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Gulf investors are launching a new $10 billion Islamic bank and plan a $3 billion initial public offering in the fourth quarter to tap interest in sharia-compliant institutions, bank executives announced on April 19.

Adnan Ahmed Yousif, chairman of the Union of Arab Banks told Reuters on the sidelines of a banking conference in Dubai that the new bank was in the "final stages" of establishing its founding shareholders and would be formed by the end of 2009.

Demand from the world's 1.3 billion Muslims for investments that comply with their beliefs has soared, and assets that comply with Islamic law are estimated at between $700 million $1 trillion.
Islam bans interest, investing in prohibited sectors such as gambling, pornography and alcohol and stipulates that risk and reward be shared among all those in the business venture.

Saudi Arabian businessman Sheikh Saleh Kamel is behind the plan, which has been in the pipeline for at least two years. Kamel earlier owned National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia which was later taken over by the Saudi Government. He is ranked 114th on the Forbes list of the World's richest people. He is worth $5.73 billion currently and has business interest in coded TV channels for Middle East, Africa and North and South America.

"The bank has raised $3.5 billion including $1 billion from the management. We are hopeful it will be ready by the fourth quarter," Sheikh Saleh told Reuters, adding that bankers were still choosing a name for the bank.

Yousif said the bank had attracted eight shareholders so far as part of the private placement, including private and semi-governmental Gulf investors.

Yousif, who is the chief executive of Al Baraka Banking Group BARKA.BH, said Al Baraka was still considering whether to invest.

"By the end of the year, you will have a private placement and an IPO," Yousif said.

"The IPO will be about $3 billion and will be listed in Bahrain and Dubai," he said, adding it would be listed NASDAQ Dubai and would take place in the fourth quarter.

Ernst & Young is advising on the bank's formation, Yousif said.

Iraq's government has recorded 87,215 of its citizens killed since 2005 in violence ranging from catastrophic bombings to execution-style slayings, according to government statistics obtained by The Associated Press that break open one of the most closely guarded secrets of the war.

Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and an in-depth review of available evidence by The Associated Press, the figures show that more than 110,600 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The number is a minimum count of violent deaths. The official who provided the data to the AP, on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity, estimated the actual number of deaths at 10 to 20 per cent higher because of thousands who are still missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official records.

The Health Ministry has tallied death certificates since 2005, and late that year the United Nations began using them — along with hospital and morgue figures — to publicly release casualty counts. But by early 2007, when sectarian violence was putting political pressure on the U.S. and Iraqi governments, the Iraqi numbers disappeared. The United Nations "repeatedly asked for that cooperation" to resume but never received a response, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said on April 23.

The data obtained by the AP measure only violent deaths — people killed in attacks such as the shootings, bombings, mortar attacks and beheadings that have ravaged Iraq. It excluded indirect factors such as damage to infrastructure, health care and stress that caused thousands more to die.
Authoritative statistics for 2003 and 2004 do not exist. But Iraq Body Count, a private, British-based group, has tallied civilian deaths from media reports and other sources since the war's start. The AP reviewed the Iraq Body Count analysis and confirmed its conclusions by sifting the data and consulting experts. The AP also interviewed experts involved with previous studies, prominent Iraq analysts and provincial and medical officials to determine that the new tally was credible.

The AP also added its own tabulation of deaths since Feb. 28, the last date in the Health Ministry count.

The three figures add up to more than 110,600 Iraqis who have died in the war.

That total generally coincides with the trends reported by reputable surveys, which have been compiled either by tallying deaths reported by international journalists, or by surveying samplings of Iraqi households and extrapolating the numbers.

Iraq Body Count's estimate of deaths since the start of the war, excluding police and soldiers, is a range — between 91,466 and 99,861.

The numbers show just how traumatic the war has been for Iraq. In a nation of 29 million people, the deaths represent 0.38 percent of the population. Proportionally, that would be like the United States losing 1.2 million people to violence in the four-year period; about 17,000 people are murdered every year in the U.S.

Security has improved since the worst years, but almost every person in Iraq has been touched by the violence.

The Health Ministry figures indicate such violence was tremendously deadly. Of the 87,215 deaths, 59,957 came in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian attacks soared and death squads roamed the streets. The period was marked by catastrophic bombings and execution-style killings.

The death toll in Iraq has been a hotly disputed subject because of the high political stakes in a war opposed by many countries and by a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side accuse the other of manipulating the death numbers to sway opinion.