Bayan Jabr became a Shiite activist while studying engineering at Baghdad University in the 1970s. He fled to Iran amid a Saddam crackdown on Shiite political groups and joined the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). He later headed SCIRI's office in Syria. After Saddam's fall, he became minister of housing and reconstruction in the first U.S.-picked provisional cabinet. He is a senior member in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.