After his return to Libya, Koussa was appointed Secretary of the Libyan People's Bureau in
London in 1979. He was expelled from the United Kingdom in 1980, after commenting too candidly in an interview with
The Times newspaper about his government's intention to eliminate two political opponents who were living in the UK. On 23 August 2002, the BBC reported that Abu Nidal was 'behind
Lockerbie bombing'. In October 2008, Moussa Koussa, listed as an interpreter, met both British and Scottish government officials, while on a second visit in January 2009, he was listed as Minister of Security. In 2004, he allegedly played a leading role in the failed assassination plot against
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Over the decades, Koussa gained a reputation as an urbane and worldly figure "who would not have looked out of place as a
Western ambassador," according to the former
Central Intelligence Agency agent Paul R. Pillar. Koussa is further credited by the
CIA,
British MI6, as well as
French Intelligence Services for unraveling a labyrinth of Islamic radical and fundamentalist cells and movements in neighboring Sudan, Niger, Mali, and Chad. Such groups would come to be known as
Al-Qaeda. On 16 March 1998, five months before the Al-Qaeda
bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Libya ordered the first alert to
Interpol for the capture of
Osama bin Laden, a fact unbeknown to the wider public. The warrant was forwarded to
Interpol in France, where it was formalized on 15 April 1998. In 2004,
George Tenet credited Libya for issuing the first international red notice Interpol alert and arrest warrant for
Osama bin Laden. Koussa was also credited for negotiating Libya's decision to give up its
WMD program, thus facilitating Libya's reintegration into the international community.
Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Tripoli, stated Koussa is "straightforward and reliable ... I found him a perfectly reasonable person to deal with." Another leaked cable described him as "a useful and powerful interlocutor who has been mostly cooperative in liaison channels and key to our re-engagement." Koussa was appointed Foreign Minister in 2009, replacing
Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham, who was appointed Libyan ambassador to the United Nations in New York. In the May 2009 cable, Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa expressed concerns about the
Canadian Government led by Stephen Harper over the issue of ransom payments, which would only further strengthen Al-Qaeda's traction in the Saharan belt and parts of North Africa. There had been eight kidnappings in the past six months, including two Canadian officials who had been released in return for money. Koussa accompanied
Mutassim Gaddafi on a visit to the United Nations headquarters in
New York soon after Libya emerged from international isolation. A U.S. embassy cable quoted Koussa, in a private conversation, as saying that Mutassim was not a keen student of international relations and had to be prompted to read books on the subject. Before the
Libya crisis, there were indications that Koussa was no longer at the center of the country's ruling circle. He was held responsible for the defection of
Nuri Mesmari to France in October 2010 and his passport was allegedly confiscated by Gaddafi. At an international summit in Tripoli in December 2010, Koussa spent much of his time smoking in the public buffet area while the rest of Gaddafi's entourage were cloistered in a private room. ==Departure and resignation==