Al-Shahwani is a Sunni Turkmen born in either Mosul^[1] or Kirkuk^[2] and began his career as an international athlete; in 1963 he competed in a decathlon in Jakarta, Indonesia where he won a gold medal.^[3] In 1967 he was sent by Iraq to the U.S. Army Ranger School, and in the 1980s he was promoted to head of the Iraqi Special Forces School.^[3] During the first half of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) al-Shahwani was a Brigadier General in charge of a Republican Guard helicopter unit.^[2] He made a name for himself by retaking Kardamand mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan^[1] from an entrenched Iranian force that numbered in the thousands in an air assault; because of this, President Saddam Hussein viewed him as a potential threat and subsequently placed him under the surveillance of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 1984.^[3] He was finally arrested and interrogated in 1989,^[1] so in May 1990 al-Shahwani decided to defect to London.

Al-Shahwani soon returned to Jordan to collect intelligence on Iraq during the Gulf War.

In fall 1994 al-Shahwani began planning a coup against Saddam Hussein with the support of his three sons then serving in the Republican Guard. Al-Shahwani also brought in Iraqi National Accord leader Iyad Allawi, who in turn informed MI6, and consequently the CIA.^[2] The CIA-directed coup was foiled by Iraqi security in June 1996, and while al-Shahwani was able to escape, hundreds of Iraqi officers,^[4] including his sons, were arrested. His sons and 82 other operatives were later executed.^[1][3]

Between 1996 and 2003 Al-Shahwani continued building an opposition network in Iraq with the help of the CIA, and although a planned military uprising was vetoed by the Pentagon, al-Shahwani used his influence to try to convince Iraqi security forces not to resist the American-led invasion.^[1] He himself participated in covert American missions in western Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[3]

After the initial invasion the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, released Order 69, which established the charter for a new Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS). Al-Shahwani was appointed as its first director.^[1] He resigned in August 2009, which according to the Washington Post was due to disagreements with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over Iranian influence in Iraq, and was replaced by General Zuheir Fadel.^[5] According to the Iraqi paper Al-Zaman, Shahwani had presented evidence linking Iran to a series of attacks in Iraq including the 19 August 2009 Baghdad bombings, and left when Iraqi leadership refused to publicly implicate Iran in the bombings.^[6][7] Several days later the Iranian mission to the United Nations sent a letter of protest to the Washington Post over the previous article, claiming that Shahwani's statements about Iranian involvement were baseless.^[8]

Shawani is married to a Shiite.^[1] He had three sons, Major Anmar al-Shahwani, Captain Ayead al-Shahwani, and Lt. Atheer al-Shahwani, who were killed by Saddam Hussein for plotting a coup.^[2]