Samira Shahbandar Jun 2026

She gave him a son, Ali, in 1990 or 1991—the dates are murky, as the regime kept her existence in a fog of state secrecy. The birth of Ali changed the dynamic. Saddam doted on the boy. Ali was charming, Westernized, the son of a mother who spoke English and loved French perfumes. He was everything Uday, the violent and erratic heir, was not. Uday despised Samira. He called her "The Stranger." He saw her son, Ali, as a threat to his inheritance.

The man credited (and later blamed) for this introduction was , Saddam’s personal valet and food taster. Saddam reportedly became infatuated with Samira and pressured Safi to divorce her so that he could marry her himself. The marriage took place in secret in the mid-1980s, while Saddam was still married to his first wife and cousin, Sajida Talfah . Family Tensions and the Murder of Kamel Hana Gegeo samira shahbandar

In 1988, Saddam's eldest son, Uday Hussein, murdered Kamel Hana Gegeo at a party, partly as an act of revenge for Gegeo's role in facilitating the affair between Saddam and Samira. The Iraq War and Exile SAMIRA SHAHBANDAR | Security Council - the United Nations She gave him a son, Ali, in 1990

Life as Saddam’s wife was a study in isolation. Samira was not paraded at state dinners. She did not cut ribbons or give speeches. She was the "invisible" consort, a source of private comfort for a tyrant who trusted no one. Ali was charming, Westernized, the son of a

In subsequent years, interviews surfaced in Western media, most notably with The Sunday Times , where a woman claiming to be Samira described her final meetings with Saddam before he went into hiding. She reportedly fled to Lebanon and later moved to other locations in the Middle East to live in anonymity. Current Status

In the chaotic collapse of the regime, the Shahbandar family vanished. There were reports of her fleeing to Syria, then perhaps to Qatar or Yemen. Unlike Sajida, who was eventually given asylum in Yemen, Samira’s trail went cold. She became a ghost story in the annals of Iraqi history.

The marriage to Samira Shahbandar caused deep fractures within the Hussein household. Saddam’s eldest son, , viewed the union as an insult to his mother, Sajida.