was later downplayed. The conference elected al-Ahmed as secretary-general, and al-Ahmed issued an order expelling al-Douri from the party, resulting in al-Douri issuing a counter order expelling al-Ahmed and 150 other party members. These events led to the existence, in effect, of two Iraqi Ba'ath Parties: the main party led by al-Douri, and a splinter party led by al-Ahmed. al-Ahmed's Ba'ath Party is based in Syria. It is believed to contain most of the remaining leading party figures who were not arrested or executed, including Mezher Motni Awad, To'ma Di'aiyef Getan, Jabbar Haddoosh, Sajer Zubair, and Nihad alDulaimi. In contrast to al-Douri's group, al-Ahmad's faction has had success in recruiting Shi'as to the party. While al-Ahmed and the faction's senior leaders are Sunnis, there are many Shiites who are working in the organization's middle level. Upon his election as leader, an al-Ahmed's faction statement said he was "of Shia origins and coming from Shia areas in Nineveh governorate". In contrast to al-Ahmed, al-Douri has stuck to a more conservative policy, recruiting members from a largely Sunni-dominated areas. It could be said that al-Ahmed has returned to the Ba'ath Party's original ideology of secular pan-Arab nationalism which, in many cases, has proven successful in Iraq's Shi'a dominated southern provinces. However, despite his attempts, al-Ahmed has failed in his goal to overthrow al-Douri. Al-Douri's faction is the largest and the most active on the Internet, and the large majority of Ba'athist websites are aligned to al-Douri. Another failure is that al-Ahmed's faction, which is based in Syria, does not have exclusive Syrian support and, considering that it is based in Syria, the party is susceptible to Syrian interference in its affairs. However, despite the differences between the al-Douri and al-Ahmed factions, both of them adhere to Ba'athist thought. On 2 January 2012, the Organizations of Central Euphrates and the South (OCES), believed to be headed by Hamed Manfi al-Karafi, issued a statement condemning sectarianism within the party, specifically criticizing al-Douri's faction. The OCES condemned the leadership's decision of creating a primary Sunni leadership and a reserve Shiite leadership. This decision by the al-Douri faction leadership was a response to complaints by Ba'athist organizations in Shiite-dominated areas on what they considered policy errors which led to marginalization and exclusion of Shiite members. The OCES rejected the decision, and considered them illegitimate. In its statement, the OCES stated that "the failure to implement [its]