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Allawi Recounts Assassination Attempt, Says They Sneaked into Morgue to Check his Body

The trial of Saddam and the senior officers of his regime (Getty)
The trial of Saddam and the senior officers of his regime (Getty)
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Allawi Recounts Assassination Attempt, Says They Sneaked into Morgue to Check his Body

The trial of Saddam and the senior officers of his regime (Getty)
The trial of Saddam and the senior officers of his regime (Getty)

In the seventies, two young men left Iraq to escape from then-deputy Saddam Hussein and his murderous security machine. The first is Nouri al-Maliki, a member of the Dawa Party, which Saddam had decided to uproot. The second is Iyad Allawi, a member of the Baath, who was appalled by Saddam’s forceful control over the party, under the mantle of President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. The two men will face each other later in Iraq after the American invasion.

In 2010, I entered the office of the Iraqi Prime Minister, and his name was Nouri al-Maliki. The conversation was valuable. As I left, I had the feeling that post-Saddam Iraq had produced a strong man who would not easily leave his new position.

Al-Maliki, who had signed the decision to execute Saddam, said in the interview: “My wish was not to execute Saddam, as this would be his salvation. The death penalty is nothing compared to the crimes he committed. He should have remained a humiliated prisoner, as a model for dictators. But it was the desire of the people and the families of the martyrs...”

During that year, Iraq experienced a long, open crisis over the formation of the new government. Al-Maliki was demanding a second term, while Allawi - a former prime minister - considered himself entitled to lead the new cabinet in light of the results of the parliamentary elections.

Eight months later, Al-Maliki won the duel, and the reasons were many, including Iran’s evident support and the US administration’s keenness to appease Tehran.

Arab secularism

Allawi adhered to his “secular Iraqi Arabist” approach, refusing to acknowledge Iran’s right to shape the political scene, as he considered that Tehran participated along with Washington in sabotaging the country. Thus, the years passed, and Allawi did not visit Iran even once, despite assuming the position of Prime Minister and Vice President of the Republic and heading a large parliamentary bloc. He also did not hesitate to voice explicit criticism of foreign interventions in Iraqi affairs, including those of America and Iran.

All these questions would not have been asked if things had gone the way the master of Baghdad had wanted at dawn on Feb. 4, 1978 in London. That night, Iraqi intelligence executed an order by Saddam to “smash the head” of Iyad Allawi, who resigned from the party and began looking for change in Iraq from abroad.

The assassination attempt

I asked Allawi about that assassination attempt, he replied: “The attempt was preceded by many threats. I left the Baath Party completely in 1975. That year, we formed the “National Accord” secretly, without giving it a name. We saw that things began to deviate from their course, whether on the Arab, Iraqi, or national levels. The threats and inducements continued from 1975 to 1978, when they played a very dirty game.”

He recounted that was contacted in London by a person who identified himself as “Jihad Al-Dulaimi.”

“He called me and said he wanted to meet urgently. We had received information, through our group, that 13 people would be assassinated. “

Allawi recounted that during the encounter, the man told him that he was sent by people “who care about you, know you, and respect you.” He added that they were looking for Baathists who have an interest in the party and want to cooperate with it.

Allawi replied: “Is this something you would say to a stranger like me? Go and fix things from within the party... I have nothing to offer, and I am not ready to conspire. I am now working full-time in the medical field.”

Exactly a month later, the assassination attempt took place.

The senior Iraqi official recounted that at the time, he was staying with his late wife in an area called Epsom in Surrey, southwest of London. On the night of Feb. 3-4, 1978, he was at work in the hospital and then accepted an invitation from Kurdish friends for dinner.

Allawi described the attack in detail, saying: “I came home around midnight, and I was tired. I used to keep the curtains slightly raised, to allow some light to enter the room. At about 3 a.m., I heard a sound, so I opened my eyes and saw a ghost near my bed. I thought I was dreaming. But I saw something shining, heading towards me... The ghost immediately hit me in the leg, and I felt as if fire had entered it. I could no longer move my left knee, and I received blows and bites in my hand, nails smashed my chest, and I felt hot water on my head.”

He continued: “When my wife turned on the light, she immediately became hysterical, and attacked the person, who was tall and trained. (Allawi mentioned the full name of the attacker.) The attacker knocked out two of my wife’s teeth with his hand. We continued to fight while I was holding the axe and preventing him from using it.

But the hot water I was feeling turned out to be blood from a blow to my head, and the bones came out of my right leg, while I was on this [left] knee. This ultimately saved my life...”

“I was afraid for my wife. After he managed to take the axe, he hit her on the hand... so I told her to jump and cling to his neck with her other hand, knowing that he was tall, while I was sitting on the knee, and the axe was facing my head... My wife was able to hold on to his neck and pull it back, so I seized the axe by its handle, took it from him, and hit him in the leg with it... He turned his head and left because he thought I would not survive. I noticed that he was with another person who had a gun on his waist...”

A journey of suffering and treatment

Allawi went on to say: “After he left, I crawled to the phone, called the hospital, and told them that my wife and I - were seriously injured, and we don’t know whether we will live or die. I asked them to report this attack on us to the police... In less than 5 minutes, the police and ambulance arrived, rushed us immediately to the hospital, and put us in two separate rooms.

“They transferred me to an intensive care unit, and cut off any communication with me... They kept me under surveillance for three days, as they feared a brain hemorrhage. Thank God, there was no bleeding. After that, they took me to a regular room, and I saw all the sad faces. My family and friends were worried and afraid.

“Meanwhile, a policeman who was present told me that my case was political, and the head of the counter-terrorism department at Scotland Yard, Jim Nevill, would come to investigate it. He added that someone had penetrated the hospital morgue and inspected the bodies there to make sure I was killed. At dawn, while workers were bringing a body to the morgue, they heard footsteps heading towards them, so they fled.”

Allawi said that he underwent treatments and operations for a month in the hospital, under armed protection from anti-terrorism police.

“A month later, the police came to me with a number of civilians and asked me if I was conspiring against the rule in Iraq. The police conducted terrible investigations. They found the assailant’s watch and traces of his blood. They found his watch, which was made in Japan, specially for the Iraqi Republican Palace. They were meticulous. They took his fingerprints.”

The British police told Allawi that they would not be able to protect him permanently.

“You must leave for another hospital, and only the hospital director and the treating doctor would know your true identity... They took me to a hospital in Gloucestershire... Only the treating doctor and the hospital director knew my identity. I told the rest that I was from Lebanon and was injured in the war.”

Allawi said that his wife had a nervous breakdown during the first period after the attack. Then she got cancer and passed away.

The attacker falls into the trap

Allawi said that after the fall of the regime and his return to Baghdad, he received information that the assailant was in Türkiye.

“An Iraqi intelligence officer... showed me his picture and I recognized him... He said that the man was in Türkiye and was assigned by Iraqi intelligence to follow up on Iraqi opposition figures who travel through Kurdistan, to assassinate them, with your name at the forefront.”

Allawi said that when they informed the Turkish authorities of his presence on their land, they replied: “You are executing and killing us, we will not hand him over to you.

He added that the Americans asked the Turkish government to hand him over and set a trap to arrest him.

“They approached the Turkish government, asking it to tell the attacker to return to obtain another visa. He only had to enter Iraq and leave it via the Ibrahim Al-Khalil Bridge at the Zakho crossing in Kurdistan. They told him that he just had to cross the border and return to Türkiye to receive a 5-year visa. Masoud Barzani’s group, the Asayish, are present at the crossing. They received a signal from the Americans, so they immediately arrested him and sent him to detention in Baghdad.

“The Americans asked me to see him, but I refused so as not to do anything to him under the influence of anger. I also said that I am waiving my personal right; But the general right remains, which I cannot waive,” Allawi stated.

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Interviews

Obeidat to Asharq Al-Awsat: I Left Saddam Meeting Sensing he Misread Threat

There were exceptional communication channels between Saddam Hussein and King Hussein (AFP)
There were exceptional communication channels between Saddam Hussein and King Hussein (AFP)
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Obeidat to Asharq Al-Awsat: I Left Saddam Meeting Sensing he Misread Threat

There were exceptional communication channels between Saddam Hussein and King Hussein (AFP)
There were exceptional communication channels between Saddam Hussein and King Hussein (AFP)

In the final part of his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, former Jordanian prime minister Ahmad Obeidat, who died earlier this month, recounted in detail his meetings with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, and disclosed an alleged attempt by Rifaat al-Assad to assassinate former Jordanian prime minister Mudar Badran.

Obeidat began with his impression of Saddam following a 2001 meeting in Baghdad. He said he left convinced that the Iraqi leader “did not accurately understand the reality of the international situation, the trap that had been set for Iraq, nor the magnitude of the danger surrounding the country and what was coming.”

He also described how strong ties between the late King Hussein of Jordan and Assad deteriorated as the Iran-Iraq war intensified. “Exceptional channels of communication” opened between King Hussein and Saddam Hussein, he said, and those channels “thwarted Assad’s efforts to build an axis against Iraq.”

Obeidat further revealed that Rifaat al-Assad “sent a group to assassinate Mudar Badran” on the pretext that Jordan was harboring the Muslim Brotherhood and hosting training camps. “All of that was false,” he said, adding that the attempt was foiled and those involved were arrested.

Turning to the file of the Palestinian militant Abu Nidal, who split from Fatah, Obeidat recalled how Abu Iyad once “protected him from arrest,” before “the tables were turned,” in a reference to Abu Iyad later becoming one of Abu Nidal’s victims.

Asked about his history with Abu Nidal, Obeidat described him as “not an easy adversary.” Abu Nidal attacked Jordanian embassies and diplomats, he said, and was responsible for killing two or three ambassadors. He was also behind the assassination of the son of former prime minister Saeed al-Mufti, a diplomat at the Jordanian embassy in Bucharest, and wounded two ambassadors in separate operations.

When Obeidat served as prime minister in 1983-1984, Abu Nidal assassinated Fahd al-Qawasmi, the mayor of Hebron, during a visit to Amman.

Abu Nidal, Obeidat said, worked at different times for Syrian, Iraqi and Libyan intelligence services. “He was ready to work for the benefit of any intelligence service in any country and allowed them to control him,” he said. Syrian, Iraqi and Libyan intelligence used him more than once, and the Iraqis deployed him against Fatah in an effort to create splits and internal problems.

Abu Iyad had shielded Abu Nidal from detention when Fatah sought to arrest him, Obeidat said. “But in the end the tables were turned,” and Abu Iyad became one of his victims. It was said, he added, that Abu Iyad came to believe that Abu Nidal had begun working for “Zionist intelligence.”

As for Jordan’s response when its diplomats were targeted, Obeidat said that at the time he was prime minister and did not follow the security file closely due to the pressures of government. He was aware, however, that contacts were made to reach a deal to halt Abu Nidal’s operations in Jordan. “Their operations did indeed stop,” he said.

On coordination with major powers, Obeidat said Jordan cooperated with “any party that possessed information of interest to us,” except the Zionists. Relations with Syrian intelligence fluctuated between competition and brief periods of cooperation, after earlier periods of no contact.

He then recounted his 1979 meeting with Hafez al-Assad over accusations that Jordan was training members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Acting on instructions from King Hussein, Obeidat, then intelligence chief, and Prime Minister Mudar Badran met Assad to address the issue.

“We made clear to Hafez al-Assad that it was impossible for us to have camps training the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. Jordan informed Assad that such camps were in Iraq and that Syrians were traveling via Jordan to Iraq using forged passports. Without lists of those names from Damascus, Jordan could not act.

“This is a Syrian problem, not a Jordanian one,” Obeidat said he told Assad. Jordan would not allow armed activity on its soil but needed Syrian intelligence cooperation and names to intervene effectively.

He acknowledged that tensions were aggravated when Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohammed Abdul Rahman Khalifeh, brought Syrian cleric Saeed Hawwa to meet King Hussein without informing the royal court or intelligence services. The move surprised the palace and embarrassed the intelligence service.

After investigating, Jordan discovered that a group of Syrians had entered the country, most intending to travel onward to Iraq. To prevent escalation with Damascus, Jordan asked them to leave, allowing limited humanitarian cases time to arrange residence elsewhere.

Obeidat described Assad as “a good listener” who did not comment during their meeting but later instructed Syrian intelligence to cooperate with Jordan. His dealings with Syrian intelligence chief Ali Duba were limited but manageable.

He dismissed suggestions that Ahmed Jibril was behind operations against Jordan, saying the more serious problem involved Rifaat al-Assad. Rifaat’s alleged plot to assassinate Badran was uncovered, with suspects arrested at the border and in an apartment in Amman’s Sweileh district. They possessed weapons and explosives and were tried before Jordan’s State Security Court.

In an earlier incident, Obeidat said, members of Rifaat’s force assassinated a Syrian political refugee in Amman.

Asked about challenges upon assuming the premiership, Obeidat cited financial strain. Arab and Gulf aid declined to near zero, while Jordanian workers returned from the Gulf after losing their jobs, placing heavy pressure on living conditions.

Security challenges included Abu Nidal’s activities. At the same time, relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization improved. King Hussein allowed the Palestinian National Council to convene in Amman in 1984, triggering a political crisis with Syria.

Several attempted attacks targeting Jordan and council members were foiled, Obeidat said. Syria exerted pressure to prevent attendance, but Jordan ensured the session’s success. Supporting the PLO after its recognition as the legitimate representative of the Palestinians became, in his words, a Jordanian necessity to prevent a political vacuum.

Obeidat described a later meeting with Yasser Arafat as cordial after earlier strained ties, and said he also met Abu Iyad at the royal court during the council’s session. He met George Habash later in Beirut, outside office.

He then revisited the 1968 Battle of Karameh. Fighters from Fatah “stood firm and fought bravely,” he said, though many were killed. Some trainees were left without weapons or guidance despite warnings that battle was imminent, leading to heavy casualties.

King Hussein, he said, “was very resolute” during the battle.

On his relationship with the monarch, Obeidat said King Hussein “respected those who respected themselves.” Their relationship cooled after the 1994 Wadi Araba peace treaty, which Obeidat opposed.

Jordanian intelligence, he stressed, did not conduct operations in Beirut in response to the assassination of Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tal, though he noted military intelligence operated separately.

Obeidat listed foreign leaders he met as prime minister, including Assad, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein. Meetings with Britain’s queen, Austria’s president and Spain’s king were protocol visits.

He described relations between King Hussein and Assad as once “good, frank and continuous,” with almost weekly contact, before shifting during the Iran-Iraq war as close ties formed between King Hussein and Saddam.

Recalling his 2001 Baghdad visit, Obeidat said Saddam spoke at length about sanctions and support for Palestinians. He reproached Jordan over its peace treaty and alluded to Hussein Kamel’s defection. Obeidat insisted Jordan had no role in that defection or in his return.

When Iraqi officials called for cutting oil supplies to Jordan, Obeidat told Saddam that such a move would effectively besiege the Jordanian people. Saddam responded, “I will never abandon the Jordanian people under any circumstances.”

In Obeidat’s final reflection, the meeting left a lasting impression. From Saddam’s remarks that day, he said, he concluded that the Iraqi leader did not fully comprehend the scale of the international threat facing his country, a judgment he carried with him long after the encounter.

Interviews

Obeidat to Asharq Al-Awsat: Gaddafi Tried to Assassinate King Hussein with Missile Given to Wadie Haddad

King Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi holding talks on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Cairo in 1970 (AFP).
King Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi holding talks on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Cairo in 1970 (AFP).
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Obeidat to Asharq Al-Awsat: Gaddafi Tried to Assassinate King Hussein with Missile Given to Wadie Haddad

King Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi holding talks on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Cairo in 1970 (AFP).
King Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi holding talks on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Cairo in 1970 (AFP).

In the second installment of his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, former Jordanian prime minister and intelligence chief Ahmad Obeidat recounts details of a missile plot to assassinate King Hussein, which he says was backed by Muammar Gaddafi and carried out through operatives linked to Wadie Haddad, head of the external operations arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Obeidat, who also served as head of intelligence and as minister of interior and defense, revisits the confrontation between Israeli forces, the Jordanian army, and Palestinian guerrillas (fedayeen) in the border town of Karameh in March 1968, asserting that the Jordanian army “decided the battle,” but suffered a “moral defeat amid the fedayeen’s claims of victory.”

Obeidat died earlier this month. The interview was recorded before the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” whose aftermath delayed its publication. Below is the text of the second installment.
 

King Hussein inspects an Israeli tank left behind by occupying forces during the Battle of Karameh (Getty)

“Battle of Karameh”

Obeidat calls Karameh “a pivotal point of utmost importance,” especially for an army still reeling from the 1967 defeat and its withdrawal from the West Bank.

“The army lived the bitterness of that defeat,” he says. “It felt a moral, national, and pan-Arab responsibility.”

Karameh, he argues, offered a chance to restore the army’s fighting morale and reclaim some of its lost dignity.

“It was the army that settled the battle,” Obeidat says.

He credits Jordanian forces with thwarting Israeli attempts to build crossing bridges, destroying their vehicles on Jordanian soil and forcing, for the first time in Israel’s history, a request for a ceasefire. “The late King Hussein refused,” he adds.

Israel, he says, did not acknowledge a fifth of its casualties. Helicopters were evacuating the wounded who were “dripping with blood.”

He singles out artillery observation officers who advanced to the closest possible positions, relaying precise coordinates even as they effectively marked their own locations for shelling.

“The Jordanian soldier would identify his position near the Israeli army to be shelled,” he says, describing a willingness to die in order to restore dignity after the 1967 setback.

He says the declaration of “armed struggle” effectively erased the army’s role, presenting Palestinian fedayeen as the victors over Israel. “They monopolized the victory and ignored the army’s role entirely,” Obeidat says. “We emerged with a moral defeat in the face of their claims.”

He alleges that hundreds of millions of dollars in donations collected afterward, much of it going to Fatah, did not reach the Palestinian people but went to organizations and their leaders.

When the army entered Amman in September 1970, Obeidat says, it aimed to end what he describes as chaos: armed displays, roadblocks, arrests of soldiers on leave and interference in courts.

"When the army entered and began expelling the fedayeen from Amman, it swept through everything in its path. Even my own home, which I had recently rented after my abduction incident and which was close to the army’s command headquarters, was entered by the Jordanian army to search for fedayeen, while my family was inside the house at the time of the raid. My wife told them that her husband was an intelligence officer, but the Jordanian soldier replied, “Don’t lie.”

Obeidat says they did not leave the house until she contacted him, at which point he assigned one of his officers, the commander of an intelligence company, to speak with the army.

"Only then did they leave the house. The point is that the army swept areas without distinguishing between Jordanian and Palestinian; it wanted only to restore control over security. All of this forced me to send my family to my parents’ home in Irbid, in the north of the Kingdom."

He later describes what he calls a “state within a state,” extending from the Jordan Valley to Amman, after armed groups asserted authority over courts, roads, and civilian life.

On Syria’s intervention, Obeidat says Syrian forces entered northern Jordan flying Palestine Liberation Organization flags.

He later learned the decision was political, taken by the Baath Party, and that then-Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad complied reluctantly before Syrian tanks withdrew.

Iraq, he says, did not intervene. Obeidat affirms that he was told by Iraqi officials that neither the Iraqi state nor its forces intended to participate in any operation aimed at ending the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

According to one account, Iraqi leaders did not want to shoulder the political and diplomatic burden of the Palestinian issue or risk an uncalculated adventure.

He recounts another account, which he says he cannot adopt, according to which the operations command in the army was handled by a Pakistani figure. Under this account, Zia ul-Haq was receiving operational communications and sending messages that caused confusion among Iraqi and other forces, leading them to believe they would confront powerful strike units, prompting them to remain in a state of alert rather than engage.

He also recalls a meeting in which Palestinian figures, including Abu Iyad, reproached Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. Al-Bakr replied: “We are a state with one life. If we make a fundamental mistake, we end. You are like cats with seven lives.”

As director of intelligence, Obeidat says he dealt directly with operations attributed to Haddad.

Between 1975 and 1977, he says, a missile was sent to Jordan with a group led by a Jordanian, Brik al-Hadid, affiliated with the PFLP. The target was King Hussein’s aircraft.

“The intention was to strike the plane, with Gaddafi’s knowledge and approval,” Obeidat says.

Jordanian intelligence monitored the group from the outset and later arrested its members. The king’s aircraft departed Marka military airport as scheduled but flew in the opposite direction to its planned route as a precaution, using jamming devices against any incoming missiles.

When confronted by Mudar Badran, then head of the Royal Court, Gaddafi denied knowledge. “I have no information,” Obeidat quotes him as saying.

Obeidat describes the aircraft hijackings orchestrated by Haddad as “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” contributing to the army’s intervention.

He says Jordanian intelligence had infiltrated Fatah and monitored its leaders, including Abu Iyad and Abu Yusuf al-Najjar.

In mid-1972, intelligence learned that Abu Dawood and a group were planning to enter Jordan from Baghdad to seize the Jordanian cabinet during a session and hold ministers hostage in exchange for the release of detained Fatah members.

The group crossed in three Mercedes cars, dressed in traditional Arab attire, with weapons concealed inside the seats and forged passports in hand. They were arrested at the border after a thorough search.

Obeidat rejects claims by Abu Iyad that Abu Dawood was tortured, insisting that “not a single hair on his head was touched,” and says Abu Dawood confessed only after realizing the operation had been fully uncovered.

Later, King Hussein met Abu Dawood’s parents, who pleaded for clemency. The king read the full confession and then met Abu Dawood himself. He ultimately ordered his release, honoring a promise he had made to Abu Dawood’s parents.

In Obeidat’s view, Abu Dawood was affected by the king’s treatment of his parents and “did not pose any future threat to Jordan.”

Obeidat describes a direct relationship between King Hussein and the General Intelligence Department.

The king met with officers regularly, not only to hear briefings but also to hear their personal views. 

Obeidat says he would submit reports to the prime minister and also meet with the king. When addressing the king, however, it was sometimes necessary to elaborate verbally on certain issues so that such information would not circulate among staff. 

When he was asked to present a security briefing before the king, the late King Hussein would summon Crown Prince Hassan. The king’s advisers would also attend, along with senior army commanders, the public security leadership, the head of the Royal Court, and the prime minister. The briefing of the security report would include an explanation of the security situation and any external or internal challenges.

 

Interviews

Obeidat to Asharq Al-Awsat: Mystery Sniper Killed Wasfi Tal

Ahmad Obeidat during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat's Editor-in-Chief Ghassan Charbel in Amman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Ahmad Obeidat during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat's Editor-in-Chief Ghassan Charbel in Amman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Obeidat to Asharq Al-Awsat: Mystery Sniper Killed Wasfi Tal

Ahmad Obeidat during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat's Editor-in-Chief Ghassan Charbel in Amman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Ahmad Obeidat during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat's Editor-in-Chief Ghassan Charbel in Amman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Former Jordanian Prime Minister Ahmad Obeidat, who died earlier this month, was both a key player and a witness to sensitive chapters in his country’s history.

Obeidat began his career in the 1970s as an assistant director of intelligence, later serving as head of the General Intelligence Department until 1982. At the height of the Palestinian-Jordanian confrontation, he was abducted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine before the events of September 1970.

He also served for two years as interior minister before King Hussein appointed him prime minister in early 1984, a post he held until April 1985, concurrently serving as defense minister.

For more than 15 years, Obeidat remained at the center of decision-making. He later took on roles drawing on his legal background, from chairing the Royal Commission that drafted the National Charter in the early 1990s to serving in human rights and judicial positions, most recently as head of the board of trustees of the National Center for Human Rights until 2008.

Weeks before Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, Asharq Al-Awsat met Obeidat in Amman. The interview had been scheduled for publication in October 2023, but the major developments that followed led to its postponement, particularly as Obeidat addressed contentious issues, notably Jordanian-Palestinian relations.

In the first part of the interview, Obeidat revisits his formative years, when his political and professional journey began as a law student in Baghdad on the eve of the July 14, 1958 revolution, before returning to Iraq after the fall of the monarchy amid sweeping regional transformations.

The account moves to his early professional life in Jordan, from a brief stint in legal practice to joining the Public Security Directorate, then serving in the Political Investigations Office, which formed the nucleus of organized intelligence work. It concludes with a detailed narrative of the establishment of the General Intelligence Department in 1964, its early structure and founding members, at a time when the Jordanian state was rebuilding its institutions in an intensely turbulent region.

Asked where he was when the 1958 revolution broke out in Iraq, Obeidat said he had completed his first year in law studies and returned to Jordan for the summer break.

“While I was in Irbid, news arrived of the July 14 revolution in Iraq that overthrew the monarchy. After the summer break ended, I went back to Baghdad, where a republican government under Abdul Karim Qassem had taken power,” he recalled.

The return was not easy. “We faced difficulties on the road. The border between Jordan and Iraq was nearly closed, so we had to return via Damascus and then through desert routes to Baghdad. It was an exhausting journey,” he added.

Obeidat left Baghdad in 1961 after completing his final exams. “On the last day of exams in the fourth year, I went home, packed and returned to Jordan the same day. The border between Baghdad and Amman had reopened.”

Among his contemporaries at law school was Saddam Hussein, who studied in the evening section. Obeidat said he saw him only once by chance. “He was with others, one of whom later became a governor,” he revealed.

He returned to Baghdad again in 1983 as Jordan’s interior minister to attend a conference of Arab interior ministers, more than two decades after graduating. There, he met his Iraqi counterpart, Saadoun Shaker. “It was an ordinary relationship,” Obeidat said, describing the ties as largely ceremonial.

From customs to intelligence

After returning to Jordan in 1961, Obeidat initially considered practicing law. But limited opportunities in Irbid and his family’s financial constraints led him to seek public employment.

He was appointed to the Customs Department in Amman, where he worked for several months before joining the Public Security Directorate in April 1962 as a first lieutenant following three months of training at the police academy.

At the time, there was no separate intelligence agency. Public Security included a branch handling general investigations. Soon after, the Political Investigations Office was formed, staffed by legal officers from the army and Public Security, including Mudar Badran and Adeeb Tahaoub from military justice, alongside Obeidat and Tariq Alaaeddin from Public Security.

The office handled cases referred by security and official bodies, including military intelligence and the Royal Court. After reviewing its work, the late King Hussein ordered the establishment of a legally grounded intelligence body. The General Intelligence Law was issued in 1964, formally creating the department, explained Obeidat.

Mohammad Rasoul Al-Kilani became its first director, followed by Mudar Badran, then Nadhir Rashid. Al-Kilani briefly returned before Obeidat assumed the post, succeeded later by Tariq Alaaeddin.

The shock of 1967

Recalling the 1967 war, Obeidat described it as “a defeat, not a setback. A military, political, psychological, and social defeat in every sense.”

He said there was no institutional intelligence view on Jordan’s participation. “The political opinion of a figure of Wasfi Tal’s stature was that entering the 1967 war was a mistake. He was not in office, but he remained close to the king and influential,” said Obeidat.

According to Obeidat, King Hussein believed Israel would occupy the West Bank whether Jordan participated or not.

“Participation was a gamble that might succeed or fail. The catastrophe was discovering that the Egyptian air force had been destroyed within half an hour,” he added.

Despite the bitterness, he said: “We did not fear for the regime, but we sought to contain public anger and absorb the shock.”

September and the assassination of Wasfi Tal

Obeidat first met Yasser Arafat after the events of September 1970. He confirmed that Arafat left Amman with an official Arab delegation to attend the Cairo summit and returned immediately afterward.

He recalled being informed mid-flight of the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. “King Hussein was deeply affected.”

On the assassination of Prime Minister Wasfi Tal in Cairo, Obeidat said the gunmen who confronted Tal at the hotel entrance were not responsible for the fatal shot. “The fatal bullet came from behind, from a sniper in another unseen location. To this day, the sniper has not been identified,” he added.

He rejected the notion that Tal had been reckless. “Wasfi was not a gambler. He had a distinct political project,” he stressed.

Obeidat said the Black September Organization accused Tal of ordering the expulsion of fedayeen from forested areas in Jerash and Ajloun. He denied that Tal was directly responsible, saying the clashes began after fedayeen attacked a police station and killed officers, prompting a spontaneous army response.

Abduction without interrogation

Before September 1970, Obeidat was abducted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine while serving as assistant intelligence director.

Armed vehicles stopped his car as he was leaving his home in Jabal Al-Taj with his family. He and his brother-in-law were taken to the Wehdat camp. “We were treated politely. We drank tea. No one asked me a single question,” he recalled.

After several hours, he was driven to another house in Amman and later returned home. The next morning, members of Fatah took him briefly to one of their offices, only to release him on foot without explanation.

“Not a single question was asked,” Obeidat said. “It was bewildering.”

He resumed his duties after ensuring his family’s safety. “At the time, intelligence, like any official institution, was threatened and targeted,” he said, reflecting on one of the most volatile periods in Jordan’s modern history.