Putin’s Military Countless Moves/Top Threat

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Russia has started flying surveillance missions with drone aircraft in Syria, two U.S. officials said on Monday, in what appeared to be Moscow’s first military air operations in Syria since staging a rapid buildup at an airfield there.

The U.S. officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, could not say how many drone aircraft were involved in the surveillance missions. The Pentagon declined to comment.

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NYPost: After weeks of dancing around the issue, the Obama administration has expressed concern about “heightened military activity” by Russia in Syria.

But what if we are facing something more than “heightened military activity?” What if Moscow is preparing to give Syria the full Putin treatment?

For years, Russia has been helping Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad cling to a diminishing power structure in a shrinking territorial base without trying to impose an overall strategy.
Now, however, there are signs that Russia isn’t content to just support Assad. It wants to control Syria.

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Russia is calling for “concrete action” after a shell landed on its embassy compound in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The Foreign Ministry said on September 21 that the mortar attack was launched in the morning of September 20 by forces battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It said the shelling did not cause damage.

The militants have “outside sponsors” who are responsible for influencing their actions, the ministry said.

“We are expecting a clear-cut position on this act of terror from all members of the international community,” it added. “What is needed is not just words but concrete action too.”

The statement comes amid Western concerns over Russia’s military buildup in Syria.

Moscow says its aim is to help Syria, a longtime ally, fight the Islamic State extremist group.

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A nuclear-armed U.S. ballistic missile submarine arrived in Scotland this week amid growing tensions with Moscow over Ukraine and Russia’s strategic arms buildup.

The submarine, the USS Wyoming, arrived at the British naval base at Faslane, Scotland, Wednesday morning for what the U.S. Strategic Command said is a routine visit.

However, ballistic missile submarine movements and port visits normally are not announced by the Navy or the Strategic Command, an indication the Wyoming’s port call is intended as strategic messaging to Moscow.

The submarine visit “demonstrates the closeness of the U.S./U.K. defense relationship and our commitment to the collective security of all NATO member states,” Stratcom said in a brief statement.

The submarine deployment followed an earlier unannounced visit by a British missile submarine to Kings Bay, Ga., the homeport of the Wyoming.

***

Russia and Iran have stepped up coordination inside Syria as they move to safeguard President Bashar al-Assad’s control over his coastal stronghold, according to officials in the U.S. and Middle East, creating a new complication for Washington’s diplomatic goals.

Senior Russian and Iranian diplomats, generals and strategists have held a string of high-level talks in Moscow in recent months to discuss Mr. Assad’s defense and the Kremlin’s military buildup in Syria, according to these officials.

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The Russian president announced today he has agreed a Government proposal to sign a deal for the military airbase and ordered defence and foreign ministry officials to start talks with Belarus –  although the plan is not expected to face major obstacles.

His announcement comes at a time of tension with the West over Russian involvement in Ukraine and Syria and may also signal the Kremlin’s interest in keeping unpredictable Belarus within its geopolitical orbit.

The idea for an airbase in the ex-Soviet republic was revealed by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in 2013 and follows a 2009 agreement where Russia and Belarus agreed to defend their common external frontier and airspace.

Russian defence officials said the base would be used to station Su-27 fighters.

Russia already has some fighter aircraft in Belarus but this would be the first full-scale base in the country since Soviet times.

The world’s biggest country has scaled back its military presence abroad, closing bases in distant Cold War allies such as Cuba and Vietnam.

However, a naval base at Tartus in war-torn Syria has recently become the focus of world attention as Russia has boosted its troop presence there in a move seen as bolstering its diplomatic influence in the region.

In summary from 2014 and later Congressional testimony:

Pentagon Fears It’s Not Ready for a War With Putin

The U.S. military has run the numbers on a sustained fight with Moscow, and they do not look good for the American side.
A series of classified exercises over the summer has raised concerns inside the Defense Department that its forces are not prepared for a sustained military campaign against Russia, two defense officials told The Daily Beast.Many within the military believe that 15 years of counter-terrorism warfare has left the ground troops ill prepared to maintain logistics or troop levels should Russia make an advance on NATO allies, the officials said.

Among the challenges the exercises revealed were that the number of precision-guided munitions available across the force were short of the war plans and it would be difficult to sustain a large troop presence. Full article here.

March 2015: WASHINGTON —The nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that Russia poses the greatest national security threat to the United States and that it would be a “reasonable” military decision to supply lethal arms to Ukrainians fighting against rebels backed by Moscow.

“Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security. … If you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming,” Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee
Relations between Russia and the West have sunk to post-Cold War lows after Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The United States has responded with sanctions but so far has refrained from providing lethal arms to the Ukrainian forces.

Asked if the U.S. should provide lethal arms to Ukraine, Dunford said that from a military standpoint, it would be a “reasonable” response.

“Frankly, without that kind of support, they are not going to be able to defend themselves against Russian aggression,” Dunford said.

That comment was welcomed by Sen. John McCain, chairman of the chairman.

“In Europe, Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues its onslaught in Ukraine,” said McCain, R-Ariz. “But even as Russian troops and equipment execute this neo-imperial campaign to undermine Ukraine’s government and independence, the United States has refused Ukraine the weapons it needs and deserves for its defense.” More detail here.

Impeach John Kerry, Approving Iran’s Missiles

Iran Expected To Use Missile Saturation

WASHINGTON [MENL] — The United States expects Iran to employ massive salvos of missiles and rockets in attacks around the Middle East.

Leading U.S. analysts, including former senior officials, agreed that Teheran has been hampered by its failure to amass an arsenal of guided ballistic missiles. They said Iran was expected to overcome this through the use of massive salvos against both military and civilian targets.

“Iran’s ballistic missile forces are currently limited by their poor accuracy, but Iran is making strides to overcome this limitation in two key ways,” the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance said. “Iran’s growing production of missiles suggests that Iran will use mass attacks and saturation to overcome missile defenses and make up for limited accuracy.”

 

Iranian Ballistic Missile Tests Not a Nuke Deal Violation

Iran’s Rouhani: Iran ‘not committed to the restrictions on its missile program’  

WFB: Iran is permitted to test-fire ballistic missiles under the parameters of the recently inked nuclear accord, according to private disclosures made by Secretary of State John Kerry to a leading U.S. senator, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Nothing in the nuclear deal prevents Iran from testing a “conventional ballistic missile,” which could be used to carry a nuclear weapon, according to series of written answers provided by Kerry to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.).

The Obama administration’s failure to rein in Iran’s ballistic missile program has emerged as a key criticism among critics of the deal. They argue that during the 15-year duration of the agreement, Iran will be given the opportunity to perfect its ballistic missile program, which could put it much closer to an operable nuclear weapon.

“It would not be a violation of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] if Iran tested a conventional ballistic missile,” Kerry informed Rubio, according to a copy of the 86-page document obtained by the Free Beacon.

“The issue of ballistic missiles is addressed by the provisions of the new United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR), which do not constitute provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” Kerry writes, explaining that the nuclear accord does not cover such matters.

“Since the Security Council has called upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology, any such activity would be inconsistent with the UNSCR and a serious matter for the Security Council to review,” Kerry adds.

However, Rubio and others are concerned the U.N. resolutions are not actually mandatory, meaning that Iran can decide on its own whether it wants to uphold the resolutions.

“According to the new U.N. Security Council Resolution, the prohibition on Iran carrying out ballistic missile work is not mandatory, but rather the text simply ‘calls’ on Iran not to conduct such activity for eight years,” Rubio informs Kerry. “Is that the case? What are the penalties if Iran ignores this international ‘call’?”

Kerry appears to admit this is the case but claims the U.N. resolutions will “not let Iran’s ballistic missile program off the hook.”

Kerry does not elaborate on what penalties, if any, would be issued on Iran should it move forward with a ballistic missile test, saying only that “if Iran were to undertake them it would be inconsistent with the UNSCR and a serious matter for the Security Council to review.”

 

One senior foreign policy adviser involved in the fight over the nuclear deal called Kerry’s response “terrifying.”

“The administration is admitting that it changed the old binding language against ballistic missile development to a weak non-binding ‘call’ on Iran,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “So now the Iranians are going to be working on ballistic missiles that can hit the United States, and they won’t suffer any automatic penalties.”

“Instead, the administration says our response will be to have U.N. countries like Russia and China ‘review’ Iran’s work, which is insane—those are the countries that will be selling Iran the technology in the first place,” the source said.

Kerry’s acknowledgment that Iran is spared from restrictions on testing ballistic missiles appears consistent with rhetoric from senior Iranian leaders.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in recent weeks that the Islamic Republic will not abide by any restrictions imposed by the international community.

Iran is “not committed to the restrictions on its missile program,” Rouhani said, adding that a violation of international restrictions would not impact the nuclear accord.

“We have formally announced that we are not committed to these provisions [related to missiles] mentioned in [the] U.N. resolution,” Rouhani was quoted as saying in an Aug. 29 Persian-language speech broadcast on Iran’s state-controlled television networks.

The nuclear deal states that a violation of U.N. bans on Iran’s missile program would not constitute a violation of the JCPOA.

Within the deal, “we have explained that a violation of the U.N. resolution does not mean violation of the JCPOA,” according to Rouhani, who also said Iran’s missile stockpiles have grown under his tenure as president.

If this is not enough, how about the fact that Iran works with North Korea on joint nuclear programs that include enrichment? Well, North Korea has a ‘hot-cell’ unit that is fully operational where atomic weapons operations are based.

Read on here if you can endure more terrifying news.

North Korea's Nodong missiles

North Korea ‘hot cell’ unit could mean better, larger nuclear bombs: U.S. experts

‘Hot cell’ facility
ISIS also raised a red flag over what appeared to be a new “hot cell” facility under construction at Yongbyon, that could be dedicated to separating isotopes from irradiated material produced in the reactor.

“The signatures visible through an historical analysis of satellite imagery are consistent with an isotope separation facility, including tritium separation,” the think-tank said.

Tritium is a key component in the design of more sophisticated thermonuclear weapons with far greater yields than those made only of plutonium and uranium.

North Korea has carried out three nuclear tests — in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

The first two were plutonium devices, while the third was believed — though not confirmed — to have used uranium as its fissile material.

“Whether North Korea can make nuclear weapons using tritium is unknown although we believe that it remains a technical problem North Korea still needs to solve,” ISIS said. Read more here.

UK Paying Muslim Moles for Terror Clues

Here is a tip, the United States is quietly doing the same thing.

3,000 terror suspects plotting to attack UK

MI5 and anti-terrorism police are monitoring more than 3,000 homegrown Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in Britain, security sources have told The Times.

MI5 pays UK Muslims to spy on terror suspects

MI5 is paying Muslim informants for controversial short-term spying missions to help avert terrorist attacks by homegrown Islamist extremists.

Individuals across the UK, including in Manchester and London, are being employed on temporary assignments to acquire intelligence on specific targets, according to sources within the Muslim community. One said that they knew of an informant recently paid £2,000 by the British security services to spy on activities relating to a mosque over a six-week period.

However, the use of payments to gather intelligence prompted warnings that the system risked producing information “corrupted” by the money on offer.

The initiative is being co-ordinated under the government’s official post-9/11 counter-terrorism strategy, specifically the strand known as Pursue, which has an official remit to “stop terrorist attacks in this country and against our interest overseas. This means detecting and investigating threats at the earliest possible stage.”

A source, not from Whitehall but with knowledge of the payments, said: “It’s been driven by the [intelligence] agencies, it’s a network of human resources across the country engaged to effectively spy on specific targets. It’s decent money.”

They did not divulge the number of informants receiving government funding or how much of the agency’s national security budget is allocated to such transactions. However, the use of payments to gather information prompted calls for caution from senior figures in the Muslim community, who warned that such transactions could produce tainted intelligence.

Salman Farsi, spokesman for the East London Mosque, the largest in the UK, said: “We want our national security protected but, as with everything, there needs to be due scrutiny and we need to ensure things are done properly.

“If there’s money on the table, where’s the scrutiny or the oversight to ensure whether someone has not just come up with some fabricated information? Money can corrupt.”

Farsi said that lessons should be learned from the government’s central counter-radicalisation programme, called Prevent, which was introduced following the 7 July bombings, but despite tens of millions of pounds spent and hundreds of initiatives has been criticised for failing to achieve its goals.

“When they started dishing out money, everyone was willing for a bit of money to dish the dirt, make up stuff. There’s good work to be done, but quite frankly you don’t need to send in informants to mosques to find out what’s going on. We need a fresh approach, genuine community engagement,” said Farsi.

Details of the network of informants paid by the security services follows the first live interview with a head of MI5 – director general Andrew Parker – in the 106-year history of the agency, an opportunity that he used to call for more up-to-date surveillance powers.

Days earlier, on Tuesday, the home secretary, Theresa May, met major internet and telecoms companies to seek their support for a new surveillance bill, prompting speculation that the government is preparing a choreographed campaign to revive its controversial snooper’s charter legislation.

Parker, the director-general of MI5, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, warned that terrorist plotting against Britain is at its most intense for three decades with six attempts foiled in the past 12 months.

Subsequent reports suggested MI5 and anti-terrorism officers are monitoring more than 3,000 Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in Britain. Numbers have escalated since 2013 with the rise of Islamic State in Syria, with more than 700 Britons believed to have joined jihadi groups in the region and 300 thought to have returned to Britain.

Scotland Yard last month revealed that suspects were being held at a rate of more than one a day while a record number of terrorism arrests were made in the past year, eclipsing the previous peak after the 7 July bombings.

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.

Castro to the Pope: Return Guantanamo Bay

Text of Raul Castro’s speech after Pope Francis’ arrival

U.S. embargo ‘is cruel, immoral and illegal,’ Cuban president says

HAVANA –

Cuban President Raul Castro praised Pope Francis’ critiques of the global economic system, saying it has “globalized capital and turned money into its idol.”

In a lengthy speech welcoming the pope at Havana’s international airport Saturday, Castro said Cuba’s communist government has “founded an equitable society with social justice.”

Here is a translation of Castro’s speech:

Your Holiness,

The people and government of Cuba welcome you with profound affection, respect and hospitality.

We feel particularly honored with your visit. You will see how deeply we love our homeland, for which we are capable of the greatest sacrifices. We have always followed in the steps of the heroes of our America, who bestowed upon us their honor, courage and generosity. It is from them that we have learned to exercise Marti’s axiom that homeland is Humanity.

The memorable meeting we had last May in Vatican City offered an opportunity to exchange ideas on some of the most important issues related to the world we live in.

The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have decided to move forward with integration, in defense of our independence, sovereignty over natural resources and social justice.

However, our region still shows the greatest disparity in wealth distribution. In this continent, legitimate governments working for a better future are facing numerous attempts at destabilization.

We have closely followed your statements. The apostolic exhortation known as “The Joy of Gospel” related to social issues, and the encyclical “Praise Be To You” related to the future and care for the planet and humanity, have moved me to a profound reflection. They shall be references for the next Summit on the Post-2015 Development Agenda to be held at the United Nations this month, and the 21st International Conference on Climate Change scheduled for December in Paris.

An increasing global impact has resulted from your analysis on the causes of these problems and the call to safeguard the planet and the survival of our species; to cease the predatory action of the wealthy nations and the big transnationals; and, to remove the dangers threatening us all due to the depletion of resources and the loss of biodiversity.

As his Holiness has rightly indicated: “Humanity should become aware of the necessity to change life styles as well as production and consumption patterns.”

At the UN Conference on Development and the Environment held in Rio de Janeiro in1992, Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, raised the necessity to save humanity from self-destruction; to make a better distribution of wealth, knowledge, science and technology in order to attain a sustainable development; and “to make hunger, and not nan, disappear.”

The current international system is unfair and immoral. It has globalized capital and turned money into its idol. It makes people become simple consumers, and instead of disseminating knowledge and culture, it alienates them with behavior patterns and reflexes promoted by means that serve only their owners’ interests, that is, the transnational media corporations.

The deep and permanent crisis falls harshly on the Third World countries, albeit in the industrial world it also affects the disenfranchised, the minorities, the young unemployed and the helpless elders as well as those seeking refuge from starvation and conflict. What immigrants and the poor are going through stands as an offense to human conscience. They are the outraged of the world claiming for their rights and the end to such injustice.

Your Holiness,

In your remarks to the world meetings of Popular Movements held in October last year at Vatican City and in July this year at Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, you reiterated the necessity to practice solidarity and to struggle together against the structural sources of poverty and inequality; for man’s dignity and his right to the land and to work; and for a roof to give him shelter.

It was to conquer such rights, among others, that the Cuban Revolution was undertaken. Those were the same rights that Fidel advocated in the historical defense argument known as “History Will Absolve Me.”

It is to build a society with more justice and solidarity that we have made extraordinary efforts and taken the greatest risks ever since the revolutionary victory.
And, we have done while blockaded, slandered, and attacked; and paying a high toll in human lives and economic damages. We have founded an equitable society with social justice and extensive access to culture, attached to traditions and to the most advanced ideas of Cuba, Latin America, the Caribbean and the world.

Millions of people have recuperated their health thanks to Cuban cooperation: 325,710 collaborators have provided services in 158 countries; today, 50,281 Cuban healthcare workers are providing services in 68 nations; thanks to the “Yes, I Can” educational program, 9,376,000 people have left illiteracy behind in 30 different countries, while more than 68,000 students from 157 countries have graduated in Cuba.

We keep advancing with determination in the updating of our economic and social model to build a prosperous and sustainable socialism focused on human beings and the family, and with the free, democratic, conscious and creative involvement of the entire society, particularly young people.

Preserving socialism is tantamount to securing independence, sovereignty, development and the well being of our nation. We are firmly determined to face every challenge and build a just and virtuous society with high ethical and spiritual values. As the honorable priest Félix Varela indicated, “We want the future generations to inherit from us the dignity of man, and to remember what it takes to recover it so that they fear losing it.”


Regional unity, identity and integration should be defended. The Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Peace Zone, signed by heads of state and government at the 2nd Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States held in Havana in January 2014, establishes a set of commitments of crucial importance such as: the peaceful solution of controversial issues in order to definitely remove the use, and the threat of the use, of force in our region; the prevention of direct or indirect interference in the domestic affairs of any other state and respect for the principles of national sovereignty; the equality of rights and free determination of the peoples; the promotion of friendly relations and cooperation among themselves and with other nations; and, full respect for the inalienable right of every state to choose its political, economic, social and cultural system as an essential premise to ensure peaceful coexistence among nations.

Concerning Cuba, the purposes and principles consecrated in the United Nations Charter are fully valid. Only respect for them can ensure international peace and security, which at the moment are increasingly challenged.

We found extremely interesting his Holiness remarks during the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the nuclear strikes on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The existence of nuclear weapons threatens the very survival of human beings and constitutes an affront to the ethical and moral principles that should guide relations among nations. The use of such weapons would bring about the obliteration of human civilization; therefore, advocating disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, is not only the duty but also the right of all peoples in the world.

Your Holiness,

We have expressed our appreciation for your support to the United States-Cuba dialogue. The reestablishment of relations has been a first step in the process toward normalization of the relationship between the two countries, which will demand resolving problems and correcting injustices. The blockade, which causes human damages and privations to the Cuban family, is cruel, immoral and illegal, and it should cease. The territory usurped by the Guantanamo Naval Base should be returned to Cuba and other issues resolved, too. Such fair claims are shared by the peoples and the overwhelming majority of governments in the world.

This year we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of uninterrupted relations between the Apostolic Holy See and Cuba. These relations are good and continue to favorably develop on the basis of mutual respect.

Relations between the government and the Catholic Church in Cuba are developing in a gratifying atmosphere, the same as with every denomination and religious institution represented in the country that promote moral values recognized and enhanced by our nation. We exercise religious freedom as a right consecrated in our Constitution.

We attach full meaning to the presence of his Holiness in our homeland. We feel that it will be a transcendental and enriching experience for our nation that he meets with our industrious and educated people, our selfless and generous people that treasure profound convictions and patriotic values, and are willing to continue their heroic resistance and build a society capable of ensuring the full development of men and women, with dignity and justice.

On behalf of this noble people I offer you the warmest welcome.

Thank you.