Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism

The small Arab country of Qatar, bordered only by Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, has long been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders. The country has been called “the Club Med for Terrorists” and “most two-faced nation in the world, backing the U.S.-led coalition against the militants of the Islamic State while providing a permissive environment, in the words of one top American official, for terrorist financiers to operate with impunity.”

Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists. The Telegraph, a British newspaper, even started a “Stop the Funding of Terror” journalism campaign.

At the official level, the Qatari government pledged support for Hamas, the Palestinian group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, Egypt and Canada.

In response to these allegations, on September 25, 2014, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, went on American television to defend his country against claims that it harbors terrorist financiers. In an interview on CNN, the Emir stated that Qatar is committed to fighting ISIS for the long-term.

The Qatari government has a designated terrorist list. As of 2014, the list contained no names.

Background

Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel

In December 2013, the United States designated Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGTs). Nuaymi is based in Qatar. The U.S. Treasury Department placed sanctions on Nuaymi and declared him a "Qatar-based terrorist financier and facilitator who has provided money and material support and conveyed communications to al-Qa'ida and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen for more than a decade."

In September 2014, a diplomat in Qatar told the media that between 8 and 12 “key figures in Qatar” were raising millions of pounds for jihadist fighters for Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

In December 2014, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Congressman Pete Roskam (R-IL) requested that the U.S. government, in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, impose sanctions on Qatar. The two congressman asked for a full report on activities within Qatar from individuals, charities and organizations that fund Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the al-Nusra Front.

In December 2014, 24 members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee signed a letter suggesting that Qatar and Turkey be subject to U.S. sanctions if their governments keep turning a blind eye to terror finance.

Al-Qaeda

Flag of Jihad

Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl was Osama bin Laden’s former business agent. He defected to the United States in 1996. In testimony to the 9/11 Commission and Congress, Al-Fadl said that Bin Laden told him in 1993 that the Qatar Charitable Society (QCS), which was later renamed to Qatar Charity, was one of Bin Laden’s main sources of funding.

In 2003, The New York Times wrote:

"Private support from prominent Qataris to Al Qaeda is a sensitive issue that is said to infuriate George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. After the Sept. 11 attacks, another senior Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been the principal planner of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was said by Saudi intelligence officials to have spent two weeks in late 2001 hiding in Qatar, with the help of prominent patrons, after he escaped from Kuwait."

Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy and Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi are senior-level financiers of al-Qaeda. In 2014, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, announced that the two men were living freely in Qatar. Both men were on a worldwide terrorist blacklist. Al-Subaiy, as it turned out, had previously worked at the Qatar Central Bank.

In response to Cohen’s announcement and the release of the U.S. intelligence report, reporters from The Telegraph contacted Qatari officials. According to The Telegraph, “Qatar has refused to answer."

At one time, Al-Nuaymi was the president of the Qatar Football Association. The U.S. report said that he send more than 1.25 million British pounds per month to Al-Qaeda jihadist fighters in Iraq. He sent hundreds of thousands of pounds to fighters in Syria. The United States designated Al-Nuaymi as a terrorist in 2013. Britain sanctioned him in 2014.

Al-Subaiy and Al-Nuaymi have close ties to senior leaders in the Qatari government. Robert Medick, a reporter for The Telegraph’s "Stop the Funding of Terror” campaign, wrote in 2014 that Qatar "turned a blind eye to terrorist financiers operating within their midst."

ISIL

See also: Finances of ISIL

Flag of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

In November 2014, the U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, described Qatar as operating an environment that is tolerant of terrorism financing.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have said that donations from countries outside the U.S. have been a traditional source of financing for terrorism. A small part of ISIS’s financing operations comes from such donations.

Abdul Karim al-Thani, a member of Qatar’s royal family, ran a safe house for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor to ISIS. Al-Thani gave Qatari passports out and put $1 million into a bank account to finance AQI.

Abd al Rahman al Nuaymi, a Qatari citizen, worked as a go-between of ISIS’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), with donors to AQI from Qatar.

Hamas

The flag of Hamas

More money flows from Qatar to Hamas than any other country.

In 2014, Qatar had pledged $400 million to Hamas. The United States designates Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization.

In September 2014, Congress held a hearing about the role of Turkey and Qatar in terrorist financing. Top Democrats and Republicans at the hearing gave tough words to Qatar. Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL) said:

"Relationships with some of these countries are complicated . . . Support for Hamas is not complicated, and our response to their support for Hamas should not be complicated either."

Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) said:

"We must make our message clear: If you help finance Hamas, there will be significant consequences and they will be unpleasant. I hope Qatar and Turkey are listening."

In July 2013, Egypt banned the Muslim Brotherhood after its military coup overthrew President Mohamed Morsi. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. In February 2015, Egypt declared Hamas as a terrorist organization. At that time, Egypt became the fourth country in the world after Israel, the United States, and Canada, to do so. In response to Egypt’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization, Hamas said through a spokesman, "The Egyptian court decision...is shocking, critical and targets the Palestinian people and Palestinian resistance forces." However, in June 2015, an appeals court overturned the declaration.

Opposing views

At the September 2014 congressional hearing, Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations testified. Cook offered an alternative theory about Qatar’s alleged lax enforcement against terrorism financing: self-interest. Cook argued that Qatar supports a wide variety of ideological groups in an effort to be independent from the influence of larger countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.

In a September 2014 interview with CNN, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, said "We support all Palestinian people. We believe Hamas is a very important part of the Palestinian people." The Emir told CNN, "We don't fund extremists. If you talk about certain movements, especially in Syria and Iraq, we all consider them terrorist movement."

After Cohen made his public remarks in October 2014, the Qatar ambassador to the United States, Mohammed al-Kuwari, acknowledged to the Wall Street Journal that Qatar has had problems with some of its citizens sending money to terrorist organizations. However, al-Kuwari said that the Qatari government was never involved.

In 2004, the Qatari government created a Financial Intelligence Unit. In 2010, it created an anti-terrorism committee.

To combat its reputation as a source of terrorism financing, Qatar passed a law that implements regulations against charities that have been accused of sending money to terrorist organizations.

See also

• List of charities accused of ties to terrorism
• State-sponsored terrorism

Bibliography

• "Egypt court annuls ruling that Hamas is terrorist group", Al Jazeera, June 6, 2015.
• "Egyptian court declares Hamas a 'terrorist’ group", Al Jazeera, February 28, 2015.
• "Gaza Conflict Spotlights Role of Qatar, the Hamas-Funding U.S. Ally”, The Algemeiner, July 28, 2014.
• “Terrorist Groups: Hamas”, Counter Terrorism Guide, National Counterterrorism Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, U.S. Government.
• "Treasury Designates Al-Qa’ida Supporters in Qatar and Yemen”, United States Department of Treasury, December 18, 2013.
• Andrew Gilligan, news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11125897/The-Club-Med- for-terrorists.html “The ‘Club Med for Terrorists’”, The Telegraph, September 27, 2014. ()
• Jamie Dettmer, "U.S. Ally Qatar Shelters Jihadi Moneymen”, The Daily Beast, December 10, 2014. ()
• Jodi Rudoren, "Qatar’s Emir Visits Gaza, Pledging $400 Million to Hamas", The New York Times, October 23, 2012.
• Jonathan Schanzer, "A Survey of Global Terrorism and Terrorist Financing", Hearing before the Task Force to Investigate Terrorist Financing, U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, April 22, 2015.
• Julian Pecquet, "Congress Goes After 'Frenemies' Turkey, Qatar”, U.S. News & World Report, September 10, 2014.
• Lori Plotkin Boghardt,"Qatar Is a U.S. Ally. They Also Knowingly Abet Terrorism. What's Going On?”, New Republic, October 6, 2014.
• Matthew Epstein & Evan Kohlmann, “Progress Since 9/11: The Effectiveness of U.S. Anti-Terrorist Financing Efforts”, Testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, March 11, 2003.
• Mick Krever, "Qatar's Emir: We don't fund terrorists", CNN, September 25, 2014.
• National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), page 62.
• Patrick E. Tyler, "Intelligence Break Led U.S. to Tie Envoy Killing to Iraqi Qaeda Cell”, The New York Times, February 6, 2003.
• Pete Roskam and Brad Sherman, Letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, U.S. Congress, December 10, 2014.
• Robert Mendick, "Terror financiers are living freely in Qatar, US discloses”, The Telegraph, November 16, 2014.
• United States District Court Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, “Government’s Evidentiary Proffer Supporting the Admissibility of Coconspirator Statements”, United States of America v. Enaam M. Arnaout, No. 02 CR 892.
• William Mauldin, "U.S. Calls Qatar, Kuwait Lax Over Terror Financing", The Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2014.