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Boueiz: Rift with Gaddafi, Saddam due to Provocative Message, Assassination Plot

Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)
Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)
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Boueiz: Rift with Gaddafi, Saddam due to Provocative Message, Assassination Plot

Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)
Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)

When President Elias Hrawi assumed office, Lebanon was facing severe challenges, with a fragmented state and crumbling institutions. Despite the circumstances, then Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz rejected the approach to deal with Lebanon as a weak country and a quasi-state.

He restored the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the glow it had when it was in the custody of a brilliant minister, Fouad Boutros, who is highly admired by Boueiz.

The minister rejected the language of dictations imposed Lebanon, and refused to devote the country as an arena for settling scores. What further strengthened his role was his direct relationship with President Hafez al-Assad.

I asked Boueiz about the diplomatic incident that led to the severing of relations with Libya.

He said: “One day, the Libyan ambassador comes to me to convey a message from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The letter was a green cardboard book inlaid with gold or gold ink and weighed about 10 or even 12 kilograms. He gave me the book as if it were a fateful international treaty, so I opened it and read a line that talks about “the conspiracy of the Jews and Christians against the Arab nation...” I read these words, closed the book and threw it into the arms of the ambassador, saying: Tell Colonel Gaddafi that this book is totally unacceptable. Tell him: We are the real Arabs. The Christians of Lebanon restored the Arab renaissance after 450 years of Turkification and the disappearance of this language. They preserved the Arabic language in their monasteries and through its printing presses and monks. Tell Colonel Gaddafi: These are the ones who created the Arab political thought...”

Boueiz added that he asked the ambassador for an immediate letter of apology, or consider himself “persona non grata”. He gave him and the Libyan embassy staff 48 hours to leave the country.

“Indeed, the delegation left Lebanon and I went to the Council of Ministers. The authority to expel an ambassador falls within the powers of the foreign minister; but the power to sever relations requires a cabinet decision. So I asked the Council of Ministers to cut the relations, and this is what happened,” the former minister recounted.

- Rules and principles

Boueiz said that his decision was not based on a sectarian stance, but rather an attempt to recall the rules and principles.

“Days passed, and whenever I would go to a conference abroad, the Lebanese ambassador would come to me to tell me that the Libyan ambassador had called him and that the Libyan foreign minister wanted to meet with me. My answer was always the same: I will not meet him unless he is provided with a letter of apology.”

The minister told Asharq Al-Awsat that he faced pressure in Lebanon over this issue.

“It’s the Lebanese commercial mind. Lebanon exports apples to Libya. I am from an area where apples are grown. But I used to answer that our national dignity is more important than apples...”

The rift lasted for at least two years, Boueiz said, until the Lebanese ambassador to Cairo told him that the Libyan foreign minister wanted to meet him and convey a letter of apology.

The ambassador informed Boueiz of the content of the letter, which he described as “acceptable”. Relations with Libya were consequently restored.

_ Al-Sadr Case

Boueiz said that during his tenure at the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, he did not receive any information on the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr, except for undocumented and unconfirmed reports.

He recounted: “The story that we have received, which is not confirmed, states that during the war, Colonel Gaddafi had asked Imam Musa al-Sadr that the Shiites in Lebanon engage in a war against the Christians... But Imam Musa al-Sadr used the money (which Libya provided for this purpose) for social and charitable reasons. He built schools and hospitals there... It seems that Palestinian and Lebanese parties complained to Gaddafi when he asked them: How did you not win over these Christians? Gaddafi summoned Imam al-Sadr and told him: What did you do with all this aid... Al-Sadr gave him a list of social and other institutions...Then, Abdullah Al-Senussi, the intelligence chief, entered and kidnapped Imam Al-Sadr, and it is said that they hid him somewhere in the desert. Later, they sent a delegation to Rome with a sheikh wearing a turban to prove that Sadr went to Italy after Libya.”

-Saddam Hussein and the assassination of Taleb al-Suhail

There is an expressive story that happened with Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Boueiz said: “There was a senior Iraqi tribal leader in Lebanon named Taleb Al-Suhail, who was an opponent of Saddam’s regime and resided in the Raouche area of Beirut. Three people came to his house... shot and killed him and then fled. The police chased them until they reached the Iraqi embassy, where they sought refuge, and the police could not enter it due to diplomatic immunity.”

The former minister told Asharq Al-Awsat that he immediately summoned the Iraqi ambassador, asking him to hand over the culprits, otherwise he would consider him “persona non grata”.

He said he was sure that the Iraqi diplomat would not hand them over, and that they were intelligence men coming from Baghdad.

“The next day, I received a call from Beirut Airport at eight in the morning. It was the Public Prosecutor of the Cassation Court, Judge Mounif Oweidat. He told me: Your Excellency, the entire staff of the Iraqi embassy has been arrested while trying to flee.”

Boueiz asked for the names of the arrested people to find out that three of them were not diplomats. He then requested the immediate release of the ambassador and all the diplomats, while the wanted persons were referred to the judiciary and sentenced with imprisonment. One of them died in jail from cancer, he noted.

- A letter of apology

Similar to what happened with Libya, at every conference Boueiz went to, he would be approached by his Iraqi counterpart, who would ask him for a meeting.

“I can only accept a letter of apology,” the Lebanese minister used to reply.

“I knew that Saddam would not apologize for the matter (the assassination of Al-Suhail). One day, our ambassador in Jordan called me to tell me that the Iraqi ambassador conveyed a letter from Saddam Hussein... Indeed, I found the content of the letter acceptable.”

Boueiz noted that Hussein did not use the apology word, but described what happened as a mistake and whoever did it “will bear responsibility.” He also denied any role for the Iraqi state in the crime. The bilateral relations were then mended.

-Yasser Arafat and the complex relationship with Hafez al-Assad

According to Boueiz, Arafat’s relationship with Syria was complicated. There was a kind of hatred towards the Palestinian leader.

“In Syria, if President Hafez al-Assad hates a person, it means that the entire regime hates him. They had some kind of picture of Arafat. They accuse him of being dishonest, and that he will not spare any opportunity for... an unacceptable political settlement.”

- Ding Xiaoping

I asked Minister Boueiz about his meeting with Deng Xiaoping, who laid the foundation for the Chinese renaissance.

He replied: “I was greatly touched by what he said to me during one of my visits to China in the early nineties. I was amazed at the way China emerged from Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, and the growth of the Chinese economy.”

The former foreign minister quoted the Chinese leader as saying: “We realized that Marxism is an economic doctrine that is no longer viable, and that it has fallen. We saw that Leninism is a dictatorial political doctrine that has outlived its time. We also realized that Stalinism is a police security doctrine that is also outdated. But we cannot get out of the three doctrines without the country collapsing into chaos. We have seen before us the example of Russia; when Gorbachev abolished these three beliefs together, and Russia collapsed as a whole. So, we decided to gradually eradicate these beliefs, starting with Marxism, to make way for economic renaissance and people’s development, and the trend towards more freedoms and democracy will gradually follow.”

Boueiz said that he conveyed this opinion to Hafez al-Assad during one of the meetings, saying that Syria, too, may be in a situation similar to China, which means that if it begins with economic renaissance and freedom, it will gradually get out of these situations.

“I think that this matter greatly touched President Assad, although he was very far from giving priority to the economic issue, but it impacted him as an idea. This prompted him request my help for Syria to join the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement, on the grounds that this partnership would open the door to economic development and help Syria grow and develop, and preventing it from descending into chaos,” the former Lebanese minister stated.

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Features

Russia, China Unlikely to Back Iran Against US Military Threats

A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)
A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)
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Russia, China Unlikely to Back Iran Against US Military Threats

A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)
A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)

While Russia and China are ready to back protest-rocked Iran under threat by US President Donald Trump, that support would diminish in the face of US military action, experts told AFP.

Iran is a significant ally to the two nuclear powers, providing drones to Russia and oil to China. But analysts told AFP the two superpowers would only offer diplomatic and economic aid to Tehran, to avoid a showdown with Washington.

"China and Russia don't want to go head-to-head with the US over Iran," said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy expert for the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Tehran, despite its best efforts over decades, has failed to establish a formal alliance with Moscow and Beijing, she noted.

If the United States carried out strikes on Iran, "both the Chinese and the Russians will prioritize their bilateral relationship with Washington", Geranmayeh said.

China has to maintain a "delicate" rapprochement with the Trump administration, she argued, while Russia wants to keep the United States involved in talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

"They both have much higher priorities than Iran."

- Ukraine before Iran -

Despite their close ties, "Russia-Iranian treaties don't include military support" -- only political, diplomatic and economic aid, Russian analyst Sergei Markov told AFP.

Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Moscow would do whatever it could "to keep the regime afloat".

But "Russia's options are very limited," he added.

Faced with its own economic crisis, "Russia cannot become a giant market for Iranian products" nor can it provide "a lavish loan", Gabuev said.

Nikita Smagin, a specialist in Russia-Iran relations, said that in the event of US strikes, Russia could do "almost nothing".

"They don't want to risk military confrontation with other great powers like the US -- but at the same time, they're ready to send weaponry to Iran," he said.

"Using Iran as a bargaining asset is a normal thing for Russia," Smagin said of the longer-term strategy, at a time when Moscow is also negotiating with Washington on Ukraine.

Markov agreed. "The Ukrainian crisis is much more important for Russia than the Iranian crisis," he argued.

- Chinese restraint -

China is also ready to help Tehran "economically, technologically, militarily and politically" as it confronts non-military US actions such as trade pressure and cyberattacks, Hua Po, a Beijing-based independent political observer, told AFP.

If the United States launched strikes, China "would strengthen its economic ties with Iran and help it militarize in order to contribute to bogging the United States down in a war in the Middle East," he added.

Until now, China has been cautious and expressed itself "with restraint", weighing the stakes of oil and regional stability, said Iran-China relations researcher Theo Nencini of Sciences Po Grenoble.

"China is benefiting from a weakened Iran, which allows it to secure low-cost oil... and to acquire a sizeable geopolitical partner," he said.

However, he added: "I find it hard to see them engaging in a showdown with the Americans over Iran."

Beijing would likely issue condemnations, but not retaliate, he said.

Hua said the Iran crisis was unlikely to have an impact on China-US relations overall.

"The Iranian question isn't at the heart of relations between the two countries," he argued.

"Neither will sever ties with the other over Iran."

Features

Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, a Haven for Journalists During Lebanon’s Civil War, Shuts Down

People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
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Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, a Haven for Journalists During Lebanon’s Civil War, Shuts Down

People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)

During Lebanon’s civil war, the Commodore Hotel in western Beirut's Hamra district became iconic among the foreign press corps.

For many, it served as an unofficial newsroom where they could file dispatches even when communications systems were down elsewhere. Armed guards at the door provided some sense of protection as sniper fights and shelling were turning the cosmopolitan city to rubble.

The hotel even had its own much-loved mascot: a cheeky parrot.

The Commodore endured for decades after the 15-year civil war ended in 1990 — until this week, when it closed for good.

The main gate of the nine-story hotel with more than 200 rooms was shuttered Monday. Officials at the Commodore refused to speak to the media about the decision to close.

Although the country’s economy is beginning to recover from a protracted financial crisis that began in 2019, tensions in the region and the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war that was halted by a tenuous ceasefire in November 2024 are keeping many tourists away. Lengthy daily electricity cuts force businesses to rely on expensive private generators.

The Commodore is not the first of the crisis-battered country’s once-bustling hotels to shut down in recent years.

But for journalists who lived, worked and filed their dispatches there, its demise hits particularly hard.

“The Commodore was a hub of information — various guerrilla leaders, diplomats, spies and of course scores of journalists circled the cafes and lounges,” said Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East correspondent who covered the civil war. “On one occasion (late Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat himself dropped in to sip coffee with” with the hotel manager's father, he recalled.

A line to the outside world

At the height of the civil war, when telecommunications were dysfunctional and much of Beirut was cut off from the outside world, it was at the Commodore where journalists found land lines and Telex machines that always worked to send reports to their media organizations around the globe.

Across the front office desk in the wide lobby of the Commodore, there were two teleprinters that carried reports of The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies.

“The Commodore had a certain seedy charm. The rooms were basic, the mattresses lumpy and the meal fare wasn’t spectacular,” said Robert H. Reid, the AP’s former Middle East regional editor, who was among the AP journalists who covered the war. The hotel was across the street from the international agency’s Middle East head office at the time.

“The friendly staff and the camaraderie among the journalist-guests made the Commodore seem more like a social club where you could unwind after a day in one of the world’s most dangerous cities,” Reid said.

Llewellyn remembers that the hotel manager at the time, Yusuf Nazzal, told him in the late 1970s “that it was I who had given him the idea” to open such a hotel in a war zone.

Llewellyn said that during a long chat with Nazzal on a near-empty Middle East Airlines Jumbo flight from London to Beirut in the fall of 1975, he told him that there should be a hotel that would make sure journalists had good communications, “a street-wise and well-connected staff running the desks, the phones, the teletypes.”

During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and a nearly three-month siege of West Beirut by Israeli troops, journalists used the roof of the hotel to film fighter jets striking the city.

The parrot

One of the best-known characters at the Commodore was Coco the parrot, who was always in a cage near the bar. Patrons were often startled by what they thought was the whiz of an incoming shell, only to discover that it was Coco who made the sound.

AP’s chief Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson was a regular at the hotel before he was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985 and held for seven years, becoming one of the longest-held American hostages in history.

Videos of Anderson released by his kidnappers later showed him wearing a white T-shirt with the words “Hotel Commodore Lebanon.”

With the kidnapping of Anderson and other Western journalists, many foreign media workers left the predominantly-Muslim western part of Beirut, and after that the hotel lost its status as a safe haven for foreign journalists.

Ahmad Shbaro, who worked at different departments of the hotel until 1988, said the main reason behind the Commodore’s success was the presence of armed guards that made journalists feel secure in the middle of Beirut’s chaos as well as functioning telecommunications.

He added that the hotel also offered financial facilities for journalists who ran out of money. They would borrow money from Nazzal and their companies could pay him back by depositing money in his bank account in London.

Shbaro remembers a terrifying day in the late 1970s when the area of the hotel was heavily shelled and two rooms at the Commodore were hit.

“The hotel was full and all of us, staffers and journalists, spent the night at Le Casbah,” a famous nightclub in the basement of the building, he said.

In quieter times, journalists used to spend the night partying by the pool.

“It was a lifeline for the international media in West Beirut, where journalists filed, ate, slept, and hid from air raids, shelling, and other violence,” said former AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi.

“It gained both fame and notoriety,” she said, speaking from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

The hotel was built in 1943 and kept functioning until 1987 when it was heavily damaged in fighting between Shiite and Druze militiamen at the time. The old Commodore building was later demolished and a new structure was build with an annex and officially opened again for the public in 1996.

But Coco the parrot was no longer at the bar. The bird went missing during the 1987 fighting. Shbaro said it is believed he was taken by one of the gunmen who stormed the hotel.

Features

Key Details of Greenland’s Rich but Largely Untapped Mineral Resources

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
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Key Details of Greenland’s Rich but Largely Untapped Mineral Resources

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)

The Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers will meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday after President Donald Trump recently
stepped up threats to take over Greenland.

The autonomous territory of Denmark could be useful for the ​United States because of its strategic location and rich mineral resources. A 2023 survey showed that 25 of 34 minerals deemed "critical raw materials" by the European Commission were found in Greenland.

The extraction of oil and natural gas is banned in Greenland for environmental reasons, while development of its mining sector has been snarled in red tape and opposition from indigenous people.

Below are details of Greenland's main mineral deposits, based on data from its Mineral Resources Authority:

RARE EARTHS
Three of Greenland's biggest deposits are located in the southern province of Gardar.

Companies ‌seeking to ‌develop rare-earth mines are Critical Metals Corp, which bought the ‌Tanbreez ⁠deposit, ​Energy Transition Minerals, ‌whose Kuannersuit project is stalled amid legal disputes, and Neo Performance Materials.

Rare-earth elements are key to permanent magnets used in electric vehicles (EV) and wind turbines.

GRAPHITE
Occurrences of graphite and graphite schist are reported from many localities on the island.
GreenRoc has applied for an exploitation license to develop the Amitsoq graphite project.
Natural graphite is mostly used in EV batteries and steelmaking.

COPPER
According to the Mineral Resources Authority, most copper deposits have drawn only limited exploration campaigns.

Especially interesting are the underexplored areas ⁠in the northeast and center-east of Greenland, it said.

London-listed 80 Mile is seeking to develop the Disko-Nuussuaq deposit, which has ‌copper, nickel, platinum and cobalt.

NICKEL
Traces of nickel accumulations are numerous, ‍according to the Mineral Resources Authority.

Major miner ‍Anglo American was granted an exploration license in western Greenland in 2019 and has ‍been looking for nickel deposits, among others.

ZINC
Zinc is mostly found in the north in a geologic formation that stretches more than 2,500 km (1,550 miles).

Companies have sought to develop the Citronen Fjord zinc and lead project, which had been billed as one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc resources.

GOLD
The most prospective ​areas for gold potential are situated around the Sermiligaarsuk fjord in the country's south.

Amaroq Minerals launched a gold mine last year in Mt Nalunaq in ⁠the Kujalleq Municipality.

DIAMONDS
While most small diamonds and the largest stones are found in the island's west, their presence in other regions may also be significant.

IRON ORE
Deposits are located at Isua in southern West Greenland, at Itilliarsuk in central West Greenland, and in North West Greenland along the Lauge Koch Kyst.

TITANIUM-VANADIUM
Known deposits of titanium and vanadium are in the southwest, the east and south.

Titanium is used for commercial, medical and industrial purposes, while vanadium is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys. The most important industrial vanadium compound, vanadium pentoxide, is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid.

TUNGSTEN
Used for several industrial applications, tungsten is mostly found in the central-east and northeast of the country, with assessed deposits in the south and west.

URANIUM
In 2021, ‌the then-ruling left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party banned uranium mining, effectively halting development of the Kuannersuit rare-earths project, which has uranium as a byproduct.