Qatar Dictates Obama’s Policy on Syria

It is not just money, it is that Doha is the center, the core, the hub of all Middle East policy machinery to which the White House has deferred. Smitten and starry-eyed and out of the strategic lead, Obama and his State Department barely intersect with Qatar except to bow at commands and spectate during the enduring chess-game.

 

More information about Qatar is available on the Qatar Page and from other Department of State publications and other sources listed at the end of this fact sheet.

U.S.-QATAR RELATIONS

The United States established diplomatic relations with Qatar in 1972 following its independence from the United Kingdom. Bilateral relations are strong, with the United States and Qatar coordinating closely on a wide range of regional and global issues. . As a valuable partner to the United States, Qatar has played an influential role in the region through a period of great transformation. Together, we support progress, stability and prosperity in the region. The United States and Qatar also cooperate on security in the Persian Gulf region. Qatar hosts CENTCOM Forward Headquarters, and Qatar has supported North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. military operations in the region. The United States welcomes hundreds of Qataris students in the United States every year, and six major U.S. universities have branch campuses in Qatar.

U.S. Assistance to Qatar

The United States provides no development assistance to Qatar.

Bilateral Economic Relations

The United States and Qatar have extensive economic ties. As Qatar’s largest foreign investor and its single largest source of imports, the United States has developed a robust trade relationship with Qatar, with over 120 U.S companies operating in country. For example, the U.S. is one of the major equipment suppliers for Qatar’s oil and gas industry, and U.S. companies have played a significant role in the development of the oil and gas sector and petrochemicals. U.S. exports to Qatar include aircraft, machinery, vehicles, optical and medical instruments, and agricultural products. U.S. imports from Qatar include liquefied natural gas, aluminum, fertilizers, and sulfur. The United States and Qatar have signed a trade and investment framework agreement.

Qatar’s Membership in International Organizations
Qatar and the United States belong to a number of the same international organizations, including the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization. Qatar is an observer to the Organization of American States and a member of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Arab League.

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2014 Foreign Policy: ABU DHABI and DOHA — Behind a glittering mall near Doha’s city center sits the quiet restaurant where Hossam used to run his Syrian rebel brigade. At the battalion’s peak in 2012 and 2013, he had 13,000 men under his control near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor. “Part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), they are loyal to me,” he said over sweet tea and sugary pastries this spring. “I had a good team to fight.”

Hossam, a middle-aged Syrian expat, owns several restaurants throughout Doha, Qatar, catering mostly to the country’s upper crust. The food is excellent, and at night the tables are packed with well-dressed Qataris, Westerners, and Arabs. Some of his revenue still goes toward supporting brigades and civilians with humanitarian goods — blankets, food, even cigarettes.

He insists that he has stopped sending money to the battle, for now. His brigade’s funds came, at least in part, from Qatar, he says, under the discretion of then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah. But the injection of cash was ad hoc: Dozens of other brigades like his received initial start-up funding, and only some continued to receive Qatari support as the months wore on. When the funds ran out in mid-2013, his fighters sought support elsewhere. “Money plays a big role in the FSA, and on that front, we didn’t have,” he explained.

Hossam is a peripheral figure in a vast Qatari network of Islamist-leaning proxies that spans former Syrian generals, Taliban insurgents, Somali Islamists, and Sudanese rebels. He left home in 1996 after more than a decade under pressure from the Syrian regime for his sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of his friends were killed in a massacre of the group in Hama province in 1982 by then President Hafez al-Assad. He finally found refuge here in Qatar and built his business and contacts slowly. Mostly, he laid low; Doha used to be quite welcoming to the young President Bashar al-Assad and his elegant wife, who were often spotted in the high-end fashion boutiques before the revolt broke out in 2011.

When the Syrian war came and Qatar dropped Assad, Hossam joined an expanding pool of middlemen whom Doha called upon to carry out its foreign policy of supporting the Syrian opposition. Because there were no established rebels when the uprising started, Qatar backed the upstart plans of expats and businessmen who promised they could rally fighters and guns. Hossam, like many initial rebel backers, had planned to devote his own savings to supporting the opposition. Qatar’s donations made it possible to think bigger.

In recent months, Qatar’s Rolodex of middlemen like Hossam has proved both a blessing and a curse for the United States. On one hand, Washington hasn’t shied away from calling on Doha’s connections when it needs them: Qatar orchestrated the prisoner swap that saw U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl freed in exchange for five Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. And it ran the negotiations with al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, that freed American writer Peter Theo Curtis in August. “Done,” Qatari intelligence chief Ghanim Khalifa al-Kubaisi reportedly texted a contact — adding a thumbs-up emoticon — after the release was completed.

But that same Qatari network has also played a major role in destabilizing nearly every trouble spot in the region and in accelerating the growth of radical and jihadi factions. The results have ranged from bad to catastrophic in the countries that are the beneficiaries of Qatari aid: Libya is mired in a war between proxy-funded militias, Syria’s opposition has been overwhelmed by infighting and overtaken by extremists, and Hamas’s intransigence has arguably helped prolong the Gaza Strip’s humanitarian plight.

For years, U.S. officials have been willing to shrug off Doha’s proxy network — or even take advantage of it from time to time. Qatar’s neighbors, however, have not. Over the past year, fellow Gulf countries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have publicly rebuked Qatar for its support of political Islamists across the region.Over the past year, fellow Gulf countries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have publicly rebuked Qatar for its support of political Islamists across the region. These countries have threatened to close land borders or suspend Qatar’s membership in the regional Gulf Cooperation Council unless the country backs down. After nearly a year of pressure, the first sign of a Qatari concession came on Sept. 13, when seven senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood figures left Doha at the request of the Qatari government.

Both Qatar and its critics are working to ensure that Washington comes down on their side of the intra-Gulf dispute. At stake is the future political direction of the region — and their roles in guiding it.

Late last week, on Sept. 25, Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept documented how a Washington, D.C.-based firm retained by the United Arab Emirates made contacts with journalists that appear to have yielded articles detailing how fundraisers for groups such as al-Nusra Front and Hamas operate openly in Doha, Qatar’s capital. Foreign Policy also obtained documents from the Camstoll Group, run by former U.S. Treasury Department official Matthew Epstein. Although some of this open-source information is referred to in this article, the vast majority of the reporting comes from months of investigation in the region.

After several weeks of bad press, Qatar is also going on the offensive. “We don’t fund extremists,” Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour during his first interview as Qatar’s leader on Sept. 25. Just over a week earlier, Qatar instituted a new law to regulate charities and prevent them from engaging in politics. And on Sept. 15, Doha began a new six-month contract with Washington lobbying firm Portland PR Inc., which may include lobbying Congress and briefing journalists.

So far, Washington appears unwilling to confront Qatar directly. Aside from the U.S. Treasury Department, which last week designated a second Qatari citizen for supporting al Qaeda in Syria and elsewhere, no senior U.S. administration officials have publicly called out Doha for its troublesome clients.

The State Department said that nobody would be available to comment for this article, but released a fact sheet on Aug. 26 that describes Qatar as “a valuable partner to the United States” and credits it with “play[ing] an influential role in the region through a period of great transformation.”

The question is what the United States is prepared to do about Qatar if it fails to stem its citizens’ support for extremist groups, says Jean-Louis Bruguière, the former head of the EU and U.S. Treasury Department’s joint Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, now based in Paris. “The U.S. has the tools to monitor state and state-linked transfers to extremist groups. But intelligence is one thing and the other is how you react,” he told FP by phone. “What kind of political decision is the U.S. really able to make against states financing terrorism?”

Friends of Qatar

There is no more telling indication of Qatar’s ambitions than the fact that Doha taxi drivers are perpetually lost. With construction ongoing everywhere — part of a $100 billion infrastructure plan to prepare for hosting the 2022 World Cup — buildings open and projects come online so fast that the city’s cabbies can’t keep up.

On the world stage, Qatar sees its role as no less grandiose. Beneath the high-chandeliered ceilings of Doha’s five-star hotel lobbies, eager delegations from around the world make their case for support. Governments, political parties, companies, and rebel groups scurry in and out nervously, and then wait over hot tea to have their proposals considered by the relevant Qatari authorities. Which hotel the visitors stay in indicates their prospects for support. The Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton are old favorites; Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has stayed at the former, the Syrian opposition at the latter. The W Hotel is a posh newcomer, mostly housing eager European delegations seeking investment or natural gas. The Sheraton — one of Doha’s first hotels — is by now passé; that’s where top Darfuri rebels stayed during negotiations with the Sudanese government. Everyone wants into the network, because as one Syrian in Doha put it, “Qatar has money and Qatar can connect money.”

The winners in this hustle have often been those with the longest ties to this tiny, gas-rich state — a menagerie of leaders from the global Muslim Brotherhood. Doha was already becoming an extremist hub by the early 2000s, as government-funded think tanks and universities popped up filled with Islamist-minded thinkers. The government-funded Al Jazeera was growing across the region, offering positive media attention to Brotherhood figures across the Middle East, and many of the ruling family’s top advisors were Brotherhood-linked expatriates — men like the controversial Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars from Doha.

What Doha saw in the Muslim Brotherhood was a combination of religiosity and efficacy that seemed parallel to its own. Moreover, the Qatari ruling family sought to differentiate itself from competing monarchies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), both of which frown upon political Islam as dangerously power-seeking. It was pragmatism, argues Salah Eddin Elzein, head of the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, a think tank associated with the Qatar-owned satellite network. “Islamists came [to the region] in the 1980s, and Qatar was trying to ally itself with the forces that it saw as those most likely to be the dominant forces for the future.”

But the global Muslim Brotherhood isn’t Qatar’s only — or even its most important — network. Nor does the royal family subscribe to the Brotherhood’s ideals per se. Often overlooked is a second strand that tows closer to Qatar’s official sympathies: the Salafi movement.

Emerging in the 1990s, activist Salafists merged the purist ideology of Saudi Arabia’s clerical establishment with the politicized goals of the Muslim Brotherhood. Some of these thinkers would become the first incarnations of al Qaeda, while others gained a strong foothold in liberated Kuwait, where the first activist Salafi political party was formed.

It was in Qatar that the activist Salafists found their benefactor. Over the last 15 years in particular, Doha has become a de facto operating hub for a deeply interconnected community of Salafists living in Qatar but also in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and elsewhere. Clerics have been hosted by ministries and called to talk for important events. Charities have touted the cause — charities like the Sheikh Eid bin Mohammad al Thani Charity, regulated by the Qatari Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which is “probably the biggest and most influential activist Salafi-controlled relief organization in the world,” according to a recent report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

As early as 2003, the U.S. Congress was made aware that Qatari-based charities were helping move and launder money linked to al Qaeda, providing employment and documentation for key figures in the operation. At the same time, Qatar’s global influence was growing: State-backed Qatar Airways began an aircraft-buying spree in 2007 to fuel its vast expansion, linking the once far-flung emirate to every corner of the world. And by 2010, Al Jazeera had evolved into the Arab world’s most influential media operation, supported by a massive annual budget of $650 million.

Just as the Arab Spring invigorated opposition movements across the Middle East, so too did it electrify Qatar’s network of political clients.

Power projection by proxy
Qatar was the only Gulf country not to view with trepidation the changes that roiled the Arab world starting in 2011. Saudi Arabia was shaken by how quickly Washington dropped its decades-long ally in Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. Bahrain convulsed when its majority Shiite population took to the streets to demand greater political influence. The UAE joined Qatar in backing NATO strikes in Libya but was considerably more reticent about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood there and in Egypt, fearing the group would invigorate Islamist-sympathizers among its own population.

Qatar, meanwhile, placed a long bet that political Islam was the next big thing that would pay off. “Qatar believes in two things. First, Doha doesn’t want the Saudis to be the major or only player in the Sunni region of the Middle East,” says Kuwaiti political scientist Abdullah al-Shayji. “Second, Qatar wants to have a role to play as a major power in the region.“

Yet mismatched with its grand ambitions, Qatar’s foreign policy faced a key limitation. The country is home to just under 300,000 nationals, and government decision-making is concentrated in the hands of just a few officials. Lacking their own infrastructure, Qatar sought to amplify its impact by working through its network of Brotherhood and Salafi allies.

“The Qataris usually work by identifying individuals who they think are ideologically on the same wavelength,” says Andreas Krieg, an assistant professor at King’s College London and an advisor to the Qatar Armed Forces. “There is no vetting process per se; it’s ‘these are people we can trust.’”

The first battlefield test of Qatar’s proxy chain was in Libya, where there was a broad regional consensus — as well as U.S. support — to oust then-leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. Qatar, together with the UAE, had signed on to Western airstrikes against the regime. But Doha also wanted to help build up rebel capacity on the ground.

“They had to literally go to their address book and say, ‘Who do we know in Libya?’” says Krieg. “This is how they coordinated the Libya operation.” Doha lined up a collection of businessmen, old Brotherhood friends, and ideologically aligned defectors, plying them with tens of millions of dollars and 20,000 tons of arms, the Wall Street Journal later estimated. After a months-long war, the rebels took Tripoli and Qaddafi was dead. Doha’s clients found themselves among the most powerful political brokers in the new Libya. And long after the NATO strikes had ended, some Qatari-backed militias continued to receive support, says Bruguière.

Amid the initial euphoria of the Arab Spring, many expected the nascent summer protests in Syria to quickly topple the Assad regime. Presidents in Tunisia and Egypt had lasted just weeks before resigning, after all, and the world had quickly rallied to oust a more persistent Qaddafi. By August, Washington was calling on Assad to step down as well. Not long thereafter, Qatar began its Syrian operation, modeled on the Libyan adventure.

Like the tendering of a contract, Doha issued a call for bidders to help with the regime’s overthrow. “When we started our battalion [in 2012], the Qataris said, ‘Send us a list of your members. Send us a list of what you want — the salaries and support needs,’” Hossam, the Syrian restaurant owner, remembers. He and dozens of other would-be rebel leaders submitted a pitch. He doesn’t say how much his brigade received, but says his own fundraising efforts for humanitarian goods have yielded hundreds of thousands of riyals.

Qatar’s friends abroad were also at work. Throughout 2012 and early 2013, activist Salafists in Kuwait teamed up with Syrian expatriates to build, fund, and supply extremist brigades that would eventually become groups such as al-Nusra Front and its close ally, Ahrar al-Sham. Using social media to tout their cause and a deep Rolodex of Kuwaiti business contacts, clerics and other prominent Kuwaiti Sunnis raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their clients.  Using social media to tout their cause and a deep Rolodex of Kuwaiti business contacts, clerics and other prominent Kuwaiti Sunnis raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their clients. They were able to work essentially unhindered thanks to Kuwait’s lax counterterrorism financing laws and its freedoms of association and speech.

One such donor was the young Kuwaiti Salafi cleric Hajjaj al-Ajmi, who on Aug. 6 was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a funder of terrorism for backing al-Nusra Front. Ajmi runs the so-called People’s Commission for the Support of the Syrian Revolution, many of whose campaign posters on Twitter spoke of charity work — giving food or medicine to the needy and displaced. But back in June 2012, Qatar’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs invited the cleric to speak in the coastal city of Al Khor, 30 miles outside Doha, where he argued that humanitarian support alone would never topple the Syrian regime.

“Did you know that bringing down Damascus would not cost more than $10 million?” he intoned, wagging his fingers from his chair in front of the old Syrian flag adopted by revolutionaries. “The priority is the support for the jihadists and arming them.”

In the months that followed, many of Ajmi’s campaigns in Kuwait ran parallel collections in Qatar. Donations could be placed through a representative named Mubarak al-Ajji, according to campaign posters, which affirm he is under Ajmi’s “supervision.” Ajji’s Twitter bio describes him as loving Sunni jihadists who hate “Shiites and infidels.” His timeline is flush with praise for Osama bin Laden.

One of Ajmi’s Kuwaiti colleagues, a cleric named Mohammad al-Owaihan, also used Qatar as a base, calling it his “second country” in a tweet in August. As recently as April, Owaihan solicited Qataris to help prepare fighters for battle on the Syrian coast. “Our jihad is a jihad of Money in Syria,” one poster read, offering contact numbers in Kuwait and Qatar.

These fundraising efforts were well-honed appeals, for example placing donors in special categories for donations of varying sizes. A “gold” gift was 10,000 Qatari riyals ($2,750), while a “silver” donation came in at 5,000 riyals. When particularly generous donations arrived, Ajji and others reported them on Twitter, for example posting photos of jewelry turned over to fund the cause.

Among the grateful rebel brigades that released videos thanking the Kuwaiti cleric Owaihan is Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafi group that counted an al Qaeda operative as one of its top commanders until he was killed this year: “O the kind people of Qatar, O people of the Gulf, your money has arrived,” an October 2013 video from the brigade proclaims. Ajmi boasted of his proximity to Ahrar al-Sham on Sept. 9 in a tweet showing the private online message the group’s leader sent him when the Kuwaiti cleric was designated and sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

All of these fundraising activities were orchestrated by individuals — not the government — as Qatar has noted in its defense in recent weeks. But this is also exactly the point: By relying on middlemen, Doha not only outsourced the work but also the liability of meddling. And even where it wasn’t involved directly, Qatar is not unaware of what’s going on in its network.

Many clerics in the activist Salafi movement have, like Ajmi, been outspoken in their backing of groups like al-Nusra Front in Syria — views that have found a welcome audience among government-backed organizations in Doha. Saudi cleric Mohammad al-Arefe, who has called for arming jihadists in Syria and Palestine, was invited by Qatar’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs in March 2012 and January 2014 to deliver a Friday sermon and a lecture at Qatar’s Grand Mosque. Kuwaiti Salafist Nabil al-Awadhy — a known fundraiser for groups close to al-Nusra Front — was the featured lecturer in Qatar at a Ramadan festival on July 4, 2014, hosted by a charity and aid group closely linked with the government.

Hostage to proxies

Qatar’s Arab Spring strategy began to fail in the same place it was conceived, amid the masses of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. On July 3, 2013, demonstrators cheered on the Egyptian military’s ouster of Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi, whose government Qatar had backed to the tune of $5 billion. Within days, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait welcomed the new military-backed government with combined pledges of $13 billion in aid. Days later, Saudi Arabia seized control of backing the Syrian opposition by installing its preferred political leadership. By early fall, Libya was also falling into utter disarray, exemplified by the temporary kidnapping of the country’s prime minister in October 2013. Doha, which had just seen the ascension of a new 33-year-old emir, meekly vowed to focus on internal affairs.

“One of the things about Qatar’s foreign policy is the extent to which it has been a complete and total failure, almost an uninterrupted series of disasters,” says Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. “Except it’s all by proxy, so nothing bad ever happens to Qatar.”

In both Libya and Syria, Qatar helped fund internationally backed umbrella groups — but it also channeled support to individuals and militias directly. In Libya, for example, one of Qatar’s main conduits to the rebels, the Doha-based cleric Ali al-Sallabi, clashed furiously with Mahmoud Jibril, a Western-backed leader who served as interim prime minister until he resigned in October 2011, warning of “chaos” as various factions battled for control. Today, that warning seems prescient as Libya is mired in an accelerating battle between various rival militias split along regional and ideological lines. The UAE, using U.S.-made jets and operating out of Egypt, has reportedly undertaken several rounds of airstrikes to roll back Qatari-funded Islamists since mid-August.

But it is in Syria where Qatar’s network most spectacularly misfired. Competition between Qatari and Saudi clients has rendered the political opposition toothless, perceived on the ground as a vassal of foreign powers. Meanwhile throughout 2012 and 2013, the proliferation of upstart rebel groups bred competition for funding. Some of Qatar’s clients became key brigades — groups such as Liwa al-Tawhid, whose leader unified rebels in a fractious fight to control Aleppo. Others like Hossam’s, however, simply folded or lingered weakly, focusing on their own ideals and goals.

In other words, there was no one winner. Qatar and other international powers haphazardly backed dozens of different brigades and let them fight it out for who could secure a greater share of the funding.Qatar and other international powers haphazardly backed dozens of different brigades and let them fight it out for who could secure a greater share of the funding. They had few incentives to cooperate on operations, let alone strategy. Nor did their various backers have any incentive to push them together, since this might erode their own influence over the rebels.

Qatar’s bidding system for support also quickly incentivized corruption, as middlemen began to exaggerate their abilities and contacts on the ground to donors in Doha. “Often, groups would submit maybe 3,000 names, but in reality there would be only 300 or 400 people,” says Hossam, the restaurant owner. “The extra money goes in the wrong way. They would do the same thing with operations. If the actual needs were $1 million, maybe they say $5 million. Then the other $4 million disappears.”

The disarray helped push fighters increasingly toward some of the groups that seemed to have a stronger command of their funding and their goals — groups such as al-Nusra Front and eventually the Islamic State, which split from the al Qaeda affiliate in early 2014. The last year has seen a string of defections from more moderate groups into these extremist elements. In December 2013, for example, former Deir Ezzor Free Syrian Army commander Saddam al-Jamal announced in a video that he was joining the Islamic State because “as days passed, we realized that [the FSA] was a project that was funded by foreign countries, especially Qatar,” he said.

It’s unlikely that the Qatari government — or any Gulf state — ever backed the Islamic State, an organization that today has in its cross-hairs all of the U.S.-allied monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula, and vice versa. But as in Jamal’s case, some of the individuals who benefited from Qatari funds did go on to join more radical brigades, taking their experience and arms with them.

“Qatar developed early on relations with rebel groups that later radicalized and joined the Salafi-jihadi universe, including Nusra and possibly [the Islamic State],” explains Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The evolving nature of the Syrian rebellion created often unintended and problematic if at times beneficial entanglements.”

Even as the Syrian opposition gravitated toward the extreme, Qatar argued in late 2012 that the world should worry about radicals later. “I am very much against excluding anyone at this stage, or bracketing them as terrorists, or bracketing them as al Qaeda,” Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah, then minister of state for foreign affairs, argued at a security conference in December of that year.

That sentiment was reiterated by Emir Tamim in his interview with CNN last week, arguing that it would be a “big mistake” to lump together all Islamist-leaning groups in Syria as extremists. Indeed, in all its recent statements rejecting extremism, Doha has mentioned the Islamic State but never al-Nusra Front by name.

Elzein, of the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, defends Qatar’s support for Islamists across the Middle East. He describes the spat between Doha and the other Gulf monarchies as a competition “between powers for the status quo and for change, where Qatar sided itself with change in the region.”

“Qatar’s foreign policy generated a lot of controversy, but perhaps that was part of its very nature,” he says. “When you try something new in a region known to be very conservative, it’s bound to bring that kind of criticism and misperception.”

And indeed, Qatar is far from the only Gulf country whose role in Syria and elsewhere has had negative repercussions. Saudi Arabia has also backed individuals and disparate rebel groups in Syria, and the UAE has sided with specific militias in Libya. In Egypt, a government strongly backed by both countries has overseen mass human rights abuses as it cracks down against the Muslim Brotherhood.

But it’s still hard to see what Qatar has changed for the better. Although its intentions to help the Syrian people were almost certainly genuine, a combination of haphazard methods and support for ideological proxies helped push the opposition toward both radicalization and disarray.
Washington and Doha
Qatar had such freedom to run its network for the last three years because Washington was looking the other way. In fact, in 2011, the United States gave Doha de facto free rein to do what it wasn’t willing to in the Middle East: intervene.

Libya was a case in point. When U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration began building a coalition for airstrikes in the spring of 2011, it took an approach later coined “leading from behind”: France and Britain took the lead in implementing the no-fly zone, while Qatar’s and the United Arab Emirates’ involvement demonstrated Arab support. When Doha stepped forward to help organize the rebels, they were broadly welcomed, former U.S. officials said in interviews with FP.

The same was true in Syria. Despite reticence among certain camps of the U.S. government, particularly those who had worked on Libya, it was still the least-worst option: Qatar, an ally of the United States, could help provide a regional solution to a conflict the White House had no interest in getting entangled in. Washington simply asked Doha not to send anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to the rebels, which it occasionally did anyway.

On top of the political convenience was the logistical ease of working with the Qataris. Doha makes decisions quickly — and is willing to take risks. While the Saudis moved slowly getting arms into Syria, the Qataris sent planes to move an estimated 3,500 tons of military equipment in 2012 and 2013, reportedly with the CIA’s backing. “Their interagency process has about three people in it,” said one former U.S. official.

The same upsides meant that Washington turned to Doha when it sought to make contact with the Afghan Taliban in 2011 and 2012. The goal was to help smooth the exit of NATO troops from Afghanistan with a political solution. In on-and-off contacts, always made indirectly through the Qataris, the Taliban agreed to negotiate — but first they wanted an office. In June 2013, they got it: a large villa in the embassy district of Doha near a crowded traffic circle known as Rainbow Roundabout.

But Qatar’s advantages soon turned into liabilities. As Doha moved from crisis to crisis, the Qataris showed little ability to choose reliable proxies or to control them once resources had been pumped in. “My view is that Qatari policymaking was a bit amateur. When they got in, they showed no staying power,” the ex-U.S. official said.

In the Taliban case, Doha proved unable or unwilling to stop the Afghan militants from audaciously raising their flag over their new Qatari villa — an act of diplomatic symbolism that infuriated Kabul and scuppered talks before they began. All that could be salvaged from the process, it became clear a year later, was a prisoner exchange that traded U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five top Taliban commanders being held in Guantánamo Bay. Qatar gave its assurances that the five operatives would be under close watch in Doha — but given the country’s history, that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t influence the Afghan battlefield.

In Syria, meanwhile, it wasn’t until the Islamic State gained prominence that Washington sat up and took notice. In March, David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, took the unprecedented step of calling out the Qataris in public for a “permissive terrorist financing environment.” Such stark criticism, counterterrorism experts say, is usually left for closed-door conversations. A public airing likely indicated Doha wasn’t responsive to Washington’s private requests.

This summer, the conflict between Israel and Hamas also shone fresh light on Qatar’s links to extremists in Palestine. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has been based in Doha since breaking with the Syrian regime in 2012, and Qatar has worked to rehabilitate the group politically and financially ever since. In October of that year, Qatar’s emir visited the Gaza Strip himself, pledging $400 million in aid.

Before and during the latest Gaza war, fellow Gulf states began to lobby in Washington to get tough with Qatar. In 2013, the UAE spent $14 million — more than any other country — on lobbying in Washington, according to data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation. The Camstoll Group, which has been linked to recent media coverage, has held a contract since 2012 that disclosure documents indicate can represent fees of up to $400,000 a month. In the first half of 2013, it earned $4.3 million for activities that disclosure documents describe as advising on matters of “illicit financial activities.” (Disclosure: Foreign Policy‘s PeaceGame program, presented in conjunction with the U.S. Institute of Peace, is underwritten in part by a grant from the UAE Embassy. All FP editorial content, however, is entirely independent.)

Heads have begun to in Washington. In a Sept. 9 hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, witnesses and congressmen suggested measures that would dramatically recast the relationship between Washington and Doha. In testimony, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, proposed measures that could “send shock waves through the Qatari financial system”: designating charities and individuals in Qatar, putting a hold on an $11 billion arms deal, and even opening an assessment into the cost of moving the U.S. military base away from the emirate.

“Excellent ideas,” hearing chairman Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) said in reply to the witnesses. “We ought to take them all and implement as many as we can.”

The U.S. Treasury Department is also stepping up efforts to crack down on al Qaeda and Islamic State funds; on Sept. 24, it designated several individuals with links to Qatar. In addition to a Qatari national alleged to have moved funds from Gulf donors to Afghanistan, the designations include Tariq Bin-Al-Tahar Bin Al Falih Al-Awni Al-Harzi, who gathered support from Qatar, including by arranging for the Islamic State “to receive approximately $2 million from a Qatar-based [Islamic State] financial facilitator, who required that Al-Harzi use the funds for military operations only,” the designation says.

Doha’s pushback in reply is just the latest iteration of a long-running bidding war among Gulf states for Washington’s favor. Qatar has increased its visibility in Washington in recent years, holding active contracts with lobbying groups Patton Boggs, Barbour Griffith and Rogers, and BGR Government Affairs. With its vast philanthropic arms, it has sponsored everything from student exchange programs to the congressional charity baseball game. Since the global financial crisis, various Qatari investment funds have also invested in property in Washington, Chicago, and elsewhere.
Qatar’s money runs even more obliquely as well, through the dozens of consultants, businessmen, and former officials whom it has hired at one point or another. Take the Soufan Group, for example, a well-regarded consultancy on counterterrorism and intelligence. Its founder, Ali Soufan, is also executive director of the Qatar International Academy for Security Studies (QIASS) in Doha, a government-funded center that offers several-week courses to government and military employees. Several other Soufan Group employees are also listed as employees there — an affiliation they rarely disclose in U.S. media interviews. Reached by telephone, Lila Ghosh, communications specialist at the group, told FP that the firm did not do any work on behalf of Qatar within the United States.

QIASS also appears to have given former Obama White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’s new PR group, the Incite Agency, one of its first jobs. Just weeks after it opened, Incite handled RSVPs for an event co-hosted by the Soufan Group and QIASS on “countering violent extremism.” The Incite Agency did not return repeated calls from FP seeking to clarify its relationship with QIASS.

But the biggest reason that Qatar is likely to remain in good favor with Washington isn’t money or influence, but necessity. As the United States ramps up a coalition against the Islamic State militants, it will need first and foremost its air base in Qatar, which is serving as the command center for operations — and then once again, the cover of Arab support.

With Syria and Iraq in chaos, both countries are now populated by a range of extremist actors whom Washington won’t want to negotiate with. Doha’s up for that job. Most recently, Qatar was called in to help negotiate the release of 45 U.N. peacekeepers taken captive by al-Nusra Front — and on Sept. 12 it announced that it had successfully won the soldiers’ release. Qatar insists that a ransom was not paid; perhaps the network of Doha-based funders gave the government a certain leverage over the group. Or it just may be that the al Qaeda affiliate wants something even more valuable.

“I think what Qatar can give them is legitimacy,” suggests Krieg. In al-Nusra Front’s official demands regarding the peacekeeper hostages, for example, it had asked to be taken off the U.N. sanctions list. “Nusra wants to be seen as a legitimate partner against [the Islamic State]; Qatar might be able to offer them a platform in the future,” Krieg says.

That’s essentially what Qatar has long offered its friends: a platform, with access to money, media, and political capital. Washington has so far played along, but the question is whether the United States is actually getting played.

BUSTED: Immigrant’s Handbook Getting into Europe

 

Behind this handbook operation is: http://bordermonitoring.eu/ Germany has been in full cooperation until command and control was lost and other neighboring pushed back hard like Hungary. This site requires translation.

 

Sky Finds ‘Handbook’ For EU-Bound Migrants

The “rough guide” contains maps, tips and phone numbers of organisations which might help refugees making the perilous crossing.

 

 

 

About this site

w2eu.info provides information to refugees and migrants that might be useful on their journey to and through Europe. We want to give access to counseling and useful contacts in different european countries.

From the very start at the outer borders of Europe, many forces are going in an inhuman direction: people are refused entry, are imprisoned and deported. Nevertheless they are coming – challenging the migration regime. And there are movements supporting them in their struggle for a better life.

“I can see clearly now what Europe looks like, that it sends its armies to fight us at the sea and puts us in awful prisons. Together we have to start a second journey to another safe place that might exist in the future.” (Eritrean woman, arriving on the island of Lesvos)

We welcome all travellers on their difficult trip and wish all of them a good journey – because freedom of movement is everybody’s right!

General advice:

We intend to keep the available information up-to-date. But the asylum system changes all the time and you will have to contact specialized lawyers and counselors to find out if the information is still valid!

If you find anything on the site that is no longer valid, please let us know by sending an email.

There are always exceptions to the rule: the asylum system is depending very much on the particular case. Specialized lawyers may sometimes find possibilities. Contact counselors in the country where you have arrived.

Active participation:

– Spread this site and link it.

– We are always in need of translators from English into French, Arabic and Farsi.

– This web guide is a work in progress:

If you have any other special information, don’t hesitate to send us your material.

If you have further topics and questions that need an answer, let us know.

If you know people in different European countries who are experienced in counseling, bring them into contact with us.

 

Mailto: contact(at)w2eu.info

The information given on this website may have changed. Although we try to update it regularly, you should contact the groups and organisations listed for each country, to be sure about what to expect. If you notice any changes on your journey that might be important for others, please inform us via the contact form.

 

 

No One Can Explain Russia, Even Obama

The National Security Council, led by Susan Rice, the State Department and Barack Obama is rudderless….the result is an epic global threat condition level.

US has no plans yet for Syrian airspace despite Russian Prescence

TheHill:The Pentagon has no plans yet on how to deconflict airspace with Russia in Syria, despite signs Moscow is establishing a forward air operating base to help bolster the Assad regime, according to U.S. officials.  While Defense Department officials say they are concerned about U.S. aircraft operating in Syrian airspace along with potential Russian air operations, they acknowledge there are no plans yet on how to handle it. More here.

Report: we had the chance to get rid of Assad in 2012 but turned it down

HotAir:

From the Things That Might Have Been file.

One of the chief diplomats involved in negotiations regarding the crisis in Syria has reported that the Russians put an offer on the table back in 2012 which would have involved Bashar al-Assad stepping down and relinquishing power. But at the time the other representatives involved in the negotiations, including the United States, figured Assad was already toast so there was no need to work with the Russians. (The Guardian)

Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.

Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.

Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.

We’ve debated Syria here more times than I can count and personally I think the pros and cons of Assad are still an open question. There is something of a case to be made that in dangerous, unstable areas, a strongman, be he ever so evil, can at least keep a stopper in the bottle and prevent the region from completely collapsing into chaos. That could be said for Saddam Hussein in Iraq as well, though it’s an ugly concept to contemplate. But then, Assad remained in power and the place has still melted down entirely anyway so the proposal loses a few points there.

Much more to the point, though, is the fact that this story highlights yet again just how powerful the Russians have been in this mess since the very beginning. Putin has been Assad’s only supporter with any power, pledging continued support for his “friend” all along. If it weren’t for Russia Assad probably would have been gone long ago and other possible paths to a solution have been hindered by the shadow Russia casts over the region. That situation is spiraling further downward this month as a new report emerged claiming that the Russians now have tanks at a forward air base in the country. (Yahoo News)

Russia has positioned about a half dozen tanks at an airfield at the center of a military buildup in Syria, two U.S. officials said on Monday, adding that the intentions of Moscow’s latest deployment of heavy military equipment were unclear.

Moscow has come under increased international pressure in recent days to explain its moves in Syria, where the Kremlin has been supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a 4-1/2-year war.

Russia’s end game remains unclear, but it should be fairly obvious by now that they have absolutely zero fear of defying the intentions of the United States and the West in general and are busy with their own agenda there. I know I’ve harped on this in the past, but the Russians are beefing up their military presence in multiple regions and are clearly preparing to project force well beyond their own borders. Just this week we’ve seen yet another report that Putin has been augmenting his air power significantly in terms of both fighter aircraft, drones and missiles. One of our own Air Force generals went so far as to call it “alarming.” (Yahoo News)

General Frank Gorenc, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, told reporters he was concerned about Russia’s moves to increase the quantity and quality of its aircraft and field unmanned aircraft.

“The advantage that we had from the air, I can honestly say, is shrinking,” Gorenc said at the annual Air Force Association conference.

Gorenc called “alarming” both Russia’s investments in modernizing its air force and in building formidable surface-to-air missile defenses.

Thus far most of this expansion seems to be focused around the Crimea region of Ukraine, with other resources being deployed closer to their northwestern border, but there seems to be little doubt that the Russian bear is renewing its aerial warfare capabilities. (Of course, this comes at a time when we’re hearing a lot of doubts about the capabilities of our newest fighter jet.)

What are the Russians up to? And what possible use does Putin see for a base of operations in Syria? It’s not like ISIS is going to love the Russians any more than they do us. I have to wonder if he thinks he can just crush the uprising against Assad through brute military force on the ground and restore the old order. That would be an unexpected development, though it doesn’t seem likely to succeed. But pardon me for saying that no matter what he’s got in mind it’s not going to be in our best interests.

***

U.S. Should Condemn Spain’s Military Support to the Russian Navy

Heritage: As Russia continues its occupation of Crimea and sections of eastern Ukraine, some European countries continue to provide Russia with military support. Most notable among these is Spain, which allows the Russian Navy regular use of Spanish ports. In total, at least 20 Russian Navy vessels have visited Spain to refuel and resupply since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in March 2014. The most recent visit occurred on August 28, 2015, when a Russian attack submarine resupplied in Ceuta, Spain. This behavior is unbecoming of 21st-century NATO allies. In the same way that there was public outcry in 2014 against France for selling two amphibious-class warships to Russia—France subsequently cancelled the contracts—the U.S. should work with like-minded European partners to apply pressure on Spain to end its military assistance to Russia.

Spain Welcomes the Russian Navy

Spain possesses two sovereign enclaves called Ceuta and Melilla that border Morocco. They are both sizable cities, with populations of 73,000 and 79,000, respectively. They are legally part of Spain, and they are the only two European Union (EU) cities located in mainland Africa. They are also part of the Schengen Agreement and the eurozone.

In 2011, Moscow started to regularly use the port facilities at Ceuta. Since then at least 57 ships of the Russian Navy have called into the Spanish port (as of August 31, 2015),[1] including destroyers, frigates, amphibious assault ships, and even an attack submarine.

Some of the visits by the Russian Navy have curious timing. For example, during the same week in April 2014 that the EU announced a new round of sanctions against Russia, Spain made a mockery out of the sanctions by hosting at Ceuta the Russian destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov, and two Russian navy tankers, the Dubna and the Sergey Osipov.

The most recent visit was made by the Russian submarine Novorossiysk en route to its base in the Black Sea. The Novorossiysk, commissioned in August 2014, is one of Russia’s newest submarines and one of the quietest diesel-powered submarines in the world.

Proximity to Gibraltar: A Cause for Concern

Russia’s access to Ceuta is of particular concern considering Ceuta’s close proximity to the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. From America’s first overseas military intervention in 1801 against the Barbary States to the most recent military interventions in the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. has often relied on Gibraltar’s military facilities.

This is especially true for the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines. Gibraltar is the best place in the Mediterranean Sea to repair and resupply U.S. submarines. Strong U.S.–U.K. military cooperation assists the U.S. in keeping its submarine assets integrated into the European theater. Yet the real threat of Russian submarine activity in the region endangers all of those operations. As the former commander of U.S. forces in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, once pointed out, “These [submarine] capabilities are increasingly important as the Russian Federation Navy increases the pace, scope, and sophistication of its submarine fleet.”[2]

All maritime vessels entering or leaving the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean must pass through the Strait of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is one of the U.K.’s Permanent Joint Operating Bases and serves as an important forward operating base for the British military, which affords a supply location for aircraft and ships destined for Africa and the Middle East for the U.K. and her allies. The deepwater Port of Gibraltar provides a secure docking area as well as vast amounts of safe anchorage for nuclear-powered submarines. The topography of Gibraltar makes intelligence gathering a core function. Having Russian submarines resupply mere miles away presents a potential intelligence and security problem for the U.S. and its allies.

Spain’s policy of allowing the Russian Navy to use Ceuta is hypocritical in relation to its reluctance to allow NATO to make direct visits between Gibraltar and Spanish ports. Therefore, under certain circumstances, Spain would rather have a Russian ship visit a Spanish port than a NATO ship.

Disunited for Ukraine

Although Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe is the biggest threat to the continent since the end of the Cold War, there has been division on how to respond. Some countries, such as Germany and Italy, have strong economic ties to Russia. Some Western European countries do not want to station NATO troops in Eastern Europe. The Syriza-led government in Greece, for example, has cozied up to Moscow.

Russia’s main naval base in the Mediterranean Sea is currently located at Tartus, Syria. As the security situation in Syria worsens, Moscow is keeping an eye open for alternatives. Even though Europe and NATO have spent the past 18 months confronting Russian aggression through a series of economic sanctions and modest military deployments, Spain is not alone in providing succor to the Russian Navy.

Since Russia seized Crimea, the Russian warship Vice Admiral Kulakov visited Malta in July 2014[3] and the Yaroslav Mudry visited in February 2015.[4] Although Malta is not a member of NATO, it is a member of the EU. As recently as June 2015, the Russian Navy landing ship Korolev 130 visited Piraeus, Greece.[5] This visit was particularly worrying because Greece is not only a member of NATO and the EU, but also home to a NATO and U.S. naval base on the island of Crete.

Pressure from All Sides

Spanish support of the Russian Navy weakens NATO’s opposition to Russian aggression against Ukraine and projects an image of a divided alliance. The situation requires:

  • Action from Congress. Congress needs to make it clear that Spanish support to the Russian Navy is unbecoming of a NATO ally.
  • Leadership from the White House. President Barack Obama should make public his disappointment with Spain’s actions. He should also call for Greece and Malta to cease their support of the Russian Navy while the crisis in Ukraine continues.
  • Pressure from Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter should use every opportunity, including NATO ministerial meetings, to raise this issue with their Spanish counterparts.
  • A coordinated effort with European allies. The Administration should coordinate with like-minded allies in NATO to apply pressure to force a change in policy in Madrid.

Completely Unacceptable

It is irresponsible for Madrid to allow Russian warships—especially some of Russia’s most advanced submarines—to use Spanish ports, especially ports located a short distance from such an important naval base as Gibraltar.

It is unacceptable that a major NATO member would offer support to the Russian Navy at a time when Moscow is actively attempting to dismember Ukraine and is undermining the security of the Baltic States. The U.S. government should make it clear at the highest levels that it views any support of the Russian Navy as completely unacceptable in light of Russian aggression.

A Hard Look at Syria, the Exodus and Epic Numbers?

Syria is entering year 6 of a civil war and no exact numbers can be posted with regard to those that have fled, have been wounded or have died. There are good numbers of the countless fighting factions there are other statistics including Russian and Iranian supporting Bashir al Assad.  Yet there are no consequences for terror in the country, except for a few deadly missile strikes or chemical; weapons use.

So assuming what various organizations report including Human Rights groups and respective militaries, taking a look at the United Nations numbers posted by the New York Times, which are likely skewed, the conditions are disgusting. Remember, entering the 6th year is horrible enough when no world power stepped in to stop or contain the instability or death in the region, including the United States taking a leadership role in any sort.

***  New York Times:

Death in Syria

Europe on the Brink of Collapse: Schengen Agreement Suspended

As posted on this site earlier, the Schengen Agreement, the open European borders treaty is now in question as suspension has happened between Germany and Austria.

A raw and partial translation into English from the German labor minister:

Federal Labour Minister Andrea Nahles warned in a tedious process of integration of the refugees coming to Germany. Not even one out of ten bring with the requirements to be conveyed directly in a work or training, the SPD politician said on Thursday in the Bundestag: “Usually lack the knowledge of German, but also other.” Nahles: “not all who come, there are highly qualified. Clearly, this is not so. The Syrian physician is not the normal case.” Although she was convinced that we will be able to provide first aid treatment of refugees. But Nahles is skeptical to the labour market. You need in most cases “supplementary qualification”, in many cases but only “an undergraduate education”.

Nahles said: “that is reflected in the unemployment statistics. I hope that everyone who says today that do we press, we take on the people we want to remember that even in a year.” This is “Then there’s no sign of a failed labour market policy, but a sign that we a running task must cope with a large.”

In the parliamentary debate on the budget for her Department, Nahles underlined that she will require 2016 expected to an additional three billion euros in its budget. Alone for the livelihood of refugees who are expected to remain in Germany, she count on spending from one to two billion euros. Nahles said one could say still no exact number. This depends on how quickly how many asylum applications are accepted and how many family members would comply. For programmes for the integration into the labour market, she quote 600 million to 1.1 billion euros. An additional 180 million euros would be needed for work-related courses. It will be not enough that they turn for a year “in crisis mode”, “and then everything goes back to normal”.

This is a historic moment for Europe due to the hundreds of thousands refugees flooding into every country and the consequences for Europe’s stability is in question. Social and entitlement programs will be insolvent, crime has risen to epic numbers, protests and civil unrest is an hourly occurrence, the banking and currency system is in jeopardy. These are all conditions and tools that America must learn quickly to not fall victim to the same circumstance.

Congressman Mike McCaul had this message this weekend:

Some 10 million people have been forced from their homes in Syria, with almost 500,000 arriving in Europe

To speak of the terror threat and jihad recruiting component is capping off dangerous environment.

Islamists in Germany trying to recruit young refugees

Berlin (AFP) – Muslim radicals in Germany are trying to recruit some of the growing numbers of asylum seekers reaching the country, according to intelligence services quoted by the German news agency DPA.

The Islamic extremists “are trying to approach the young unaccompanied refugees, who arrive in our country without their families and are particularly looking for contacts and support,” a spokesman for the intelligence service in the southern state of Bavaria told DPA.

He said many of the youths are approached around reception centres but also at Munich railway station where many of the asylum seekers have arrived from Hungary and Austria in recent days.

The Islamic extremists “want to take advantage of the insecurity and distress of the refugees,” he said.

***

‘We can’t take any more!’ Germany stops ALL trains from Austria as they reintroduce border controls and temporarily suspend Schengen Agreement

  • Germany has become the destination for many desperate Syrian refugees
  • Munich, which has been the main entry point, is now at breaking point
  • Germany has announced a reintroduction of ‘temporary’ border controls
  • The move marks a dramatic shift back from Europe’s Schengen agreement
  • Europe is struggling to deal with the huge influx of people fleeing violence

German politicians have called for urgent action on the migrant crisis as the country today halted all trains from Austria due to an overwhelming influx of refugees.

This evening Germany reinstated controls at its borders with Austria in an historic move which saw the open borders Schengen Agreement temporarily suspended.

The decision marks a dramatic shift away from the current abolishment of passport checks throughout Europe’s Schengen zone.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said: ‘At this moment Germany is temporarily introducing border controls again along [the EU’s] internal borders. The focus will be on the border to Austria at first.

‘The aim of these measures is to limit the current inflows to Germany and to return to orderly procedures when people enter the country.

Mr de Maiziere added: ‘This step has become necessary. The great readiness to help that Germany has shown in recent weeks… must not be overstretched.’

The Interior Minister did not specify how long the border controls would remain in place or give details of exactly how incoming migrants would be handled. He said there could be disruption to rail travel. Most migrants have been arriving by train.

Germany’s national railway, Deutsche Bahn, said it had halted service between Austria and Germany for 12 hours at authorities’ orders.

The rules of Europe’s passport-free travel zone, known as the Schengen area, allow countries to reintroduce controls in exceptional circumstances, and the European Commission said that ‘the current situation in Germany … appears to be a situation covered by the rules.’

In a statement the EU executive said: ‘The temporary reintroduction of border controls between member states is an exceptional possibility explicitly foreseen in and regulated by the Schengen Borders Code, in case of a crisis situation.’

It added that the executive would keep the situation under review and said the aim would be to return to the normal situation of no border checks between member states of the Schengen zone ‘as soon as feasible’.

The European Commission added: ‘The German decision of today underlines the urgency to agree on the measures proposed by the European Commission in order to manage the refugee crisis.’

It is not yet clear exactly what the temporary measures include, but the move comes as German authorities have warned they are at ‘the limit’ in coping with the migrant crisis, with locals claiming Munich is on the brink of collapse.

German newspaper Bild cited security sources as saying the state government in Bavaria had asked the federal police to help deal with the task.

The newspaper said the federal police would send 2,100 officers to Bavaria to help it secure its borders.

Germany has become the destination for many desperate Syrian refugees fleeing their war-torn home country, after it waived EU rules in August.

Tens of thousands of people have crossed Austria by train on their way to Germany since the two countries threw open their borders to the migrants last weekend. A record number were expected to enter Austria from Hungary on Sunday.

The German government announced the nation would take in applications for Syrian asylum-seekers, regardless of where they first arrived in the EU.

Munich, in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria, has been the main entry point for those entering the country.

Some 13,015 refugees arrived in Munich yesterday alone and 1,400 more are expected to reach the city today – but there are fears it is already at breaking point.

A police spokesman in Munich said: ‘Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity.’

Federal transport minister Alexander Dobrindt added how ‘effective measures are necessary now to stop the influx’. For the photo essay and complete story, click here.