$275m paid to Iran and Iraq militants for release

▶ Payments made to officials with links to the funding of terrorism

Qatar made secret payments totalling at least $275 million (Dh1.01 billion) to Iraqi and Iranian officials widely believed to be sponsors of international terrorism, to secure a hostage release last year, intercepted messages suggest.

Observers say the revelations show how Doha is playing “video games” with the region.

The payments were made just days after a 25-member Qatari hunting party, including nine members of the royal family, were released last year after being kidnapped in southern Iraq.

That was according to a conversation between the Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and its ambassador to Iraq, Zayed Al Khayareen, who served as chief negotiator, The Washington Post reported.

Most galling for Qatar’s Gulf neighbours was to whom its senior diplomats made the payments – officials with links to the funding of extremism throughout the Middle East.

The Qataris were abducted in southern Iraq in December 2015 and, although no group claimed responsibility, the intercepted communications appear to show that Doha dealt with a wide range of people to obtain their release.

At least US$50 million was set aside for “Qassem”, or Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force that sponsors Tehran’s proxies across the Middle East, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen and militias in Iraq.

At least $150m was handed to five intermediaries in total, the newspaper said, including the leader of Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Iraqi militant group designated by the US as a terrorist organisation.

Also included in the deal were Hezbollah, Iran’s prized militia, and Al Nusra Front, a group in Syria with links to Al Qaeda.

The Qatari officials’ phone conversations, text messages and voicemail messages were recorded by a foreign government who provided them to the Washington Post on the condition it was not named.

The ransom payments, which Qatar has denied making, have been widely criticised by Gulf Arab states as providing funding to terrorist organisations.

Qatari officials originally tried to make the ransom payment in Iraq, but when officials sequestered and froze about $360m in 23 duffel bags, the Qataris looked for another payment route – Lebanon.

The money was sent through Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport to Iranian sponsored Hezbollah, where it would make its way to Tehran, The New York Times reported.

The revelations were another confirmation of what regional observers already knew – that Iran’s tentacles stretched into many corners of the Middle East, and that Qatar was paying for them to reach further.

“It just goes to show you how much the Republican Guard is entrenched across the region,” Mohammed Alyahya, senior fellow at the Gulf Research Centre, said of the deal and the warming ties between Iran’s security elite and Qatar.

“I think that’s one of the biggest factors that broke the camel’s back in terms of people’s assessment of Qatar in intelligence and security circles – the idea of Shiite militias and Sunni militias getting secretly flushed with cash by Qatar,” Mr Alyahya told The National. “And we’re not talking about $1m or $2m, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The hunting party was being held by Iranian-funded Shiite militia Kataeb Al Imam Ali, linked to Kataeb Hezbollah.

A former European diplomat told The National that while they were not aware of the republican guard accepting funds from outside parties such as Qatar, “opportunistic benefit from a particular situation might conceivably be treated differently”.

It is this opportunistic streak that can be seen in Tehran’s dealings with Qatar on the hostage release, Mr Alyahya said.

“It’s very clear that the Iranians were taking the Qataris for a ride. They were swindling them,” he said. “It’s almost like the Qataris consider regional developments and unrest a video game they can play when they are bored, and walk away from when it gets difficult.

Sitting in the Oval Office earlier this month, Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani assured US President Donald Trump: “We do not tolerate people who support or fund terrorism”. Freshly leaked communications between Qatari officials and hostage negotiators for the Iran-backed militias who kidnapped 26 Qataris on a hunting trip in 2015 suggest otherwise. The documents, which include text messages and exchanges at the very highest level, paint a bleak picture of the murky dealings which could have resulted in at least $275 million – and possibly up to $1 billion – lining the pockets of extremists intent on destabilising the region. Some of that money almost certainly funded weapons causing mass destruction and bloodshed in Yemen, paid for missiles for Houthi rebels to target Saudi Arabia and allowed militias to ransack Iraq and Syria. The intercepted communications, leaked to the Washington

Post, spell out the level of Qatar’s financing of terror and collusion with those who seek to sow instability across the region. The foolhardy Qatari excursion to southern Iraq, which included nine members of the royal family, came at a time when ISIS was leaving a trail of devastation throughout the country. In the 16 months it took to secure the release of the Qataris, hundreds of millions were dispatched to paramilitary leaders, including $50 million to Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and $25 million to Iraqi Shiite militants Kataib Hezbollah. While it is not clear how much ended up in nefarious hands, the extent of Qatar’s flawed dealings and dubious alliances is becoming increasingly clear.

Its actions have enabled murderous outfits, which have sought to spread terror and chaos throughout the region and ruined the lives of ordinary people. Yet rather than showing any remorse for its actions, Qatar has edged closer to Tehran and increased the security threat to its neighbours in the Arab world. The divisions in the region today have been deepened by its irresponsible actions, yet still its officials insist they have the region’s best interests at heart – all while threatening ordinary citizens by flying fighter jets dangerously close to civilian planes and claiming to weed out terrorism while simultaneously cosying up to its chief financial backers at a wedding. Qatar’s recklessness has cost lives but it is unrepentant for the suffering it has needlessly inflicted by backing those who seek to harm and disrupt Middle Eastern stability. Its dangerous behaviour will only strengthen the resolve of the quartet in protecting its citizens and standing strong together in the face of extremism and its backers.