Lamia al-Hariri

Lamia al-Hariri is a Syrian diplomat who served as her country's chargée d'affaires in the Republic of Cyprus. She defected from Bashar al-Assad's government in July 2012 and went to Qatar, according to the media reports the articles rest on. ^{1 2} Her defection was the second by a Syrian diplomat in July 2012, after that of Ambassador Nawaf al-Fares. ¹

Al-Hariri was born in Hama, and her family originates from the Daraa Governorate, according to the articles. ^{1 2} She is the daughter of the retired major general Mohammad al-Hariri, a former deputy interior minister, and the niece of Syrian vice-president Farouk al-Sharaa. ¹ The sources give no birth date and no account of her education before her diplomatic posting.

Al-Hariri was appointed chargée d'affaires at the Syrian embassy in Nicosia in November 2010. ¹ On 24 July 2012 Al Jazeera reported her defection to Qatar after her opposition to the Syrian government; two members of the opposition Syrian National Council confirmed the defection on 25 July, and Al Arabiya reported that she had joined the opposition and, in reports of the time, remained in Qatar. ^{1 2}

On 25 July 2012 her husband, Abdelatif al-Dabbagh, the former Syrian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, also defected to Qatar and was joined by his wife; his defection was confirmed by SNC spokesman Mohammad Sarmini. ^{1 2}

This section presents positions reported in the sources; it is not the museum's verdict on any of them.

On 26 July 2012 the Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement through the state news agency SANA stating that Lamia al-Hariri was not an ambassador but a diplomat working at the Syrian embassy in Cyprus, whose mission was to manage the embassy's affairs until an ambassador or chargé d'affaires was appointed — affairs the Arabic article describes as "simple". ^{1 2} Opposition reports carried in the articles, by contrast, treated her defection as significant, being the second defection of a Syrian diplomat within a single month, amid the defections from the Syrian government in the summer of 2012. ¹

• "Lamia al-Hariri", English Wikipedia, revision of 31 May 2026. ¹
• «لمياء الحريري», Arabic Wikipedia, revision of 4 April 2026. ²
• Wikidata item Q3216730. ³