Annan’s possible successor Brahimi, a deeper look

Kofi Annan has resigned and will be soon replaced by Lakhdar Brahimi, one of the main drafters of the Taef agreement. Brahimi will take on a mission that seems nearly impossible at a time when Syria is witnessing the fiercest clashes between the regime troops and the Free Syrian Army. The Algerian diplomat will head to Syria in an attempt to succeed where Annan failed.     

Originally from a town called Aziza in south Algeria, Brahimi will return once more to the region after being appointed special envoy of the Arab League Tripartite Committee to Lebanon in 1989. His mission came to an end with the signature of the Taef agreement.       

However, this time the mission seems more difficult for the man who has followed up on all the political developments in the Arab world since the 1950s. Brahimi started off as a militant in the Algerian National Liberation Front, then represented his country at the Arab League in 1963, before taking on the post of Algerian ambassador to the U.K.         

Following the success of his mission in Lebanon, Brahimi was appointed Algeria’s foreign minister before assuming the position of U.N. Special Representative. As a U.N. representative, he followed up on the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa before moving to Haiti in 1997, then to Afghanistan where he stayed until 2004, i.e. after the U.S. invasion. Brahimi finally headed to Iraq to help the local authorities form a transitional government.