 2015, he was also charged—though never put on trial or convicted—by the Iraqi state for being tied to financing fighters who supported IS, a charge that fits detractors’ general narrative that he is a sketchy figure who supports violent extremist Sunni Islamist organizations in Iraq (Okaz [Riyadh], July 29; The Economist, January 5, 2017; al-Jazeera [Doha], June 9, 2016).
Sheikh Khamis is one of the most powerful Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders with a demonstrable base of influence and power in the Sunni-majority, formerly IS-controlled areas of Iraq. In the post-IS period, Sheikh Khamis is also the closest that the Sunni Arab-majority communities of Iraq have to a champion who is able to move freely and is welcomed in capitals across the Middle East, in Europe, and in the United States. Also, steadily since 2003, Sheikh Khamis has become one of the few spokespersons for Iraq’s Sunni Arab community who has credibility with both Saudi Arabia and Iran, even if he has disputes with powerful foreign backers of the community, such as Saudi Arabia. This fact makes him an important person of interest for powerful foreign actors-especially the United States, Iran, and Saudi Arabia-seeking to have a dominant role in the future of Iraq. His personal importance to the effort of stabilizing the Sunni-majority areas of western and central Iraq is becoming more emphasized, especially as IS has begun to surge again in these areas of Iraq. Sheikh Khamis may seem to be everything to everyone, which is intentional, as in order to survive the contested, bitter, and frequently deadly game of socio-politics in post-Saddam Iraq, he has to play multiple roles that satisfy multiple, stronger actors, most of whom are foreign powers. This tribal leader turned millionaire turned politician and anti-IS fighter is likely to remain one of the most swashbuckling and key Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq.
Notes
[1] Author interviews with a Washington, D.C. area-based analyst from Iraq who has knowledge of Sheikh Khamis and his relationship with Gulf Arab countries. Interviews conducted in September 2019. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid.
