The Shia Muslim community mourn Imam Hussain Ali’s death by flagellating themselves with sharp objects on Muharram. Imam Hussain’s death is interpreted by the Shia community as a symbol of the struggle against injustice, tyranny, and oppression.

In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on 16 July 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.

The doctor also said he operated on Uday many times and Uday never had a body double. A former CIA case officer in Iraq, who claimed to know every asset in Iraq at the time and had friends who were close to the Hussein brothers, had never heard of Yahia, nor heard of Uday ever using doubles.

Uday seemed proud of his reputation and called himself Abu Sarhan, an Arabic term for “wolf”.

Before Uday was killed in a shootout with U.S. troops, he is said to have acquired as many as 1300 vehicles, spread out in seven garages and all over the countryside. Uday’s automotive menagerie was pruned in 1993, when his father accused him of disloyalty and in revenge destroyed some 50 of his cars.

Following the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was killed alongside Qusay and his nephew Mustafa by an American task force after a prolonged gunfight in Mosul.

Uday Hussein

After Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003, Iraq’s new leaders struggled to chart a democratic course after decades of dictatorship. Iraq suffered through a civil war, political turmoil, widespread corruption, sectarian tensions and an extremist insurgency that seized a third of the country.