Ezzedine Salim

As council president he was the most senior Iraqi official to be killed since the start of the American-led occupation.

In response to the killing the IGC announced that although Mr Salim was not the actual head of state, a state funeral would be held in his honour.

The veteran Shia politician spent his whole adult life battling the Baathist regime of ousted Iraqi leader



Saddam Hussein.

US administrator for Iraq



Paul Bremer said Mr Salim had "worked tirelessly for the interests of Iraq... and the birth of a democratic Iraq".

Teacher turned activist

Mr Salim's real name was Abdulzahra Othman Mohammad.

Ezzedine Salim was in fact a nom de guerre that he adopted to evade Iraqi agents while living in exile for more than 20 years.

He became widely known by the new name and continued to use it even after he returned to Iraq last year.

Born in the southern city of Basra in 1940, Mr Salim was working as a history teacher when he first became involved in politics in response to the repression of the Shia population of Iraq.

He was one of the founding members of Islamic Dawa Party - one of the biggest Shia political movements in Iraq - which began in the late 1950s.

The aim of the party, which was based on an association of Shia scholars in Najaf, was to stem the tide of what it saw as the pervasive influence of atheism and the Iraqi Communist movement, as well as the repression of Shia's by Saddam Hussein and his fellow Sunni supporters.

Forced to flee

During the 1980s, the party staged several assassination attempts on Saddam Hussein.

The regime's response was ruthless and many members of the party were killed.

According to Harith Ibrahim, a former Iraqi opposition figure still in exile in Britain, who knew Mr Salim, the slain leader was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein from 1974-78.

In the 1980s Mr Salim fled to Iran, but once established there he broke from the Dawa Party and founded the Dawa Islamic Movement, Harakat Al-Dawa Al-Islamiyya.

BBC Arab affairs correspondent Magdi Abdelhadi says the split is thought to have occurred because of disagreements over organisational matters, rather than because of ideological differences.

Mr Salim was still secretary-general of the Dawa Movement when he was killed.

Prolific writer

Described by colleagues as a poet and philosopher, Mr Salim was a political activist who preferred to wage his war against Saddam Hussein with the pen rather than the sword.

The editor of several newspapers and magazines during his exile in Iran, he churned out reams of pamphlets and articles speaking out against the Baathist leadership.

But his writing did not end there, he also wrote historical pieces, novels and an prize-winning study of the Prophet Mohammed's daughter.

"Mr Salim's death will be felt keenly by all who knew him and all who serve the new Iraq. His humility, gentle manner and learning endeared him to all," Mr Bremer said in tribute.