The relationship between Hafez and Rifaat was like any two brothers in a large family that originated from a poor background in the Syrian coast. The younger brother was influenced by the elder and followed in his footsteps, including joining the same party, the Baath Party, in the early s, and the military in the early s. He sought to discredit them and began promoting their downfall.
Members of the National Leadership, Baqir al-Yasin and Ahmed al-Jubouri, requested a meeting between the National and Qatari leaderships with President Assad to inform him of the situation and highlight the interference of Major Rifaat and his pressures on several conference members. I finished my speech and returned to my seat, which was close to his.
Adib Al-Dawoodi; I want to appoint him as a political advisor. I told him: He will be here tomorrow, and I called my office manager and asked him to summon Dawoodi from his workplace in Brussels.
Indeed, Assad received Dawoodi upon his arrival and appointed him as a political advisor. Two weeks passed without assigning him any work. Dawoodi came complaining, so I called the president and conveyed his complaint. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is there. After the conclusion of the conference, a date was set the next day for the election of members of the Qatari leadership. President Hafez had requested from Abdullah al-Ahmar, the president of the conference, to conduct the elections in his absence as he would be accompanying his mother to the airport, where she was traveling to France for medical treatment.
He asked me to inform the president of the conference to postpone the date until his return from the airport. Indeed, after the president returned and attended the conference, he spoke at length about stability in the leadership positions in the party and the state, praising the five members, and the conference members understood that he feared for their downfall, so he praised them.
