Main reasons for Qatari-Iranian alliance seen

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Thu, 17 Aug 2017 - 05:17 GMT

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Thu, 17 Aug 2017 - 05:17 GMT

Qatari- Iranian relations evolved great mutual political support - Reuters

Qatari- Iranian relations evolved great mutual political support - Reuters

CAIRO – 17 August 2017: Relations between Qatar and Iran have been very strong for mainly economic reasons, which have led to great mutual political support causing the backing and rise of certain Sunni and Shiite extremist militant groups executing terrorist operations worldwide.

Mutual Economic Interests:

The website of Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) external broadcast service, reported that both Qatar and Iran share “the world’s largest independent gas field beneath the waters” of the Arab Gulf.

“The undersea gas field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, of which 3,700 square kilometers (South Pars) are in Iranian territorial waters and 6,000 square kilometers (North Dome) are in Qatari territorial waters,” according to Radio Farda.

After the revolution in 1979, Iran has been cut off from “foreign investments and technical assistance,” however; it was trying to develop South Pars throughout the last two decades.

In January 2014, Qatar offered to help achieve that mission, as the entire undersea gas field could be put at risk, as Radio Farda reported.

Total signed a contract with Qatar and Iran in July to help them expand production of South Pars/North Dome gas field, according to Reuters.

Qatari Help for Iran-backed groups:

Kuwaiti lawyer Bassam El Assoussy said in July that El-Herak, which is a Shiite opposition group backed by Iran and its military arm in Lebanon, Hezbollah, is attempting to destabilize the country.

In light of a ruling, on July 20, in which 15 Kuwaitis were involved in espionage were proved to be members of the El-Abadly cell affiliated with Hezbollah, Kuwait asked Iran to reduce its diplomatic representation in the country to four personnel.

In 2006, Israel imposed a blockade on Lebanon from July 12 through August 14, for a total of 34 days, because of the missile attack launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah against Israeli border towns in an attempt to release Hezbollah prisoners. The incidents resulted in 1,191-1,300 Lebanese casualties, mostly civilian, and 165 Israeli casualties, including 44 civilians, according to the BBC.

Around one million Lebanese and 300-500,000 Israelis were displaced, and the Lebanese infrastructure was destroyed.

Ghassan bin Jeddo, Al Jazeera’s Beirut bureau chief from 2004 to 2011, in an interview with Egyptian TV host Mona el-Shazly in 2009, described Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah as a “war leader,” and said interviewing him during the war in Lebanon was a “great honor.” He did not even deny that he and Nasrallah were friends on a personal level, according to Palestinian online newspaper Donia Al-Watan.

Hezbollah provided Al Jazeera with exclusive material as well as phone interviews on air with its members and Nasrallah. After the interview with Nasrallah, bin Jeddo said, on the 30th day of the war, the Israeli Cabinet threatened to bomb Al Jazeera’s bureau.

Al Jazeera never attempted to condemn the existence of a guerrilla group like Hezbollah, which jeopardizes the sovereignty of the Lebanese state, and which ignited a war that brought destruction and loss to the country.

Qatari-Iranian backing to Sunni terrorist groups

Iran, also supported by Qatar, persisted in supplying Hamas with money and weapons till 2012, as the group had backed the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to the Atlantic Newspaper.

Iran mostly gave Hamas military aid , such as teaching the group how to produce a variant of the Fajr-5 long-range projectile and rockets in general domestically in Gaza.

“A review of nearly 50 US Treasury Department-designated senior Al-Qaeda financial facilitators reveal damning connections between the Tehran Al-Qaeda network and Qatar-linked terror operatives,” as Arab News reported.

It is noted that Iran had long harbored Taliban and Qaeda members, including the family of Osama bin-Laden. In January 2009, the U.S. Department of the Treasury published a press release titled, “Treasury Targets Al-Qaeda Operatives in Iran.” In the release, the Treasury said it had designated as terrorists four fugitives who fled Afghanistan in 2001 after the fall of Taliban and who were arrested in Tehran in 2003 by Iranian authorities.

Iran had allowed Qatari terrorists to communicate with and fund Qaeda members on its soil.

The Qatari national Salim Khalifa Al-Kuwari is designated by the United States as a senior Al-Qaeda facilitator and financier who, to this day, lives and operates in Doha.

As Arab News reported according to US intelligence, Al-Kuwari “has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial support to Al-Qaeda cell in Iran headed by Muhsin Al-Fadhli,” who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Syria on July 8, 2015 after he assumed the leadership of the group in Iran in 2011.

That mission of Al-Qaeda network in Iran is collecting funds from donors in the Gulf for the sake of Al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan.

Al-Kuwari facilitated travel for newly recruited militants to Syria through Turkey and aided al-Qaeda leaders based in Tehran to funnel money, messages and fighters from South Asia into the Middle East, according to Arab News.

Another Qatari national, who is operating in Doha, is Khalifa Muhammad Turki Al-Subaiy as he provided millions of dollars “for nearly a decade to al-Qaeda’s Khorasan group in Syria that was established by Al-Fadhli while he was in Iran,” according to Arab News.

Iranian support to Qatar during boycott:

As BBC reported the statements of a spokesperson of Iran Air Shahrokh Noushabadi, Iran sent five planes carrying around 90 tons of food to Qatar by June 11, and it was preparing one more. It was not clear if the cargos were an aid or a commercial transaction.

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