Qatar

[House Hearing, 115 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] ASSESSING THE U.S.-QATAR RELATIONSHIP

HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION

JULY 26, 2017 Serial No. 115-55

Qatar has been known to be a permissive environment for terror financing, reportedly funding U.S. designated foreign terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, as well as several extremist groups operating in Syria.

In 2014, the former deputy director of CIA, David Cohen, called out Qatar publicly along with the Kuwaitis, because according to him, "The private engagement with these countries had not achieved what we were trying to achieve. In fact, Qatar has openly housed Hamas leaders, Taliban leaders, and has several individuals who have been sanctioned by our U.S. Treasury Department, and it has failed to prosecute them.

At least one high-ranking Qatari official provided support to the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks against our country, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Then, of course, there is Khalifa Mohammed, who is a U.S.-, EU-, and U.N.-designated international terrorist for his role in financing al-Qaeda and the 9/11 mastermind. In 2008, he was tried and convicted in absentia by Bahrain for his terrorist activity, and arrested later that year by Qatar only to be released by the Qataris 6 months later, and then openly financed by Doha. Can anyone guess what Khalifa Mohammed has been up to these days? He was implicated in terror financing activities in 2012, but more recently, he has been alleged to be financing and supporting terror in both Iraq and Syria with no response from the Qatari Government.

Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, also made Doha his headquarters for years while the Qatari's--with the Qatari's Government support and even the Muslim Brotherhood has received significant support from Qatar.

Of course, not all of this is supported by the government in Doha. Many individuals and charities in Qatar have been known to raise large sums of money for al-Qaeda, the Nusra front, Hamas, and even ISIS.

In Qatar, there are three buckets: Terror financing by the government; terror financing done in Qatar through their own citizens that their government may not know about; and terror financing in Qatar that the government knows about but does nothing to stop. According to the 2015 country reports on terrorism, the State Department stated, "Entities and individuals within Qatar continue to serve as a source of financial support for terrorists and violent extremist groups, particularly regional al-Qaeda affiliates such as the Nusra front.

There is no excuse for openly harboring terrorist and supporting groups that seek to harm our allies, and the excuse by Qatar that it is harboring these nefarious actors is because the U.S. asked them to no longer stands up.

Qatar should not be continuing this reckless policy due to past mistakes from previous Republican and Democratic administrations. We must not allow for our air base to be used as a means to justify this sort of behavior, and a lack of a more appropriate response. Doha's behavior must change the status quo, and if it does not, it risks losing our cooperation on the air base. The truth of the matter is that none of the Gulf countries--none of the Gulf countries are without their issues. All of the nations have been involved in funding different groups at some point that we would not approve of. But it seems like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are making progress at a faster rate while Qatar is making some progress but still is lagging slowly behind. According to the Congressional Research Service, "In October 2016, Daniel Glaser, then Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing in the Office for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, told the Washington, DC, Research Institute that over the past decade, Qatar has made less progress in countering terrorism financing than had Saudi Arabia. We must analyze the totality of our relationship with these Gulf countries.

While Qatar only helps to facilitate our operations at our air base, the UAE, for example, has spent 12 years with us fighting alongside in Afghanistan and has been involved in counterterrorism operations with the U.S. in Libya. So moving forward, one outcome that I hope comes out of this dispute is for the Gulf countries to work closely with our Treasury Department's Financial Action Task Force to root out and disrupt terror financing streams. This uneasy time may just be an opportunity for us to take a long hard look at how, and for some, if, we can effectively address and stop terror financing in the region, and ultimately defeat the extremism that threatens the security of us all. And with that, I turn to my friend, the ranking member, Mr. Deutch, for his statement.

Mr. Deutch.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

Thanks to the witnesses for being back before our committee. I thank the chairman for convening today's timely hearing to explore our relationship with Qatar at a moment of great instability in the region. The ongoing diplomatic rift between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors is not good for the parties of the conflict; it is not good for the region; and it is not good for American interests. It is a distraction from today's most pressing challenges, Iran's destabilizing activities, the conflict in Syria, and the spread of terrorism.

For most Americans who expect conflict in the Middle East to fall along sectarian lines, or between competing regional hegemons, it is confusing to see Sunni Arab neighbors in conflict. But this is a dispute over longstanding grievances, over Qatar's support financially, and through its state-owned Al Jazeera news station, for actors and groups that Qatar's neighbors and, in many cases, the United States, see as deeply problematic. This feud, like others in the region, is a nuanced and deeply complex matter, and our relationship with Qatar is no less complex. A tiny but immensely wealthy nation pursues an ambitious foreign policy of close relations with all actors in the region. Unfortunately, this includes terror groups like Hamas and the Afghan Taliban. Qatar has served as a financial and political lifeline for Hamas' devastating rule in Gaza since the terror group took over more than a decade ago. Qatar has sent hundreds of millions of dollars into the Gaza strip, provides safe haven in Doha for Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, and helped legitimize Hamas rule in 2012 when the Emir became the first international leader to visit Hamas- led territory. Qatar has also supported other dangerous groups in the region, including sending advanced weaponry and financing to extremist elements in Syria and Libya, and Al Jazeera has given voice to clerics calling for suicide attacks against Americans and Israelis...

Dr. Schanzer, we will begin with you for your opening statement. STATEMENT OF JONATHAN SCHANZER, PH.D., SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES Mr. Schanzer. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Deutch, and members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, thank you for the opportunity to testify. As many of you know, FDD has been producing research and analysis on Qatar since the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011. Our critique has been consistent. We have pointed to Qatari support for Hamas, the Taliban, jihadists in Syria, jihadists in Libya and the Muslim Brotherhood. We have been critical of Qatar for the invective broadcast on state-owned Al Jazeera. We have tracked the many reports suggesting that Qatar paid ransom to terrorism groups, and we have noted through the work of my colleague, David Andrew Weinberg, that Qatar has failed to take action against U.S. and U.N.-designated terrorist financiers. In my written testimony, I document these problems, and I am happy to discuss them further. But for a moment, I would like to address how Qatar has responded to the allegations against it...

 The claimants say they fled to Holland after their lives and homes were destroyed by al-Nusra Front, a jihadist organisation.

Al Qaeda tape 'given' to 'Al Jihadzeera' shows Bin Laden 'lieutenant' Al Zawahiri threatening attacks on UK and US.

Doha — Qatar has invited the radical preacher Dr. Zakir Naik, infamous for his endorsing views on suicide bombings, to teach the FIFA fans about Islam.

The famous ScreenMix entertainment magazine tweeted on Saturday, “Qatar invited the famous Islamic preacher Dr. Zakir Naik to deliver religious lectures during the 2022 World Cup.

In a recent article, the Pakistan-based Urdu-language pro-Taliban daily Roznama Ummat examined the Qatari government's preparations for da'wa ("preaching," "invitation to Islam") at the FIFA World Cup beginning on November 20, 2022. Da'wa is an important part of Islam whereby Muslims are expected to invite non-Muslims to embrace the religion. The article, titled "FIFA World Cup And Da'wa Of The Religion," and written by Islamic religious scholar Zia Chitrali, explains various media activities and events planned to explain Islam to non-Muslim spectators and to try to persuade them to convert. As part of these events planned by Qatari officials, thousands of volunteers will engage in da'wa and free books and pamphlets highlighting Islamic teachings will be distributed among the spectators. In a recent article, the Pakistan-based Urdu-language pro-Taliban daily Roznama Ummat examined the Qatari government's preparations for da'wa ("preaching," "invitation to Islam") at the FIFA World Cup beginning on November 20, 2022. Da'wa is an important part of Islam whereby Muslims are expected to invite non-Muslims to embrace the religion. The article, titled "FIFA World Cup And Da'wa Of The Religion," and written by Islamic religious scholar Zia Chitrali, explains various media activities and events planned to explain Islam to non-Muslim spectators and to try to persuade them to convert.

As part of these events planned by Qatari officials, thousands of volunteers will engage in da'wa and free books and pamphlets highlighting Islamic teachings will be distributed among the spectators. [1].

Despite having officially outlawed slavery, Arab states in the Gulf region have downplayed the legacy of repression and racism faced by minorities...

Modern slavery is still widespread in the Arab states of the Gulf region, where millions of migrant workers are forced to work under grueling conditions with little or no pay.

Migrants building a state-of-the-art stadium for the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar are abused and exploited – while FIFA makes huge profits.

Tell FIFA and its sponsors to act now to protect migrant workers in Qatar from abuse. Migrants from Bangladesh, India and Nepal working on the refurbishment of the showcase Khalifa Stadium and landscaping the surrounding gardens and sporting facilities known as the “Aspire Zone” are being exploited. Some are being subjected to forced labour. They can’t change jobs, they can’t leave the country and they often wait months to get paid. Meanwhile, FIFA (football’s global governing body), its sponsors and the construction companies involved are set to make massive financial gains from the tournament. 

MY LIFE HERE IS LIKE A PRISON. THE MANAGER SAID: ‘IF YOU WANT TO STAY IN QATAR BE QUIET AND KEEP WORKING.’

Deepak, metal worker on the Khalifa Stadium

 — “This,” says Equidem executive director Mustafa Qadri, “is a World Cup built on modern slavery.” In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson..

Anish Adhikari awoke at the Qatari labor camp at 4 a.m. to diarrhea from last night’s rotten fish. His tonsils were swollen from the limited water made available by his employer while working 14 hours a day in 125-degree heat. But he remained hopeful that building air conditioners for 80,000 ticket-holders could provide the equivalent of $8,000 over three years to support his family in Nepal. That he could pay back the loan shark who’d secured Adhikari a job beginning in 2019 with the Hamad Bin Khalid Contracting Co. (HBK), the contracting firm owned by the the highest echelons of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family. He thought of his father and sickly mother living with his six brothers, their four wives, and their eight children in a hurricane-ravaged farmhouse, using an animal shed for a kitchen. But the 23-year-old soccer fan was helping to construct the site of this year’s World Cup final; some days, when he arrived at Lusail Iconic Stadium before dawn, Adhikari forgot how exhausted he was.

As the world’s media and teams start to arrive the facts and figures behind workers’ and human rights in Qatar remain hard to uncover.

For nearly a decade, Russia and Qatar have been suspected of buying votes to win hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. On Monday, for the first time, the Department of Justice put things in black and white.

Since FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar in 2010, the tournament has been ensnared in a tangled web of scandals.

Exclusive: Construction firms allegedly paid ‘millions’ to buy and lease machinery from the Taliban for infrastructure, according to sources

The Taliban made millions from the World Cup by providing construction equipment to build stadiums in Qatar, The Telegraph understands. Senior Taliban officials used lucrative salaries tied to peace talks to buy and then subcontract heavy machinery for tournament infrastructure over the past decade, a source from the Taliban's Doha office revealed. A large contingent of the Taliban leadership lived in Doha, the capital of Qatar, from 2013 onward where they were engaged in long-running peace talks with the US and UN. “The Taliban invested heavily in the World Cup construction and the tournament was a golden duck. They were paid millions,” claimed the source, who lived in Doha in the decade running up to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. “Some Taliban members had between six and ten pieces of heavy machinery each in Doha and would earn up to £10,000 per machine per month.” Two separate senior Taliban sources described how officials were given lucrative allowances to live in the country during the peace negotiations, which was then invested in heavy construction machinery.

Iran’s soccer team blanked 10-man Wales Friday as World Cup host Qatar prevented Iranian fans from expressing their support for the ongoing protests in their the country. 

Iranian fans, who wanted to take flags other than the official one approved by the Islamic Republic to the Al Rayyan’s Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, were stopped by security officers. Many people were barred from carrying or waving Iran’s ancient flag with the Lion and Sun emblem or a simple three-color flag with the main motto of the current wave of protests – Woman, Life, Liberty.

Documents obtained by Iran International show Iran was coordinating secret efforts with Qatar to control who attends the World Cup and restrict any signs of dissent.

Black Reward, a hactivist group that found access to Fars News Agency files this week provided an audio tape of a meeting between a Revolutionary Guard general and a group of media managers or representatives from outfits affiliated with the IRGC about plans to use the sporting event to the benefit of the regime in Tehran. A six-minute audio segment of a tape features General Ghasem Ghoreyshi (Qasem Qoreyshi), deputy commander of the paramilitary Basij and a group of reporters including the one from Fars News who met with him possible in the presence of other trusted reporters to discuss the latest developments including plans for the World Cup. The meeting took place on Tuesday 15th of November. Ghoreyshi starts by saying that “anti-revolutionaries” have bought “5,330 tickets” to the tournament and adds that “our boys have checked the list of the ticket holders and at least 500 people” are known opponents of the Iranian regime.

This is the first piece of evidence of collaboration with Qatar, showing that Iran obtained the list of ticket buyers most probably from Qatari authorities.

Although seemingly spontaneous, #FreePalestine flags at #WorldCup2022 are propaganda props organized by #Palestinian organizations. Palestinian activists hand out flags to be smuggled into the stadiums and be raised at the 48th minute each game.

You just have to like World Cup outsiders Morocco – don't you? Adding an anti-Semitic touch to the joy makes things difficult.

Palestine plays along: Morocco's team after reaching the quarter-finals

How could we not be happy that Morocco has one of the eight best football teams in the world ! Finally a team that doesn't come from Europe or South America! In addition - and now follows an interpretation that is surprisingly seldom read at present - a North African team that has gradually chased one colonial power after the other off the football field: Belgium in the preliminary round, Spain in the round of 16; now another nation is waiting with Portugal, which owes its wealth largely to its colonial past. Next, France and the Netherlands could be decolonized in terms of football.

Instead of this, I think, obvious interpretation, the Moroccan success is overlaid with a lot of Palestine symbolism. The Moroccan team held up a Palestine flag after defeating Spain. Tunisian fans did something similar in the preliminary round. And some Qataris are now wearing a "pro-Palestine" armband in response to the Europeans' "One Love" armband, which they see as an impertinence.

At first, that seems childishly defiant: ugh, we have our protest too! From a political point of view, however, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is used here to assert an alleged Arab unity. As if fans from Maghreb countries were in the same boat as the Qatari ruling families! In order to prevent protests, which could not least come from Palestinian migrant workers in Qatar, ruling families from the emirate and other regimes are building a bugbear called "Palestine Solidarity". It is not without reason that Qatar has been financially supporting the terror that the Islamist Hamas is waging against Israel for years.

There is a historical precedent for the transparent pro-Palestine propaganda that so characterizes the World Cup. In 1963, a counter-Olympics were held in Jakarta. Ganefo called it "Games of the New Emerging Forces". What was supposed to look like a sympathetic rebellion from the then so-called Third World countries was the project of the Indonesian President Sukarno. It was explicitly directed against Israel's participation in world sport.

Anti-racism is still necessary, it can be expressed, for example, in joy at Moroccan soccer successes. But giving that joy an anti-Semitic touch is the twist that gangs like the Qatari dynasty want to use to secure their power.

Qatar | Special Dispatch No. 9503

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's takeover of the country sparked many reactions worldwide, including in the Arab world. Conspicuous among these reactions were expressions of joy by Islamist organizations such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,the International Union of Muslim Scholars and various elements identified with the Muslim Brotherhood.

While everyone is talking about the effects of the turbulent upheaval in Afghanistan on neighbors like China or Iran, it is becoming clear that one of the big gainers is actually the tiny Qatar capable of disproportionate intervention in their affairs not hers.

Aug 19, 2021

One British man’s death in Qatar reveals the dirty truth about the traitors within.

In an annual propaganda ritual, the heads of foreign governments and media operatives marked the anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s death by tweeting condemnations of the killing of the old friend of Osama bin Laden who had been recruited by an Al Qaeda financier to promote Jihad.

It is a testament to the unchallenged power of the Islamic tyranny of Qatar that everyone in Washington D.C. unquestioningly takes a knee and pays tribute to its martyred operative.

“Jamal Khashoggi’s murder 4 years ago was also an attack on freedom of expression everywhere,” Secretary of State Blinken tweeted. There’s no such thing as “freedom of expression” among Khashoggi’s Qatari employees. Khashoggi was not fighting for any kind of freedom, but for an Islamist tyranny of the kind practiced by Qatar’s fellow Islamists in Iran. Had he gotten his way, liberals in Saudi Arabia would be the ones being brutally murdered. As they are in Iran.

Western elites have spent far less time expressing outrage about the torture and mass murder by Iran’s Islamic regime of thousands of dissidents and protesters than they have over the death of an Islamist whose death equally outraged Al Qaeda and ISIS as it did Washington D.C.

The Washington Post was much less exercised about one of its own reporters, Jason Rezaian, being held hostage in Iran for over a year than over Jamal Khashoggi, a foreign operative running press releases from the Qatari Foundation in its digital pages at the behest of Qatar.

This year the annual Khashoggi passion play coincides with information about Qatar’s murder of Marc Bennett, a British citizen who was brutally tortured without a word of protest from the West.

If Blinken has expressed a word of concern about Bennett’s killing by Khashoggi’s backers, I have yet to find it. The British government closed the case and has shown no interest. The Washington Post has never allowed Bennett’s name to appear in its pages. That might offend its Qatari masters. Despite having been killed a year after Khashoggi, there is still virtually no mention of Bennett by the politicians, influencers and media operatives who claim that they only care about the Qatari terrorist agenda because they are so deeply moved by human rights.

Unlike Khashoggi’s death, Bennett’s death was not political. He was just one of the many foreign workers whom Qatar’s slave masters considered their personal property. When Bennett tried to leave Qatar Airlines, he was treated like any of the other foreign workers, mostly Indian, Asian and African, who are routinely beaten, tortured and worked to death in the Islamic tyranny. The only difference between the thousands of foreign workers who have died to erect the glittering towers of Doha, who prepare for the World Cup, and who attend to the needs of the slave masters of Qatar, is that Bennett was a westerner. But to the Islamic slave masters of Qatar and others in the region, all non-Arabs and non-Muslims are inferior subhuman slaves.

According to the most recent report in The London Times, “Bennett had been taken blindfolded and handcuffed to a state security detention centre. Bennett later described how he was stripped naked, blasted with high-pressure hoses, slammed against walls.”

His alleged crime was trying to leave Qatar Airways which, like most of the major organizations, including Al Jazeera, is controlled by Qatar’s ruling family.  According to the Qataris, Bennett later “committed suicide” in a hotel room in Doha on Christmas Day. The timing must have amused his Islamist killers. According to his wife, his clothes had been laid in his hotel room as if he were preparing to go out and the circumstances of the crime scene don’t comport with those of a suicide. British investigators noted, “no specific evidence of suicidal intent”.

The British government has issued multiple statements about Khashoggi’s death even though the Bin Laden pal was never a British citizen or related to the UK in any meaningful way. It has shrugged at Bennett’s death and then gotten on with the business of asking Qatar for cash. The BBC has one mention of Bennett. It has hundreds of results for Khashoggi. Last year, the British government declared that it continues to raise the “terrible crime” of Khashoggi’s death with Saudi Arabia. No such efforts have been made to raise the death of Marc Bennett, a Briton who was not an associate of Islamic terrorists or an enemy agent.

The relative silence over Bennett’s death and the hysterical fury over Khashoggi’s demise reveal more than a double standard, but the deep level of political control Qatar wields over the West.

Westerners don’t need to be physically within the boundaries of Qatar, for the Islamic terror state to have almost as much control over their lives as it did over that of Marc Bennett.

The oil-glutted Islamic terrorist state has not only escaped the consequences for its crimes, but it sets the political agenda for Washington D.C. and much of the western world. Between Al Jazeera, which sets the media’s agenda for the region, and Brookings, the powerful Democrat think tank whose associates fill the ranks of the Biden administration, Qatar rules over us. The Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar backs, continues to enjoy safe harbor in America. Its various affiliates have not only been immunized from prosecution, but have been deeply embedded in our government, our political system and our culture. To understand not only our failure to stop Islamic terrorism after 9/11, but the disastrous surrender to the Taliban, overseen by Qatar, which played godfather to the Taliban talks, you have to recognize its influence.

Khashoggi’s omnipresence in our culture and Bennett’s nonexistence is a testimony of the far darker truths about how our governments have sold us out to be killed by Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors while blasting us with propaganda that turns the terrorists into victims. “We were hoping to establish an Islamic state anywhere,” Khashoggi reminisced about his time together with Osama bin Laden in the Muslim Brotherhood. “We believed that the first one would lead to another, and that would have a domino effect which could reverse the history of mankind.”

You can find that Islamic state in Washington D.C. now where everyone from Tim Kaine to Mitt Romney pushes Khashoggi propaganda. Lindsay Graham tried to hold up a bill for Osama bin Laden’s old pal. Bernie Sanders attacked Biden for not holding gas prices in this country hostage to the Qatari agent. While our political class may differ on so many issues, when it comes to what Qatar wants, they are all in agreement. And they are all betraying us. Khashoggi’s death was indeed revealing. And what it revealed is that our countries are rotten with politicians and media outlets who willingly serve as the tools of an Islamic terrorist state. That is why they won’t talk about Bennett’s death.

During the Cold War, when a Communist ran into trouble anywhere, human rights organizations, journalists and politicians would rush to his defense in the name of humanity. But when countless people were tortured, starved and killed in Communist prisons, they were silent. What was true of the USSR is still true of China and of Qatar. Every time you hear about Jamal Khashoggi, you are seeing Qatar’s influence at work and you are witnessing traitors out themselves. Listen carefully. And remember Bennett’s Qatar,

Khashoggi was an agent of the foreign Islamist powers that rule over us. Bennett is us.

World Cup host has not properly investigated fatalities, rights group says, citing concerns over heat stress and safety

World Cup host Qatar has failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers in the past decade, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

The human rights organisation said the majority of migrant worker deaths in Qatar are attributed to “natural causes”, cardiac or respiratory failure; classifications which are “meaningless” without the underlying cause of death explained, according to one expert cited.

As a result, as many as 70% of deaths may be unexplained. “In a well resourced health system, it should be possible to identify the exact cause of death in all but 1% of cases,” the report said.... In February the Guardian revealed that more than 6,500 migrant workers from south Asia had died in Qatar in the past decade...

In February the Guardian revealed that more than 6,500 migrant workers from south Asia had died in Qatar in the past decade.

On January 23, the visit of the Secretary General of the Islamic World League, Dr. Muhammad al-Issa, to the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, led by a delegation of 25 senior Muslim clerics, a few days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was a historic precedent for his first visit. A senior Muslim delegation in an extermination camp commemorating the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe. Thus, and following al-Issa's statements during the visit in condemnation of the Holocaust, the visit provoked many different reactions in the Arab and Islamic world...