Abdul Halim Khaddam

Early life and education

Abdul Halim Khaddam was born on 15 September 1932 in Baniyas, Syria. His family was Sunni Muslim with a middle-class origin, and his father was a respected lawyer. Khaddam obtained his elementary and secondary education in Baniyas and then studied law at Damascus University.

Career

Khaddam became a member of the Baath Party when he was just 17 years old. He began his political career as governor of Quneitra after the party came to power in 1963. Then he was appointed governor of Hama and Damascus. His first government portfolio was economy and trade minister in the cabinet formed by then head of Syria, Nureddin al Attasi, in 1969, making him the youngest minister in Syrian political history. Then he was named as an advisor to Hafez Assad. He later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister from 1970 to 1984. On 7 January 1976, Khaddam argued that Lebanon was part of Syria. During his visit to Tehran in August 1979 following the Iranian Revolution, he publicly stated that the Syrian government backed the revolution before and after the revolutionary process.

He then served as Vice President from 11 March 1984 to 2005. He was responsible for political and foreign affairs as Vice President. Khaddam was also chief mediator during the Lebanon Civil War, thus giving him the unofficial titles of "High Commissioner" or "Godfather" of Lebanon.

After the death of Hafez Assad in 2000, a 9-member committee was founded, which was headed by Khaddam, to oversee the transition period. He was appointed by this committee as interim President of Syria on 10 June and he was in office until 17 July 2000 when Bashar Assad was elected as the new president. At the time, there were rumours in Damascus that Khaddam would try to seize power, as he was the constitutional successor to the presidency.

Assassination attempts

Khaddam was slightly injured in an attack in Damascus in December 1976. In October 1977, Khaddam again survived an assassination attempt at the Abu Dhabi International Airport. However, Saif Ghobash, the United Arab Emirates' first Minister of State for Foreign Affairs was killed in the attack instead. The Syrian authorities argued that it had been planned and carried out by Iraq. Khaddam reported that Rifat Assad also tried to kill him.

Alliances

Khaddam was one of the senior officials in Syria who was close to Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Hariri partnered with Khaddam's sons in many businesses and projects in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.

Resignation

As the new President, Bashar Assad, strengthened his grip on the Baathist bureaucracy, Khaddam, and other members of the "old guard" of the government, gradually lost influence. He announced his resignation on 5 June 2005 during the Baath Party conference after publicly criticizing the regime's many blunders especially in Lebanon, making him the only high ranking Syrian official to publicly resign office while in Syria and at a Ba'ath Party conference, a move which many inside Syria considered extremely brave because of the potential risks involved. He then went to France with his family in fear for their safety as intelligence reports started coming in of potential assassination plots against him and other members of his family by the Assad regime. That made him the last influential member of the "old guard" to leave the top tier of the government. The announcement came at a point when Bashar Al-Assad had been trying to have his political wings clipped, but still the most powerful Sunni member in an Alawi government. After resigning, he relocated to Paris ostensibly to write his memoirs.

Defection and exile

On 30 December 2005, Khaddam fled Syria. In an interview with Al Arabiya on the same day, Khaddam denounced Assad's many "political blunders" in dealing with Lebanon. He especially attacked Rustum Ghazali, former head of Syrian operations in Lebanon, but defended his predecessor, Ghazi Kanaan, Syria's interior minister. Khaddam also said that former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, to whom Khaddam was considered close, "received many threats" from Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian parliament responded the next day by voting to bring treason charges against him, and the Baath Party expelled him. Following the Khaddam interview, the UN Commission headed by Detlev Mehlis investigating the Hariri murder said it had asked the Syrian authorities to question Bashar Assad and Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. He met with the UN investigators searching for the Hariri assassination in Paris in January 2006. His accusations against Assad and his inner circle regarding the Hariri assassination also grew more explicit: Khaddam said he believed that Assad ordered Hariri's assassination.

On 14 January 2006, Khaddam announced that he was forming a "government in exile", predicting the end of Assad's government by the end of 2006. Khaddam is the highest ranking Syrian official to have publicly cut his ties with the Syrian government, including Rifaat al-Assad. Khaddam formed the opposition group National Salvation Front in Syria (NSF) in 2006 which supports political transition in Syria. The NSF had its last meeting on 16 September 2007 in Berlin, where some 140 opposition figures attended. On 16 February 2008, Khaddam accused the Syrian government of assassinating a top Hezbollah fugitive, Imad Mughniyeh, "for Israel's sake."

Trial

Khaddam was tried in absentia by a military court in Damascus and sentenced to hard labour for life and to be stripped of his civil rights and prevented from residing in Damascus or Tartus, his native town, in August 2008. The reason for the verdict was "slandering the Syrian leadership and lying before an international tribunal regarding the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri."

Role in the Syrian Civil War

Khaddam is considered an opposition leader to the current Syrian government by the United States and the EU. He maintains strong relations with many senior army generals who have defected from the Syrian government and has been supporting them to overthrow Bashar Al-Assad. In 2016, he accused Iran of supporting the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, saying that Iran "is working along the lines of creating a Sunni power to fight Sunnis in the region.” He also blamed the US, for "pushing Turkey into Russia’s open arms," and suggested that the US had a role in the recent coup. He also believes that the U.S. administration, is no longer capable of fixing the situation in Syria.

Personal life

Khaddam is married to Najat Marqabi, who is a member of a rich and well-known Tartous family. They have three sons and one daughter. One of his granddaughters is married to Rafik Hariri's son. Khaddam is interested in reading political works and hunting.