Bad apples: US proves Qatar's involvement in supporting Hezbollah

In new evidence proving the involvement of the Qatari regime under the leadership of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in supporting terrorist groups carrying out Doha’s plans in the Middle East region, Fox News has revealed that Qatar funded arms shipments to the Lebanon’s Hezbollah, noting that this endangers approximately 10,000 American soldiers in Qatar at Al Udeid base, which hosts the headquarters of the US Central Command (Centcom).

Critical dossier

The Fox News report was based on documents obtained by a private security contractor who goes by the pseudonym Jason G. After infiltrating the arms business in Qatar, he revealed to Fox News that a member of the royal family in Qatar authorized the delivery of military equipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.

The dossier indicated that the same member of Qatar’s royal family who authorized the delivery of weapons to Hezbollah also played a pivotal role in a multilateral scheme to finance terrorist activity since 2017.

Acting for Iran

The person in question is Brussels- based Qatari Ambassador to Belgium and NATO Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, who also worked as Doha's ambassador to Germany.

Fox News reported that Hezbollah, a Shiite militia working on behalf of Iran and founded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Lebanon in 1982, is still dependent on Iranian funding and support. It is also responsible for the killing of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq and Lebanon.

The obtained documents revealed that Khulaifi had attempted to pay Jason €750,000 in order to conceal the Qatari regime’s role in supplying Hezbollah with money and weapons.

“My goal is to stop Qatar from supporting terrorist activity,” Jason said, stressing that “the bad apples need to be taken out of the barrel,” referring to the destructive role played by Doha around the world.

Terrorist Qatar

In 2017, US President Donald Trump stated that Qatar “is a financier of terrorism at a very high level,” before contradicting himself a year later when he said in a meeting with Tamim that “Doha is fighting extremists.”

Fox News attributed the contradiction to the great efforts made by the Qatari regime by paying American lobbyists, which was confirmed by the New York Times.

Bishara’s dubious role

The new disclosures about Qatar's financing of one of the bloodiest terrorist movements in the world cast new doubts on the emirate's partnership with the United States in combating terrorism.

In this regard, Fox News reported that Azmi Bishara, a former Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset, was accused of aiding Hezbollah in its 2006 war against Israel, and he found shelter and royal patronage, as well as immunity from prosecution, in Doha.

According to the dossier, two Qatari charitable organizations – the Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable Association and the Education Above All Foundation – provided funds to Hezbollah in Beirut under the guise of food and medicine.

Neither charity has responded to inquiries about the Fox News report.

In a related development, Jason G., who worked for various Western intelligence services, confirmed to Fox News that his dossier has been verified by senior German intelligence officials, while the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported last month that the files could fetch up to €10 million.

Qatar’s financial and charitable systems have been implicated in other terrorist financing plans as well. The Washington Free Beacon reported in June that a lawsuit filed in New York City confirmed that Qatari institutions, including Qatar Charity and Qatar National Bank (QNB), funded Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Qatari support for groups opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after the revolution broke out in 2013 caused the relationship between Doha and Hezbollah to be negatively affected, before Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah admitted to mistakes so that relations between them could return to as they were.

Following the kidnapping of 26 fishermen, including people belonging to the Qatari ruling family, on the Syrian-Iraqi border in early 2016, Doha concluded a deal with Hezbollah to play the role of mediator for their release, and it paid large sums of money to aid the Lebanese terrorist militia.

Weighty scandal

In 2018, the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph uncovered a scandal of a heavy caliber after it showed leaked e-mails from senior officials in the Qatari government to leading members of Hezbollah and senior IRGC commanders, including Nasrallah and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Baghdad on January 3 by a US drone strike.

The leaks indicated that Doha paid a billion dollars in ransom to secure the release of hostages held by Shiite militias in Iraq. In one message, a Qatari official confirmed that £50 million was paid to Soleimani in April 2017, while another message indicated that £25 million was paid to a Shiite terrorist organization accused of killing several American soldiers in southern Iraq.