stly poor, had been kept out of the political and economic power structure of Iraq. The Shias were restive even before Khomeni took power. In 1969 with the formation of the Al Daawa al Iamiya (the Islamic Call), they emerged as a significant potentially subversive force within Iraq. The Baathist party, which dominated Iraqi politics after 1968, had alternatingly suppressed and offered economic and other inducements to the Shias. After mid 1979, Saddam Hussein implemented what Dilip Hiro characterized as "merciless repression of Al Dawaa" (25). On Hussein's orders, Shia Ayatollah Baqr Sadr and his sister were tortured and killed in June, 1980. Their killings followed an attempted assassination by Al Dawaa activists of Hussein's close associate, Tariq Aziz, then Minister of Information, in April 1980 and other disturbances among the Shia. Despite the fact that Iran was in constant turmoil throughout 1979 and 1980, Khome
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