BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The following is brief information about key members of Iraq's interim government.

    President: Ghazi Yawar

    Ghazi Yawar, 46, the leader of tribe of Shamar,which is a huge and powerful tribe in Iraq and neighboring countries including Saudi Arabia. He is a Sunni Muslim.

    As the eldest among four brothers in his family,he finished hisprimary and secondary schools in the northern major city of Mosul,where he lives now. He obtained a Bachelor's degree at the University of Petrol and Mineral Engineering in Saudi Arabia. Later he joined George Washington University in the United States to obtain a Master 's degree in civil engineering. He left Iraq when Saddam Hussein's army invaded neighboring Kuwait in 1990 and then returned to his homeland after the collapse of Saddam's regime. During his stay in Saudi Arabia he established his prosperous communication company there.

    He was selected as a member of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC)in July 2003 and took over the rotating presidency of the IGC on May 17, 2004 after his colleague Izzedeen Salim was killed in a suicide attack in Baghdad. On June 1, he was nominated as the Iraqi President.

    He is married and has three sons, with the eldest aged 18.

    Prime Minister: Iyad Allawi

    Allawi, born in 1945, is a Shiite Muslim. As the grandson of a famous physician, Allawi became a surgeon and continued to study medicine after he left Iraq in 1971.

    In the 1970s, he turned against former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party and became a prominent political exile,founding the Iraqi National Accord Movement based in Amman. The group, composed of ex-Baathists and disaffected officers, failed to oust Saddam in a 1996 coup attempt but moved back to Baghdad after Saddam fell in April 2003.

    While in exile, Allawi established links with the CIA and British intelligence services -- an association that nearly cost him his life when agents sent by Saddam tried to kill him with an ax in his London home in 1978.

    As secular Shiite who opposed Saddam Hussein from exile, Allawiwas named prime minister on May 28, though he was not seen as the first choice of the UN envoy who was helping US and Iraqi officials pick the interim government.

    Foreign Minister: Hoshiyar Zebari

    Zebari was born in the northern Kurdish town of Aqra in 1953. Zebari studied political science in Jordan and went on to earn a Master's degree in sociology from Britain's Essex University in 1979.The same year he joined the central committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and became an energetic lobbyist for the rights of Iraq's Kurdish minority. He headed the KDP's international relations office for 15 years.

    He returned to Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein in 2003. He was appointed foreign minister of the IGC in September 2003 and remains his post in the interim government established onJune 1, 2004.

    Minister of Defense: Hazem Shaalan

    Shaalan, a Shiite Muslim, was born in the southern Iraq city ofDiwaniya in 1947. Shaalan earned degrees in economics and management from Baghdad University in the early 1970s and then managed several branches of the Iraqi Real Estate Bank across southern Iraq.

    He was forced to leave Iraq in 1985 because of his opposition to the regime, going into exile in Britain, where he oversaw a real estate company.

    After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, Shaalan returned to Iraq and was appointed governor of Diwaniya, in the Shiite-dominated south.

    Minister of Interior: Falah Nakib

    Nakib was born into a prominent military family in the Sunni-dominated town of Samarra, north of Baghdad. Nakib's father was a chief of staff in the 1960s. Falah Nakib, 48, was trained as a civil engineer, completing some of his education in the United States. He was a member of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congressmovement in exile, spending time in Syria, before joining the Iraqi National Movement, a Sunni offshoot of the INC headed by Nakib's father.

    After Saddam's overthrow, Nakib returned to Iraq. In early thisyear, he was appointed governor of Salahaddin province, encompassing the towns of Samarra and Tikrit.

    Oil Minister: Thamir Ghadhban

    Ghadhban was born in 1945 in Babil province, south of Baghdad. Ghadhban earned a degree in geology from University College Londonand a Master's degree in petroleum reservoir engineering from London's Imperial College, then returned to Iraq and worked as an Oil Ministry reservoir engineer.

    For three decades he headed ministry departments and he was named its chief executive officer after last year's invasion. Earlier in his career he was detained and demoted for supporting democratic reforms. He is considered the foremost oil expert in the country with the world's largest reserves after Saudi Arabia. Enditem