Adnan Khayr Allah

Adnan was born in Tikrit in 1940, the son of Khairallah Talfah, an Arab nationalist officer in the Iraqi Army who was later involved in the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état and the ensuing Anglo-Iraqi War. Adnan's father was also the maternal uncle of Saddam Hussein, who would later marry Adnan's sister, Sajida. Adnan attended the Baghdad Military College and the Staff College, and later graduated with a degree from the Baghdad University School of Law and Politics in 1975. Since he was fourteen years old, he used to carry a camera with him and he owned an archive of photos of Saddam Hussein and the family and a large collection of photos of the areas in which he served, which tell the story of the development of Iraqi cities and districts ==Ba'ath Party==

Adnan joined the Iraqi branch of the Ba'ath Party in 1956. In 1977, Adnan was appointed as the new Minister of Defence, taking over from Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, then Iraqi President and Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Command of the Ba'ath Party. In this position, he played a crucial role in rebuilding and modernizing the Iraqi military. ==Rift with Saddam==

In November 1988, Uday Hussein, Adnan's nephew and Saddam Hussein's eldest child, was arrested under orders from Saddam following an incident in which Uday was accused of killing Kamel Hana Gegeo, an officer serving as one of Saddam's presidential bodyguards. The scandal caused a rift in the family, with Uday's mother and Adnan's sister, Sajida, appealing to Adnan for help. Adnan then disappeared from public view, amid reports of unrest in the army, a potential coup, and the arrest of several military officers, prompting speculation about the involvement of Adnan in a coup attempt against Saddam. Adnan later resurfaced in early 1989 when video footage was released showing Adnan, Sajida, and Saddam on a fishing holiday near Basra. Following his return to public view, he resumed his regular duties as Defence Minister. ==Death and aftermath==

On 7 May 1989, Saddam Hussein announced that Adnan had died three days earlier in a helicopter crash. Adnan had been travelling by helicopter from Baghdad to Kurdistan region to inspect army positions when he had his flight diverted to meet several members of the Presidential family in the mountain resort of Sarsang, near Dohuk. Although a relative of Saddam's, Adnan remained a popular figure even after the Iraq War and a square named in his honour exists to this day in the al-Karkh area of Baghdad where his statue continued to stand following the fall of Baghdad in 2003, unlike those of other Saddam-era figures which were all immediately removed after the invasion. Reevaluation of Adnan's actions led to the removal of his statue in 2009. ==References==