MESOP MIDDLE EAST : QATAR’S NOT-SO-CHARITABLE RECORD ON TERROR FINANCE

By Matthew Levitt –  The Hill – September 24, 2014 – As the United States cobbles together an international coalition of the willing to take the fight to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State), senior U.S. officials have stressed the importance of employing soft power tools alongside military airstrikes. In particular, any effort to confront and ultimately defeat ISIS will have to include renewed focus on tackling ISIS financing. This, however, demands a truly international effort that will be only as successful as its least effective partner.

Enter Qatar, a tiny but wealthy Gulf state with a penchant for coddling up to Islamist movements from Palestinian Hamas and Libyan Islamist militias to the Afghan Taliban. In March, Department of the Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen singled out Qatar as an especially “permissive jurisdiction” for terrorist financing. Qatari oversight is so lax, Cohen noted, that “several major Qatar-based fundraisers act as local representatives for larger terrorist fundraising networks that are based in Kuwait.” Not wanting to expose sensitive intelligence, Cohen pointed to press reports that Qatar supports not only Hamas but also extremist groups operating in Syria. “To say the least,” he concluded, “this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner”…

Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.

Read the full version of this excerpt on the Hill website:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/218706-qatars-not-so-charitable-record-on-terror-finance