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CAIRO – 7 July 2017: Qatar has launched a trolling war against the Arab four countries, which severed their ties with Doha over its policy of supporting terrorist groups, Qatari opposition members told Egyptian media outlets on Friday.
“Qatar’s security apparatus is responsible for these…accounts and recruiting sleeper agents to destabilize the Arab region,” the opposition members said. The Qatar Opposition Coalition, which resides in Switzerland, had called for the ouster of Qatar’s Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, confirming that Tamim’s regime is supporting terrorist groups.
Twitter users have re-tweeted a screenshot of a post, written by pro-Qatar account, incites violence against the Egyptian Army.
The screenshot reveals a handle “@Mudkuwari” allegedly belongs to a military major called ‘Mohamed Al-Kuwari. However, the Twitter handle bears a pseudonym for a gastroenterologist who lives in Britain. On the other side, other users accused the owner of the account of changing his/her username.
Other pro-Tamim supporters have created a hashtag under the name of “#كلنا_قطر #كلنا_تميم_بن_حمدَ”, which translate to “we are all Qatar, we are all Tamim.” The hashtag indicates firm loyalty and allegiance to Tamim’s regime.
Meanwhile, a new study revealed that 23,000 “fake” Twitter accounts have been created to circulate rumors and post anti-Saudi Arabia tweets, stated on Thursday tweets by Saud Al-Qahtany, the General Supervisor of the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs.
He said the accounts in question use certain phrases, such as “pseudo Saudi,” “how much is your salary,” “you are slaves,” and “glorified Tamim” once or more in every six tweets. The users of the account present themselves as Saudi citizens who support the Qatari regime.
A total of 43 percent of the accounts use a profile picture of the Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, and nine percent used a picture of the Emir and his father Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani.
Meanwhile, 94 percent of them do not use personal profile pictures, four percent use stolen profile pictures, and two percent of the pictures have not been verified by the study.
Of all the accounts in the study, 82 percent of them used pseudonyms, and the rest have not been verified.
Using Arabic words that are not used in the Saudi dialect also highlights that the accounts are not genuine, Al-Qahtani said.
Furthermore, 32 percent of the accounts come from Qatar, 28 percent from Lebanon, 24 percent from Turkey and 12 percent from Iraq.
Interactions between the said accounts and other accounts that call for a revolution in Saudi Arabia or spread rumors amount to retweeting, liking or replying to one of every six tweets.
Al-Qahtany said this means there is a single administration directing all these accounts.
On June 1, dissident of the Qatari ruling family Saud bin Nasser Al-Thani has announced that he has been informed by a former official in the royal Diwan that Tamim has expended more than 413 million QAR to launch a trolling campaign on Twitter against Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen.
Arab and Gulf countries , mainly Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, severed their ties with Qatar over accusations of “supporting terrorist group.”
The four countries also have sent Doha an ultimatum of 13-point demands that should be carried out in 10 days to end this stand-off. However, Doha announced its rejection to the demands.
They also labeled a total of 59 individuals and 12 organizations, have ties with Qatar, as “terrorists” and had closed their airspace and maritime navigation for the Qatari transportation early June.
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