Amr Moussa: Current Developments in Lebanon Tied to Rafik Hariri’s Assassination

Asharq Al-Awsat releases excerpts of the former Arab League secretary-general’s new biography.

Amr Moussa and Rafik Hariri during one of their meetings. (Getty Images)
Amr Moussa and Rafik Hariri during one of their meetings. (Getty Images)
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Amr Moussa: Current Developments in Lebanon Tied to Rafik Hariri’s Assassination

Amr Moussa and Rafik Hariri during one of their meetings. (Getty Images)
Amr Moussa and Rafik Hariri during one of their meetings. (Getty Images)

Three years after former Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa published the first part of his biography, his second book entitled, “The Years of the Arab League”, will soon be released by Dar El-Shorouk.

The 574-page book consists of 19 chapters in which Moussa reveals the secrets of his 10-year tenure at the Arab League (2001-2011), which was marked with major events in the Arab world.

Starting Saturday, Asharq Al-Awsat will publish seven episodes of Moussa’s memoirs. The first part focuses on the political crisis in Lebanon, which began with the call by Hezbollah and its Maronite ally – the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) – for the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government, leading to the Doha Agreement in 2008.

Moussa recounts: “On February 14, 2005, I was in my office at the Arab League preparing to travel to Aden to attend the first meeting of the Economic and Social Council of the Arab League outside its headquarters, which was to be inaugurated by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. I was watching Al-Jazeera, which suddenly announced a huge explosion in Beirut, in which Prime Minister Rafik Hariri might have been targeted. I surfed satellite stations until I saw on Al-Arabiya channel the news of Rafik Hariri’s death along with 21 other people.

I asked my office director to arrange my travel to Lebanon immediately, and I called the Yemeni Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, and told him that I would not be able to attend because of what happened, and that I would go to Lebanon.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh contacted me shortly after, stressing the need for me to come to Yemen; but I apologized, saying that the assassination of Rafik Hariri was an Arab calamity and a very dangerous development.

On the same day, I traveled to Beirut. At Hariri’s palace, I found his two sons Saadeddine and Bahaa. I offered them condolences, and the place was teeming with mourners. I was the first official to arrive from abroad and I stayed in the palace until late at night. The first Arab foreign minister to land in Beirut was Dr. Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, who also did not attend the Aden meeting!

The funeral took place on the second day. Given the deteriorating security situation in Beirut at this time, my dear friend, Speaker Nabih Berri, placed me under the protection of the Parliament’s security guards. It was clear that some leaders of the Sunni community, some Maronite parties and others were blaming Syria for the assassination.

Some of them pointed at Hezbollah, but basically, all accusations were directed at Damascus. I found that the best thing that the secretary-general of the Arab League could do was to travel to Syria and talk to President Bashar al-Assad.

On the third day, I requested to visit Syria. I went under a very tight protection by the Lebanese government until I reached the Syrian border, where the Syrian guards escorted me directly to the presidential palace. President Bashar received me and we had a very frank conversation.

I told him: Mr. President, I came from Lebanon where feelings are raging after what happened. The death of Rafik Hariri will not pass easily, and the Syrian presence [in Lebanon] has now become under deep scrutiny… Demands are growing for the withdrawal of the Syrian forces…

He told me: I am the first Syrian president to withdraw forces from Lebanon. There were more than 60,000 Syrian soldiers when I came to power. I reduced the number to 35,000, and I am ready to withdraw additional troops… I have no objection to removing all the forces. I asked him: Can I, Mr. President, announce that you have decided to withdraw the Syrian army from Lebanon? He said: Yes, you can announce that, because I told you that I will withdraw the army.

I went out and announced the news, saying that it will be carried out within a specific time frame. My meeting with the president was attended by Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa, with whom I had lunch. Whenever the withdrawal was raised, Sharaa changed the subject, as if he wanted to ignore the topic. He was not comfortable with the announcement by Syrian journalists that the president had decided to start the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon.

I left Syria by land to Beirut and returned by plane to Cairo. There, I turned on the radio in the car and heard the BBC: “Syrian officials have denied what the secretary-general of the League of Arab States had said about President Bashar al-Assad’s decision to withdraw his troops from Lebanon.”

I got angry, and immediately called Al-Sharaa. He asked me: What do you want us to do?

I told him to confirm my statement as secretary-general of the League after my encounter with the president, and avoid us getting into a war of statements because I will of course insist on what I mentioned following the meeting.

The Syrian side consented and the president started reducing the forces until their complete withdrawal.

Motives of the assassination
In my interpretation of the motives for Hariri’s assassination, I say: He was a leader capable of exercising power, as he was of a special prestige, whether among the Lebanese Sunnis or among the political, economic and societal circles in Lebanon in general. The presence of a man of Hariri’s stature at the top of the Sunni community cannot be ignored in the face of Hezbollah.

The removal of Hariri from the scene was based on long-term regional calculations, and an important part of what we see in Lebanon today is connected to it.

Between March and June 2006, the Lebanese National Dialogue Conference, with the participation of leaders and influential figures, reached consensus on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Syria, the demarcation of the borders and the possession of weapons outside the Palestinian camps. A serious discussion took place over Hezbollah’s arms, but without being completed.

The national dialogue made us believe that things were heading towards a quiet Lebanese summer, especially on the southern borders with Israel. But on June 12, 2006, a force affiliated with Hezbollah attacked an Israeli military post on the border, resulting in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others. Israel responded by launching an extensive attack.

The Arab views varied over the escalating steps that Hezbollah had taken against Israel. Egypt and Saudi Arabia considered this an adventure by the party. Here, I must say that managing Arab politics, especially when it comes to a crisis that has far-reaching roots, is always linked to global policies and contradictory interests of major countries, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

From this standpoint, the Arab League’s stance was formulated at that time without prejudice to the organization’s firm position regarding one of the origins of the problem, namely the Israeli occupation and its practices that can neither be accepted nor tolerated.

War of statements
Immediately after the outbreak of the aggression, Kuwait, in coordination with me, called for an urgent meeting of the Arab foreign ministers at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, which took place on July 15, 2006.

The second closed session of the meeting witnessed severe arguments between Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, and his Syrian counterpart Walid Al-Muallem.

Al-Muallem addressed the participants, saying: “I want to share with you some of my crazy dreams, I say crazy because they don’t match the current Arab or international situations... I dreamed that our meeting would begin with a minute of silence for the souls of the martyrs of Gaza and Lebanon, and that the secretary-general will call for our meeting in Gaza… In all frankness and sincerity... we will not adopt any word that comes out of here that is beneficial to Israel in its aggression against Lebanon, whether in the name of rationality or in the name of emotion…”

Prince Saud asked to respond to Al-Muallem, saying: “I did not know that the policy of brother Walid was driven by dreams… Why is it permitted to use the Lebanese borders to attack Israel and not to use the Golan? Did Israel attack because we issued a statement? Israel attacked because of what Hezbollah had done in the region. What kind of a dream is it when a person believes that rationality and logic were a fatal mistake? These are demonic dreams.”

I observed in silence what was happening, hoping to find an opportunity to interject. At the same time, it was difficult to change the convictions of a large group of Arab League members that Hezbollah’s actions were not motivated by resisting Israeli occupation, but rather part of a political game led by Iran and its regional role that opposes Arabs and their interests.

Arab foreign ministers meeting
During the last week of July 2006, I felt that we needed to block the American-French draft resolution in the Security Council, because it would be unjust to Lebanon.

Hence, I called for a meeting of the Arab foreign ministers at the Grand Serail in Beirut, to be held on August 7. Following speeches in solidarity with Lebanon, the meeting turned into a bitter and long debate between Al-Muallem, who insisted on saluting Hezbollah in the decision of the Arab League Council, and Siniora, who responded by saying: “Arab foreign ministers came here to support a unified Lebanese position.”

The Council reached a set of decisions, including the assignment of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar to present the Arab viewpoint on the situation in Lebanon.

The meetings in New York ended with the Security Council issuing Resolution 1701 on August 11, 2006. Through a legal reading of the resolution, I say that it is largely biased towards Israel, but it can be considered as better than the previous draft resolutions that were rejected by both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government. According to Hassan Nasrallah, this decision was the least harmful of all the other draft-resolutions.

Published in special agreement with Dar Al Shorouk - all rights reserved.



The End of a Forced Coexistence: Arab Tribes Turn Against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Eastern Syria

Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)
Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)
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The End of a Forced Coexistence: Arab Tribes Turn Against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Eastern Syria

Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)
Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)

In Syria’s vast northeastern areas, a brittle arrangement has for years held together an uneasy coexistence between the Arab tribes and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But today, that arrangement appears closer than ever to unraveling, as mounting grievances and shifting regional dynamics converge to end what many tribal leaders now call a “forced coexistence.”

Over the past months, prominent Arab tribal leaders have stepped up their denunciations of the SDF, accusing it of discrimination, repression, and siphoning off the region’s natural wealth. These tensions have erupted into public declarations, including a striking statement in early July, in which elders from major tribes in Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and al-Hasakah demanded that the US-led international coalition end its support for the SDF.

From Tactical Alliance to Deep Estrangement

When the SDF first emerged in 2015 - formed largely by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) but incorporating Arab and Christian militias - many Arab tribes regarded it as a necessary partner against ISIS. After all, the militant group had rampaged through tribal lands, massacring communities and imposing draconian rule. For a time, this partnership worked: from 2015 to 2017, tribes like the Shammar, Baggara, and parts of the Aqeedat fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Kurdish forces in a shared struggle against ISIS.

But as the warfronts cooled, new frictions emerged. Arab leaders began to accuse the SDF of marginalizing them politically and economically, imposing ideologically charged school curricula, conscripting young men and boys, and monopolizing oil and wheat revenues.

By 2018 and 2019, large protests against mandatory conscription and perceived ethnic bias erupted across the region. Still, the SDF retained an aura of indispensability, its American backing and battlefield record insulating it from more serious challenges.
Today, that insulation is wearing thin.

The most recent wave of anger began in June 2025, when an SDF fighter shot and killed 11-year-old Farid al-Hureish in the town of Abu Hardoub. Days later, another boy, Ali al-Awni, died after SDF forces opened fire as he gathered wheat near a checkpoint. Such incidents are far from isolated. Local monitors and human rights groups have documented kidnappings, forced recruitment of minors through the Revolutionary Youth organization, and heavy financial levies on families seeking exemptions from military service.

In a recent interview, Nasser Hammoud al-Faraj, a prominent sheikh from the Boushaban tribe, said these abuses had created a “boiling point” across the region: “The people have lived for years under repression, exclusion, and humiliation,” he said. “This is not a foreign agenda; our tribes themselves demanded this declaration.”

Indeed, the July statement signed by 14 tribal dignitaries did not mince words. It accused the SDF of “systematic oppression,” destabilization, and theft of resources. Addressed to the US government, the declaration called for an end to military and political support for the SDF and for Syria’s central government to reassert sovereignty over the entire northeast.

Though much Western coverage portrays the SDF as a unified Kurdish force, it is in fact a complex coalition. Alongside the YPG, it includes Arab formations such as the Sanadid Forces - historically loyal to the Shammar tribe - and the Deir ez-Zor Military Council, which incorporated Arab fighters from the Aqeedat and Baggara. Yet these same tribal networks are now fracturing.

A dramatic illustration came in 2023, when the SDF arrested Ahmed al-Khabil (Abu Khawla), leader of the Deir ez-Zor Military Council. That move shattered remaining loyalty among many Arab factions. “From that moment, the last shreds of trust began to disappear,” says al-Faraj.

To complicate matters further, some tribes and sub-clans remain aligned with the SDF, while others are in contact with Damascus. Even within a single tribe, families may be divided: some serving in SDF structures, others quietly supporting the Syrian government, and still others advocating autonomy or neutrality.

This tangle of loyalties is not new. For generations, tribal allegiances have shifted according to local interests, personal rivalries, and broader geopolitical currents. But according to tribal leaders, the balance is tipping decisively away from cooperation with the SDF.

While recent tribal declarations have emphasized peaceful solutions, the language has also grown more menacing. Sheikh al-Faraj said plainly that if diplomatic avenues fail, tribes may pursue military action: “We do not seek conflict for its own sake,” he said. “But we cannot accept the occupation of our lands. We will act if necessary, with our own forces and with others who share our vision.”

To that end, tribal networks have quietly reorganized self-defense groups and explored links with Damascus. While the SDF still controls the bulk of the region militarily, the Syrian government has positioned itself as a potential guarantor of tribal rights and national unity.

In the past year, official Syrian media - long restrained in its references to the SDF - has begun openly condemning it as an occupying force. Even Governor Ghassan al-Sayyed Ahmad of Deir ez-Zor, typically cautious in public remarks, confirmed that Damascus retains military options: “If negotiations fail,” he warned in late June, “we have three fully prepared divisions ready to intervene.”

Strategic Calculations: Damascus, Washington, and Ankara

For the United States, this tribal rupture represents a profound dilemma. The SDF has been Washington’s main counterterrorism partner against ISIS. US officials, including Special Envoy Thomas Barrack, have repeatedly stressed that their cooperation is based on combating extremism rather than endorsing any project of Kurdish autonomy. But tribal grievances are testing this posture.

While the Biden administration has so far avoided any direct condemnation of the SDF, it has privately urged Kurdish commanders to moderate their policies. According to multiple regional sources, US diplomats have warned that continued abuses could undermine the entire anti-ISIS coalition and trigger Turkish or Syrian intervention.

Türkiye, for its part, has consistently opposed any Kurdish-led administration along its border. Turkish leaders have threatened new incursions if the SDF attempts to formalize autonomy or establish closer ties with the PKK. Analysts believe that any large-scale tribal uprising would likely draw tacit Turkish support, especially if it further weakens Kurdish positions.

To contain the crisis, the SDF has resorted to tactical concessions. In the aftermath of the 2023 clashes, it released waves of detainees, some of whom were arrested for allegedly supporting ISIS, others simply for joining tribal protests. The releases continued sporadically into mid-2025, culminating in a large-scale exchange in April: 140 SDF captives for 100 prisoners held by Syrian government forces.

While these deals have bought time, they have not erased deep resentment. Many tribes now insist that only the full restoration of Syrian state authority can bring stability.

Beyond military options, Arab tribes have begun constructing new political frameworks. In April, tribal elites announced the creation of the “Council for Cooperation and Coordination in Jazira and the Euphrates,” aimed at unifying tribal voices against what they called SDF “hegemony.” In founding statements, council leaders vowed to reject any attempt by the SDF to claim representation of Arab communities in negotiations with Damascus or in international forums.

This reflects a broader evolution in tribal political consciousness. Where once many leaders accepted limited accommodation with the SDF, they now see prolonged Kurdish-led rule as an existential threat to Arab identity, economic rights, and local governance.

The northeastern region is a mosaic. In Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, Arabs form overwhelming majorities, organized in centuries-old confederations like the Aqeedat, Baggara, and Jubur. In al-Hasakah, the picture is more mixed: Arabs dominate much of the countryside, while Kurds are concentrated in urban centers such as Qamishli and Ras al-Ain. Christian Assyrian and Syriac communities add further complexity, as do smaller minorities of Turkmen, Circassians, and Armenians.

Any future political arrangement - whether federal, autonomous, or unitary - will have to balance these identities. The head of the Research Unit at the London-based Abaad Center for Strategic Studies, Syrian researcher Firas Faham, said: “The region is a dormant volcano. If there is no comprehensive settlement, conflict is inevitable.”

End of the Era of Forced Coexistence

In recent weeks, this metaphorical volcano has rumbled ever louder. Syrian state media and official statements now refer openly to “the occupation” by SDF forces. Behind closed doors, discussions are underway among Damascus, Moscow, and even Ankara about a possible reconfiguration of control.

Mudar Hammoud al-Assad, chairman of the Supreme Council of Syrian Tribes and Clans, told Asharq al-Awsat that the SDF’s options are narrowing: “After the American envoy clearly stated that the only legitimate interlocutor is the Syrian government, the SDF is exposed. They may face military action with tacit American and Turkish approval.”

Even if open war does not break out, tribal consensus against the SDF has never been stronger. What once was a tactical alliance, born of necessity in the struggle against ISIS, has become a marriage of deep resentment.

Despite the historical differences among the tribes, the growing resentment over marginalization, arbitrary arrests, and other grievances appears to have unified a tribal discourse demanding the return of the Syrian Army. Options remain suspended between negotiations and military confrontation, especially in light of official Syrian statements about the readiness of government forces.

This escalation places the international coalition in a delicate balancing act between supporting its ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces - whose local legitimacy is increasingly contested - and responding to tribal pressures warning of a potential explosion of unrest, something Washington does not want and is actively trying to prevent.