Career
First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Sweidawi belonged to the First Rate (at Lloyd's)-bu Swda clan of the Dulaim, the largest tribe in the Iraqi Anbar Province. al-Sweidawi previously served under the Ba"athist regime of Saddam Hussein as a colonel in the Iraqi Army. He also operated in Iraq"s Air Defense Intelligence. Many other ISIL commanders were former officers during the reign of Saddam Hussein such as Haji Bakr, Abu Ahmad al-Alwani, Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani and Abu Ali al-Anbari.
In 2007, he was detained for three years by United States forces in Iraq, presumably at Camp Bucca.
Following his release in 2010, he re-located to Syria where, following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, he coordinated ISIL fighters in the cities of Idlib and Aleppo as well as the mountains of Lattakia, as a senior ISIL commander. The Syrian Armed Opposition accused al-Iraqi of being responsible for the assassinations of Federal Security Agency and opposition figures in Latakia.
Following the outbreak of fighting with other Syrian rebel groups in early 2014, al-Iraqi and his men redeployed to ISIL strongholds in eastern Syria. Despite his senior position within the ISIL hierarchy, very little is known about al-Iraqi.
He has been referred to as a "shadowy persona".
Late on 7 November 2014, a United States airstrike targeted a meeting of top ISIL leaders in Mosul, Iraq, killing 20 ISIL militants, including Abu Ayman al-Iraqi. He was replaced by ISIL War Minister Abu Suleiman al-Naser as ISIL"s Military Chief.
