QATAR’S ‘PERMISSIVE’ LAWS ALLOW FUNDRAISING FOR EXTREMIST GROUPS

▶ Former US treasury official says past efforts to pressure Qatar to fully act on financing did not succeed

An agreement signed by the US and Qatar to combat terrorism financing is another testament to the centrality of the issue in the dispute between Doha and four of its Arab neighbours. The memorandum came a month after the quartet boycotting Doha published a list of 59 individuals and 12 entities in or related to Qatar that support terrorist groups. The agreement signed with the US highlights a problem with the Gulf state in the area of financing terrorism.

Among the GCC states, Qatar has made the least progress in choking off financing for terrorist groups, according to former US officials and experts in Washington.

In 2014, Qatar was accused by the US treasury department of having “permissive jurisdictions” that allow “soliciting donations to fund extremist insurgents”, said David Cohen, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the time. “The recipients of these funds are often terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Al Nusra Front, and ISIL,” Mr Cohen said.

Three years on, the treasury has not upgraded Qatar from “permissive jurisdiction” status. Mr Cohen, who no longer works for the government, saw no reason to change the classification. At an event hosted by the Gulf States Institute in Washington last week, Mr Cohen was asked if Qatar was worse than others in the GCC when it came to funding terrorism.

He said: “Qatar is not much worse than Kuwait, but worse than others in the GCC.” He then accused Qatar of “knowing very well” who is doing the funding, but not going to the full extent in curbing it.

Mr Cohen made reference to previous US and Saudi attempts to curb Qatar’s links with extremists. He recalled efforts the US took during his six years at the treasury between 2009 and 2015 to pressure Qatar.

“We tried to work Saudis in trilateral fashion ... to put pressure on those in Qatar, it didn’t work out,” Mr Cohen said.

Donald Trump, on June 9, called Qatar a “funder of terrorism at a very high level”. A US state department official said “more needs to be done by Doha” to tackle this issue. However, the official also noted that the problem was more complex, including the need to “recognise the efforts Qatar has made to try and stop the financing of terrorist groups”.

Without singling out Doha, the US official outlined measures that Qatar and others in the Gulf region could take. They include additional counterterrorism laws, enhanced financial controls on funding to charities, monitoring and regulating the charitable sector and compiling and releasing official financial intelligence reports.

Over the past 15 years, terrorist financiers in Doha, or those linked to the country, have been placed on the terror sanctions lists of the US treasury, state department and the UN.

The individuals on the lists are mostly those involved in facilitating funding to extremist groups across the region, especially Al Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria, Jabhat Al Nusra, now known as Jabhat Fatah Al Sham.

Those lists overlap with one issued by the four Arab states at the outset of the Qatar crisis. Eleven names on the US lists are on the list from the Arab quartet, and six on the UN lists.

Experts point to several impediments to progress in understanding Qatar’s problem with terrorist financing.

Katherine Bauer, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former treasury official who served as financial attache in Jerusalem and the Gulf, said: “It is unclear what Qatar has done and it seems to lend itself to questioning if they have done anything. We know from US reports they have done things” to crack down on fundraising, “but it is an incomplete picture.”

But Ms Bauer, who follows the designations on a case-by-case basis, said Qatar “needs to act on UN-designated individuals that continue to operate in Qatar”. She mentioned the case of Khalifa Al Subaiy, a Qatari on the UN, US and the quartet’s list, accused of funding Al Qaeda. Subaiy was convicted by Bahrain, served six months in prison and was released. He has since re-engaged in terrorism support, the UN says.

She highlighted other examples that show Doha’s reluctance when it comes to cracking down on those on the lists.

In 2014, the state department credited Qatar with shutting down Madad Ahl Al Sham, the online fundraising platform run by Saad Al Kaabi, a Qatari financier of Al Qaeda in Syria.

At least a year later a subsequent treasury sanctions designation noted Al Kaabi was still actively involved in financing the group, Ms Bauer said.

She said another issue where Qatar has stumbled has been the prosecution of terrorism financiers in Qatari courts. Many of the names were acquitted, tried in absentia, or released to be reportedly under surveillance.

David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said the designations were evidence “that the Qatari line is wrong”.

“The Qatari foreign minister keeps insisting that the allegations are totally baseless but the list [from the quartet] and particularly its overlap with the names on the UN and US lists tells us there is at least something there.”

Asked about other GCC states accused of privately funding terrorism, Mr Weinberg said: “Riyadh has taken strides in convicting hundreds of these financiers, while Qatar hasn’t.”