Ghazi Kanaan (1942-12 October 2005) was Minister of the Interior of Syria from 4 October 2004 to 12 October 2005, succeeding Ali Hammoud and preceding Bassam Abdel Majeed.
Biography[]
Ghazi Kanaan was born in 1942 in Bhamra, Alawite State, Syria to a family of Alawites; he was born not far from Hafez al-Assad's birthplace of Qardaha. He graduated from the Homs Military Academy in 1965, and he fought in the Golan Heights in the 1973 Yom Kippur War before serving as Director of Intelligence in Homs Governorate from 1981 to 1982. From 1982 to 2002, he led the Syrian intelligence forces in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War, and he backed Hezbollah's takeover of South Lebanon after 2000. From 2004 to 2005 he served as Minister of the Interior of Syria, and he was murdered on 12 October 2005 to cut links between the Syrian government and the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri; his death was made to look like a self-inflicted gunshot wound.