Qatar Buys off Al Qaeda

From the UK Timesonline, "Qatar buys off Al-Qaeda attacks with oil millions," with thanks to Looney Tunes

DOHA - THE government of Qatar is paying millions of pounds a year to Al-Qaeda in return for an undertaking to spare it from further terrorist attacks, official sources in the wealthy Gulf state claimed last week.

The money, paid to spiritual leaders sympathetic to Al-Qaeda, is believed to be helping to fund its activities in Iraq. In a recent message broadcast via the internet, Osama Bin Laden told followers that operations in Iraq were costing Al-Qaeda more than £500,000 a month.

The sources said a deal between Qatar and Al-Qaeda was first made before the 2003 invasion of Iraq amid fears that the oil state, a close ally of Washington, could become a terrorist target. The US Central Command for the invasion was based in Qatar.

A senior government source said that the agreement was renewed in March after an Egyptian suicide bomber — thought to be associated with Al-Qaeda — struck a theatre in Doha, Qatar’s capital, killing a British teacher during a performance of Twelfth Night.

“We’re not sure that the attack was carried out by Al-Qaeda, but we ratified our agreement just to be on the safe side,”said a Qatari official. “We are a soft target and prefer to pay to secure our national and economical interests. We are not the only ones doing so.”

Qatar is one of the richest Gulf states and many of its 840,000 inhabitants have a high standard of living. It is also an important base for business.

Al-Qaeda would not be the first terrorist organisation to take protection money in the Arab world. During the 1970s and 1980s Arab rulers paid extremist groups such as the Abu Nidal organisation.

The financial pressures on Al-Qaeda would be a great incentive for it to offer protection to anybody willing to pay. But the deal with Qatar is not purely financial. Qatar has offered a haven for a number of extremists. Federal prosecutors in Miami recently indicted Kifah Jayyousi, a former Detroit school administrator, on charges of conspiring to murder, kidnap, and maim people in other countries, and of providing financial support to Islamic jihadists overseas. He was arrested at a Detroit airport after returning from Qatar.

Security in Qatar is noticeably relaxed compared with that in many Gulf states. While patrol cars and armed men are seen throughout much of the Arab world, they are not obvious in Doha. Even around hotels there are few guards. Locals in brand-new German and Japanese cars drive freely along the city’s wide boulevards...

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5 Comments

Thomas | May 1, 2005 7:14 PM

Greetings:

If this is true (in which it most likely is) Qatar should be placed on the top of the State Department's list of nations that sponsor terrorism right next to Iran and Syria. Qatar would also be in flagrant violation of SCR 1373 (one good thing the United Nations Security Council has carried out)which should trigger immediate economic and diplomatic sanctions. Let's not hold our collective breaths however.

The same arrangement may also exist for Bahrain and UAE. The absence of any real terrorist to these two countries, considering their often outward "pro-Western" stance and lip service to the "war on terror" in my view is indicative of an almost identical arrangement. Dubai, which is a haven of Western symbolism in the Middle East has remained largely unscathed while terror surges in Saudi Arabia. That in itself should indicate something is not right.

Yours sincerely

Thomas

BigSleep | May 1, 2005 7:27 PM

I wondered where the terrorists were getting the money to buy all of the cars used in the bombings in Iraq.

Thanks QATAR! (Quietly Aiding Terrorists And Rejoicing?)

Squalid scum.

(I hope the geopolitical gamesplayers at the assorted Military Colleges are getting good plans together for what to do with this stratetic spot once it overplays its hand and needs to be brought under civilized control.)

angry_kafir | May 1, 2005 7:50 PM

Qur’an 64:16 “Fear Allah as much as you can; listen and obey. Pay the zakat. Those saved from covetousness prosper. If you loan to Allah a beautiful loan, He will double it. He will grant Forgiveness: for Allah is most ready to appreciate.

Ishaq:515 “When the people of Fadak heard of what had happened, they sent word to the Messenger, asking him to banish them and spare their lives, saying they too would leave him their property. So Khaybar became the prey of the Muslims, while Fadak belonged exclusively to the Messenger of Allah, becoming his personal property.”

Qur’an 5:13 “Loan Allah a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from your evils, and admit you to Gardens.”

Bukhari: V9B87N127 “The Prophet said, ‘I have been awarded victory by terror so the treasures of the earth are mine.’”

Shy Guy | May 2, 2005 2:40 AM

And here's your joke for the day!

Qatar seeks Israel's support at UN
Uriel Heilman, THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 19, 2005

In an unusual move for an Arab state, Qatar is asking for Israel's help to secure a temporary seat on the UN Security Council.

Qatar's ambassador to the United Nations, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, met several days ago with Israel's UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, to petition Israel to support its candidacy to the 15-member Security Council. Qatar is one of two candidates to take over the Asia seat on the council, currently occupied by Pakistan. Pakistan's two-year term on the Security Council expires in January 2006.

Israel is considering Qatar's request.

"We did not give an answer. We have to check this," said a spokeswoman for Gillerman, who declined to speak publicly on the matter. "We have warming ties" with Qatar, she added.

Israel has no diplomatic ties with Qatar, but it does have a trade mission in the Persian Gulf state. Support for Qatar in the UN could win Israel reciprocal support for its own causes in the UN, which often face solid opposition from the world body's Arab bloc.

Qatar's UN mission and embassy in Washington did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The Security Council currently has five permanent and 10 rotating members. Five of the rotating members are elected each January 1 by the UN General Assembly to serve two-year terms, and the members are chosen from several regional groups.

Several weeks ago, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed expanding the permanent membership of the Security Council beyond the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and China to include world powers that have emerged over the last half-century. Among the most talked-about candidates are India, Japan, Germany and Brazil. The proposal, one of several Annan suggested to reform the beleaguered world body, currently is under preliminary discussion.

The UN has been the subject of intense criticism in recent months, both for its handling of the oil-for-food scandal, in which deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was able to siphon billions from a UN aid program, and for its general lack of effectiveness. Critics cite the organization's inability to halt the bloodshed in the Darfur region of Sudan or prevent its human rights commission from being hijacked by terrorist-sponsoring states as evidence of the world body's ineffectiveness.

Qatar's candidacy for the 2006-07 term likely would not be affected by any potential reforms at the UN. Its primary competitor for the Asia seat on the Security Council is Cambodia, according to UN sources.

So.............. why aren't you all laughing?

bapakgila | May 2, 2005 7:59 AM

Perhaps the United States and other permanent UN members should be asking all our friendly Muslim nations to help us fund all our anti-terrorist laws recently implemented thanks to the ever increasing presence of Muslim terrorist groups in our front yards that are being funded by Qutar, Saudi Arabia and all the other Middle Eastern countries?

Perhaps King Faud, the world's biggest contributor of terrorist groups and the biggest contributor of the building of new Mosque's throughout the UK and America could loan us some money for a chance instead of advocating the spread of Wahhabism through his Masjid's throughout our lands with his oil dollars?

However, my guess is, Kofi Annan will elect King Faud and Saudi Arabia to chair the next human rights Council and King Faud will start blaming America and Israel for all the recent attacks on Muslims? Oh that's right, there hasn't been any; my mistake.

In fact, shouldn't it had been the Islamic dollar that paid for the most recent prosecution of the latest CAIR members for funding terrorist groups? The list goes on... who gets the bill?

Islam; the Religion of Extortion, Racism, Rape, beheadings, etc... the cost still keeps going up!!!!

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