November 15, 2026
Investigations into the assassination of former Iraqi MP Ahmed Al-Alwani in Beirut have entered a new turn, with the Lebanese authorities moving towards Damascus to request security cooperation in pursuing two suspects believed to have fled to Syrian territory after committing the crime, while the motives and backgrounds remain mysterious.
In this context, Al-Arabiya channel reported from informed sources that the Lebanese side asked Damascus to cooperate in uncovering the circumstances of the case, after the Lebanese security services succeeded in identifying two Syrians suspected of involvement in the crime, while the authorities arrested a Lebanese person pending investigation.
Preliminary data revealed that the victim was strangled inside an apartment rented by the suspects in the “New Road” area in Beirut, where they lured him immediately upon his arrival in Lebanon. According to a judicial source who spoke to Agence France-Presse, it is believed that three people participated in carrying out the crime, namely the Lebanese detainee and the two suspects who crossed the border into Syria.
Al-Alwani arrived in the Lebanese capital from Erbil on November 5, before he was found murdered, which raised widespread questions about the parties behind his targeting and the reasons for the crime.
Al-Alwani is considered a prominent political figure in the Iraqi Anbar Governorate, where he served as a member of Parliament, and emerged as one of the most prominent faces of the protests that the country witnessed between 2012 and 2013 against the government of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He was arrested in December 2013, and was sentenced to death in 2014 on charges of killing two soldiers. He was later released in April 2025 under the General Amnesty Law after spending more than a decade in prison.
The step to communicate with Damascus to expand the scope of investigations regionally comes in parallel with the existing coordination between Beirut and Baghdad, with the aim of tracking down those who are hiding and identifying the roles and instigating parties behind the crime. The case remains open to various possibilities, awaiting the outcome of communications with the Syrian side regarding the fate of the two suspects and the possibility of handing them over to the Lebanese judiciary.
