Today, al Thani is visiting the White House again. Question is why?
In Congress, legislative action related to Qatar remains relatively limited with the exception of appropriations and authorization legislation that affects U.S. defense programs and congressional review of proposed foreign military sales to the Qatari military. Qatar’s foreign and domestic policies are monitored by congressional foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence committees, while Qatar’s resource wealth and associated economic clout fuels congressional interest in U.S.- Qatari trade and investment ties. (1)
DOHA, Qatar—During President Barack Obama ’s first term, some members of his National Security Council lobbied to pull a U.S. fighter squadron out of an air base in Qatar to protest the emirate’s support of militant groups in the Mideast.
The Pentagon pushed back, according to former U.S. officials involved in the discussion, saying a regional military command the U.S. maintains at the base was vital to American operations in the region. The issue was decided in late 2013 when the U.S. extended its lease on the base and didn’t pull out any planes.
The episode, not previously reported, reflects long-standing divisions within the Obama administration over America’s widening alliance with Qatar. The problem is that the very traits making the Persian Gulf emirate a valuable ally are also a source of worry: Qatar’s relationships with Islamist groups.
Secretary of State John Kerry has formed a tight partnership with Qatari diplomats, using them as conduits for messages to Hamas in the Palestinian territories, to Afghanistan’s Taliban and to jihadist rebel groups in Syria and Libya, according to State Department officials. Mr. Kerry has lauded Qatar’s role in seeking to negotiate an end to Israeli-Hamas fighting last summer.
U.S. officials also have praised Qatar for using its channels to broker the release of Westerners held hostage, including U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was swapped last year for five captured Taliban commanders.
Champions of the U.S.-Qatar alliance, especially in the Defense and State departments, say Qatar is indispensable to the struggle against Islamic State, the group also called ISIS or ISIL. U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State often launch from the air base in Qatar, al-Udeid, said American officials, who added that Qatar’s air force has provided surveillance and logistical support.
But Qatar also has given financial or diplomatic support to Mideast rebel groups, including some that seek to establish Islamic law or have ties to al Qaeda, according to U.S. and Arab officials as well as Western diplomats in the region. The support includes providing sanctuary to leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar acknowledges.
For years, Islamist rebel fighters from Libya and Syria traveled to Qatar and returned with suitcases full of money, according to rebels who were interviewed and to Persian Gulf government officials. American officials said the U.S. has uncovered Qatari connections—such as involvement by members of the emirate’s elite business, religious and academic circles—in financing for Hamas, al Qaeda and Islamic State.
In September, the U.S. Treasury Department said publicly that an Islamic State commander had received $2 million in cash from an unnamed Qatari businessman. The following month, a Treasury official publicly criticized Qatar for failing to act against what he called terrorist financiers living in the emirate.
Last week, Qatar protested when Egypt bombed Islamic State forces in Libya who had beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians. An Egyptian diplomat responded by publicly accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism, which Qatar denied.
Visit from the emir
A chance to air these issues comes Tuesday as Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, meets with President Obama at the White House.
In interviews, senior Qatari officials denied their government funds or has funded terrorist organizations. They said Qatar has a right to have diplomatic ties with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements that they said have broad support in the Arab public. (The U.S. lists Hamas as a terrorist organization but not the Brotherhood.)
“We are not a bloc-mentality-belonging country. We create platforms for dialogue,” said Qatar’s foreign minister, Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah. “If this approach allows us to bring long-lasting peace and security in our region, we will not be affected by any criticism.”
Washington’s ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, said the U.S. relationship with the emirate “is a fundamentally good one, and we share a number of important interests. We don’t agree on everything, but we are always frank with each other about where we disagree and why.”
U.S. and Arab officials say there are signs Qatar has begun paring back support for the most extreme militant groups following repeated warnings from Washington and certain Arab states. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates pulled their ambassadors from Doha in March 2014 to protest Qatar’s foreign policy, but have since returned the diplomats to their posts.
Washington and the American oil industry played leading roles in Qatar’s emergence on the global stage. Qatar was among the less wealthy Gulf states in the 1980s, before the export of its plentiful natural gas was made possible by technologies developed by U.S. oil companies that later became Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips .
“The American companies were really the ones who took a big bet on Qatar when others wouldn’t,” said Mr. Attiyah. “That’s part of the core of our special relationship.”
Qatar now has the world’s highest per capita income, says the International Monetary Fund. Several U.S. universities, including Georgetown, Northwestern and Cornell, have opened campuses in Doha.
In 2003, the Pentagon moved the regional headquarters of the U.S. Central Command to Qatar’s al-Udeid air base, a move that gave the emirate a sense of security from potentially hostile neighbors.
Qatar also invests in the U.S. Last month, Qatar’s finance minister said his government would invest $35 billion in the U.S. over five years, in areas such as technology and infrastructure.
The “Arab Spring” protests of late 2010 and 2011 deepened Washington’s alliance with Qatar but also exposed divisions in the two countries’ visions for the Mideast. Qatar began promoting a brand of pro-Islamist foreign policy that confused Washington and alienated some Arab allies.
One Gulf-region government official described a Sheraton hotel in Doha as a hangout for Islamists from Libya, Syria, Egypt and the Palestinian territories. A spokesman for Sheraton owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. noted that the hotel hosts hundreds of international travelers daily and said, “We do not do business with terrorists nor condone or facilitate any activity that is antithetical to our company values.” He said the firm works with law enforcement, including retaining passport information for all guests.
Nusra Front
According to U.S. and regional Arab government officials, commanders of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s arm in Syria, began visiting Doha in 2012 for meetings with senior Qatari military officials and financiers. Nusra is fighting to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, a regional rival of Qatar.
Syrian rebels and Persian Gulf government officials said Qatar cultivates a relationship with Nusra in part to maintain the emirate’s role in negotiations to free hostages held by militants in Syria and Lebanon. Over the past year, Qatar has gained the release of hostages including United Nationspeacekeepers, Greek Orthodox nuns and a U.S. freelance journalist. Arab and U.N. officials have said the releases involve ransoms, which Qatar denies.
Some Qatari officials view Nusra as a crucial fighting force against the Syrian regime and don’t consider it terrorist.
The U.S. in 2012 tipped off Lebanese officials that a Qatari sheik, Abd al-Aziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, was visiting Beirut to pass funds to Nusra, according to Lebanese and U.S. officials. A Lebanese official said that on one trip, Sheik Attiyah, who is a cousin of Qatar’s current foreign minister, was driven to the Lebanon-Syria border town of Aarsal and there distributed money for Syrian rebel fighters.
Lebanese security forces arrested Sheik Attiyah on terrorism charges in 2012, but he was freed after a Qatari protest, Lebanese and Qatari officials said. This past June, a Beirut military court sentenced him in absentia to seven years in prison on the charges.
A London attorney for Sheik Attiyah, Cameron Doley, called the charges “completely and utterly untrue.” Qatari government officials also said Mr. Attiyah wasn’t involved in terrorism and described his arrest as political. Officials of the Lebanese government and the security directorate that carried out the arrest declined to comment.
U.S. officials have been pressing Qatar to arrest a former Qatari central-bank official who was sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.N. for an alleged role as a terrorism financier and as a lieutenant of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Qatar detained the official, Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy, in 2008 for six months after a Bahrain court convicted him on terrorism charges. He was released later that year, drawing a string of inquiries from the U.S. ambassador, according to State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.
Mr. Subaiy couldn’t be reached for comment. In September, the Treasury alleged that two Jordanians with Qatari IDs had worked with Mr. Subaiy to transfer cash to al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. The Jordanians couldn’t be reached for comment.
In October, the Treasury’s top counterterrorism official publicly criticized Qatar for inaction on Mr. Subaiy and a second alleged al Qaeda financier, Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi. “There are U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law,” said David Cohen , then a Treasury undersecretary.
Mr. Nuaymi, who also couldn’t be reached for comment, has in the past denied funding terrorism and called charges against him politically motivated.
Living in Doha
Qatari officials confirmed that Messrs. Subaiy and Nuaymi remain free in Doha but said they are under surveillance and their bank accounts are frozen. “We know that there is a problem, and we are building a case to take those involved to court,” said Qatar’s ambassador to Washington, Mohammad al-Kuwari. “We’re committed to working with the U.S. on these cases.”
The idea of pulling some U.S. fighter planes out of Qatar’s al-Udeid to signal displeasure with Qatar’s foreign policy—a proposal made several years ago by some National Security Council members—prompted a wrenching internal debate pitting U.S. ideals against pragmatism. One senior defense official at the time opposed the idea, saying it threatened to undermine a key Mideast relationship while having little effect on Qatar’s policy.
A senior administration official said, “Whether or not that was a view expressed or considered by an individual in the past, it was never a serious policy consideration in a broader context.”
In recent months, U.S. and Qatari officials said there has been an uptick in Qatari moves against alleged terrorist financiers. They said the emirate has expelled a Jordanian associate of Mr. Nuaymi and shut a social-media website the U.S. believed was used in raising money for al-Qaeda-linked militants in Syria.
Qatar has moved to mend its ties with Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and other Gulf countries. In November, Qatar’s emir met in Jidda with Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah and other regional monarchs, agreeing to end their feud and work to stabilize the region, said Arab officials.
But Qatar has resisted pressure from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to evict Hamas’s top leadership, according to U.S. and Arab diplomats. U.S. officials believe that many of the Qatari nationals involved in fundraising for Syrian rebels remain active. Mr. Kerry regularly raises his concerns about Qatar’s ties to extremist groups in his meeting with Doha’s diplomats, a U.S. official said.
“The Qataris need to know they can’t have it both ways,” said Dennis Ross, who was Mr. Obama’s top Mideast adviser in his first term. “But so far, they see that they can.”
—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
