Mr Jafar Mustafa Ali was appointed Minister of State for Peshmerga Affairs in May 2006, and reappointed in the six cabinet on 28 October 2009 following the July 2009 Kurdistan Region parliamentary elections.

Born in 1950 in Qaradagh, Suleimaniah Governorate, Mr Ali joined the Peshmerga in 1969 in the Kurdish liberation movement. Upon the Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq and the collapse of the Kurdish autonomy agreement with Baghdad, in 1975 he joined the Peshmerga resistance in Kurdistan’s mountains.

In 1997, Mr Ali was appointed Deputy Minister of Peshmerga Affairs in the KRG’s Suleimaniah Administration, and in 2004 he was elected to the Kurdistan Parliament. On the unification of the two KRG administrations, he was appointed as Minister for Peshmerga Affairs in 2006.