The Case Against Qatar

Report

The tiny, gas-rich emirate has pumped tens of millions of dollars through obscure funding networks to hard-line Syrian rebels and extremist Salafists, building a foreign policy that punches above its weight. After years of acquiescing — even taking advantage of its ally’s meddling — Washington may finally be punching back.

BY Elizabeth Dickinson SEPTEMBER 30, 2014

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.

Newspaper retracts report of Turkish jets attacking Syrian rebels

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org

 

A Turkish newspaper has retracted a report stating that Turkish military jets entered Syrian territory and destroyed an outpost belonging to an al-Qaeda-linked rebel group, after its members attacked a Turkish military garrison along the Syrian-Turkish border. In a published correction, the paper said instead that the Turkish army opened fire from inside Turkey. Today’s Zaman, the English-language edition of Turkish daily Zaman, reported on January 29 that Turkish F-16s had entered Syrian territory and had bombed a stationary convoy of vehicles belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS, an al-Qaeda-linked group that made its appearance in Syria in April of last year.

The origins of ISIS are in Iraq, where it was founded in 2003 as a Sunni armed paramilitary force, in response to the invasion by the United States. In 2004, the group pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and changed its name to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Many observers argue that, in recent months, ISIS has turned into “one of the most powerful forces on the ground” in Syria, with 7,000 well-armed fighters, many of whom are battle-hardened foreign Islamists.

Syria Threatens Chemical Attack on Foreign Force

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: July 23, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian officials warned Monday that they would deploy chemical weapons against any foreign intervention, a threat that appeared intended to ward off an attack by Western nations while also offering what officials in Washington called the most “direct confirmation” ever that Syria possesses a stockpile of unconventional armaments.

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Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Syrian opposition fighters looked for snipers on Monday, after attacking a municipal building in Selehattin, near Aleppo.

Reuters

Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman, reading a statement on the country’s chemical stockpiles at a news conference in Damascus on Monday.

The warning came out of Damascus, veiled behind an assurance that the Syrian leadership would never use such weapons against its own citizens, describing chemical and biological arms as outside the bounds of the kind of guerrilla warfare being fought internally.

“Any stock of W.M.D. or unconventional weapons that the Syrian Army possesses will never, never be used against the Syrian people or civilians during this crisis, under any circumstances,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, said at a news conference shown live on Syrian state television, using the initials for weapons of mass destruction. “These weapons are made to be used strictly and only in the event of external aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Jabha al-Nusra – a New Jihadi Group in Syria

syria (Photo credit: themua)

Announced a couple of days ago, as an important and urgent message without providing further information, users already ‘hoped’ a new jihadi group would be announced. Their hopes are being held up high, as of today Syria ‘officially’ has a jihadi group of its own, with, as it is en vogue for years and years to come, its own media outlet. The media outlet, al-Manarah al-Bayda, something like the white lighthouse, the beacon of light/hope in contrast to Hizbullah’s al-Manarah channel, perhaps, addresses the “people of Sham” for this is a “historic event”

 

We shall what the video reveals, so far the content provided shows the usual rhetoric and ideology that we know of. The focus on Sham (greater Syria) is not really new, but now, since the Arab Spring is increasingly being hijacked

Russian FM due in Syria amid escalating violence

Associated Press   Monday, February 6, 2012

The Associated Press

A member of the Free Syrian Army stands guard as anti-Syrian regime protesters hold a demonstration in Idlib, Syria, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. The U.S. closed its Syrian embassy Monday and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus in a dramatic escalation of Western pressure on President Bashar Assad to give up power, just days after diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to end the crisis collapsed. (AP Photo)

The Associated Press

FILE – In this Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 file photo, the U.S. embassy building is seen in Damascus, Syria. The Obama administration has closed the U.S. Embassy in Damascus and pulled all American diplomats out of Syria Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi, File)

The Associated Press

This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network on Monday, Feb. 6, 2012, purports to show people outside a hospital in Homs, Syria. Government forces shelled the central Syrian city of Homs on Monday, striking a makeshift medical clinic and residential areas and killing more than a dozen people in the third day of a new assault on the epicenter of the country’s uprising, activists said. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via APTN) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE, LOCATION OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MATERIAL. TV OUT

The Associated Press

Anti-Syrian regime protesters hold a demonstration in Idlib, Syria, Monday, Feb. 6, 2012. The U.S. closed its Syrian embassy Monday and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus in a dramatic escalation of Western pressure on President Bashar Assad to give up power, just days after diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to end the crisis collapsed. (AP Photo)