Ali Duba

Ali Issa Ibrahim Duba (علي عيسى ابراهيم دوبا, 1933 – 21 June 2023), better known as Ali Douba, was a Syrian military officer who was the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate of Syria under Hafez al-Assad as well as his close adviser. Under Douba’s leadership, the Military Intelligence Directorate was the most important security agency in Syria, responsible for maintaining security within the army and safeguarding the regime.

Early life
Duba was born to a small landowning family from the Alawite tribe of Matawira, in the village of Qurfays in the Jableh District south of Latakia. He joined the Ba'ath Party in the early 1950s while studying at the Holy Land Secondary School in Latakia.

Career
Duba joined the Syrian Army in 1955 and became the deputy head of internal security at the Damascus branch of the General Intelligence Directorate five years later. He served as military attaché at the Syrian embassy in Great Britain between 1964 and 1966, and in Bulgaria between 1967 and 1968.

Duba returned to Syria and became the head of military intelligence for the Latakia region. In November 1970, he was appointed the head of military intelligence for the city of Damascus, where he supported Hafez al-Assad's coup d'état. In 1971, he was made deputy head of military intelligence, under Hikmat al-Shihabi. In 1973 he was made head of military intelligence. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1978, and promoted to general in 1981. Douba took part in suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood revolt in Hama during February 1982. In December 1983, when President Hafez al-Assad was ill, Duba was a member of the committee responsible for governing the state in the interim.

In 1985, the Syrian president put him in charge of the Lebanon dossier, along with al-Shihabi and Ghazi Kanaan. In January 1993, Duba was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff while maintaining his role as head of military intelligence. In 1999 he was pushed aside by Bashar al-Assad over fears that he could be a rival for the presidency, and was made to retire in February 2000.

He lived in Syria until his death on 21 June 2023. EU Council Regulation 36/2012 placed him on a list of persons whose funds were frozen. His last public appearance occurred in May 2021 when he cast a vote for Bashar al-Assad in the 2021 Syrian presidential election.

Death
Duba died on 21 June 2023 in a military hospital in Latakia at the age of 89.