DOHA, Qatar — The U.S. infantry orchestrates the atmosphere fight over Iraq and Syria from a bumbling authority core on a immeasurable al-Udeid Air Base, a Qatari-owned outpost that is home to 8,000 American infantry crew and dozens of Air Force jets. Giant video screens inside a windowless, two-story structure concede infantry to lane each craft and observe live footage from each worker concerned in operations opposite a Islamic State.
Twenty miles to a northeast, in a heart of this prosperous and fast-growing collateral city, a even some-more gargantuan Grand Mosque has served as a pivotal outpost for al-Qaeda-linked rebels fighting a Syrian regime. From a pulpit underneath ringed chandeliers, several clerics have exhorted a true to open their wallets in support of Syrian insurgency groups. Some of a clerics have boasted of directing income toward Jabhat al-Nusra, that a U.S. supervision has personal as a militant classification related to al-Qaeda.
Although Qatari authorities have changed over a past year to moment down on private donations to Syrian rebels associated with al-Qaeda and a Islamic State, a supervision here shows no signs of abating a support for Islamist groups opposite a Arab universe that others in a segment have branded as outlaws and terrorists.
Qatar’s plan of subsidy Islamists — from Hamas in a Gaza Strip, to a Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to tough Syrian antithesis fighters — while also charity itself as a pivotal U.S. fan in a flighty Middle East is secure in pragmatism: This gas-rich, finger-shaped peninsula that borders Saudi Arabia and juts into a Persian Gulf wants to strengthen itself by being friends with everybody.
“We don’t do enemies,” Qatar’s unfamiliar minister, Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, pronounced in a singular interview. “We pronounce to everyone. We can't change embankment — this is for certain — so whoever is in a closeness of a embankment has to be a tighten friend.”
(Laris Karklis/The Washington Post)
Attiyah pronounced his nation, that is participating in a U.S.-led bloc to brawl Islamic State militants who have seized vast swaths of Iraq and Syria, is “an fan to counterterrorism.” But he also done transparent that his supervision possesses opposite criteria for helping domestic and insurgency movements than some of a neighbors and a Western friends: “We can't contend everybody who is an Islamist is a terrorist. No.”
The same accommodating suggestion extends to rebels in Libya seeking to disintegrate that country’s democratically inaugurated government, and to Iran, with that Qatar shares natural-gas fields underneath a gulf. Instead of fasten a strident tongue of a Arab brethren over Tehran’s chief program, a Qataris have sought to pursue a some-more agreeable relationship, even by Iran backs a supervision of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, that has been battling militants financed by Doha.
That proceed has pained other nations in a area, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and a United Arab Emirates — that withdrew their ambassadors from Doha progressing this year — and it has stirred some in Washington to doubt Qatar’s trustworthiness as an ally.
“They’re personification a double game,” huffed a comparison central of a circuitously Arab republic who spoke on a condition of anonymity to equivocate exacerbating a tactful feud. “The Qataris are a unqualified opportunists.”
To a Qatari government, however, it is all about survival. Fearful that a Muslim Brotherhood, a principal mutation of domestic Islamists, competence find to settle a foothold in this small sheikdom, leaders here cut a understanding of sorts dual decades ago: They offering protected breakwater to Brotherhood members from other countries, and even doled out financial assistance, in sell for an estimable joining not to happen in Qatar.
That process also authorised a Qataris, who wanted to use their resources to spin some-more poignant players in a Middle East, to step out of Saudi Arabia’s shadow. Instead of relying on their vast neighbor to strengthen them, a Qataris figured they would forge their possess alliances.
“Their denote has been to be eccentric from everybody yet also a place for everyone,” pronounced Ibrahim Sharqieh, foreign-policy associate during the Brookings Institution’s Doha investigate center.
Although Qatar has a medium fortuitous of fundamentalist Muslims — they reason lean over a Islamic-affairs ministry, that invited a radical clerics to pronounce during a Grand Mosque — a government’s arrangement with a Muslim Brotherhood does not seem to be secure in ideology. “It’s a domestic alliance,” pronounced a well-connected Qatari researcher who did not wish to be identified, to equivocate jeopardizing his relations with a statute family. “They didn’t wish to be hold on a wrong side.”
The Qatari proceed has been grounded in a faith that Arabs in other nations would eventually find to excommunicate a autocrats and stately families who have hold lean in a segment for decades. And, a Qataris figured, a populations of those countries would opt to be governed by new leaders who placed Islam during a forefront of politics.
“In a finish of a day, a will of a people will prevail,” Attiyah said. “This we have no doubt about.”
The Qataris, however, do not share a same prophecy for domestic mutation during home. The republic is a world’s largest exporter of liquefied healthy gas, and those increase have incited this republic into a world’s wealthiest, per capita. Porsches, BMWs and Ferraris manipulate a newly built expressways. The corniche is lined with radiant skyscrapers. Manual labor, from cleaning to construction, is achieved by legions of unfamiliar workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and a Philippines.
Even yet a supervision here is distant from approved — a initial ubiquitous elections for a “consultative assembly” to advise a emir were designed for final year yet afterwards indefinitely deferred — there appears to be small groundswell for upending a system. “Everyone is too abounding to care,” a researcher said. “Change is something they wish to see elsewhere, not during home.”
As a Arab Spring dawned in 2011, with renouned revolutions toppling strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt, it looked as if a Qataris had done a right gamble behind in 1995, when a emir during a time, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, set a republic on a friends-with-everyone approach.
He authorised members of a Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to set adult emporium in Doha, yet he also rolled out a acquire pad for a Americans. In 2002, when a U.S. infantry motionless to start pulling army out of Saudi Arabia, he offering his republic as a home for a U.S. Central Command’s brazen headquarters.
For years, Qatar’s neighbors regarded a activities as particular yet generally harmless. Egypt, for instance, seemed resolutely in a hold of Hosni Mubarak, notwithstanding Qatar’s support to Brotherhood exiles.
Then came a Arab Spring. Mubarak fell, as did a leaders of Tunisia and Libya.
When a Brotherhood won elections in Tunisia and Egypt, assisted by even some-more Qatari largesse, Doha reveled in a self-satisfied satisfaction. “Qatar backs winners,” became a ordinarily spoken word here.
“They saw themselves on a right side of history,” pronounced Gerd Nonneman, a vanguard of a Doha campus of a Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
As associate Sunni Muslims in Syria began to arise adult opposite Assad, Qatar saw another event to sustain change, quite when it became transparent a United States was not going to intervene. The Doha supervision began promulgation tens of millions of dollars to Syrian rebels by intermediaries in Turkey who used some of a supports to squeeze weapons and other supplies, according to Western officials informed with Qatar’s activities who spoke on a condition of anonymity.
The support had a thespian impact. Opposition fighters, who also perceived income and arms from Saudi Arabia, forced Assad to concede control of estimable tools of a country.
Qatari officials knew a Syrian insurgency was a multi-coloured lot, from secular-leaning exiles to extremists associated with al-Qaeda. The Qataris opted to comment groups that it believed leaned somewhat to a religiously tough side, logic that they would have a best possibility of rallying renouned support.
But some of a clerics authorised to evangelise in a Grand Mosque wanted to go even further. They urged Qatari adults to chuck their income behind Jabhat al-Nusra, also famous as a al-Nusra Front.
Among them was a Kuwaiti named Hamid Hamad Hamid al-Ali, who has referred to himself as an “al-Qaeda commando,” according to a U.S. Treasury Department, and had boasted of collecting income for al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra. Ali trafficked to Qatar in Jun 2013 to validate a fundraising expostulate for jihadist militias in Syria.
“This is a eminent and obvious campaign,” he pronounced in a debate that was available and uploaded to YouTube. “Its activities are also clear, and a mujahideen internally as good pronounce of their work in terms of what they yield in support.”
At a finish of his speech, viewers were supposing with an comment series during a Qatar Islamic Bank to that they were urged to contribute. A Qatari who ran a comment drive, Saad bin Saad al-Kaabi, subsequently posted a twitter to inspire his friends to contribute. “Your brothers are in apocalyptic need of weapons and ammunition some-more than food,” he wrote.
Two months later, Kaabi’s debate posted a video of fighters subsequent to a square of antiaircraft artillery. They thanked their Qatari congregation “who have gratefully upheld us in purchasing this artillery.”
Then, only as quick as Qatar piled adult a wins, it saw a victories trip away. The Brotherhood figure inaugurated boss of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, struggled to spin an effective personality and eventually was deposed by a military. Libya descended into biased fighting among antithesis militias. And a Syrian rebels began to spin on one another.
Some of a insurgency units that had perceived central Qatari support started to fan themselves with Jabhat al-Nusra. The principal customer of a tumult was the hyper-extremist Islamic State, whose ranks swelled with new recruits, permitting a organisation to outmuscle others in Syria and afterwards swell into Iraq.
Attiyah, a Qatari unfamiliar minister, pronounced a supervision has not upheld a Islamic State. Senior U.S. officials pronounced they possess no information to advise otherwise.
But U.S. officials and eccentric analysts who lane a brawl in Syria contend Qatar’s proceed to appropriation a insurgency has been messy and unsophisticated. The faith on Turkish middlemen and Syrian facilitators roughly positively has resulted in income and arms removing into a hands of Jabhat al-Nusra fighters or those associated with them. The Qataris “have really singular knowledge and ability to effectively conduct an try of this scope,” pronounced a U.S. central concerned in Syria policy.
The groups a Qataris chose to support have stirred serve regard in Washington and associated capitals. Among them has been a rope of fighters called Ahrar al-Sham, that has fought in fondness with Jabhat al-Nusra.
“They’re always one step divided from guys we don’t like,” pronounced Michael Stephens, a emissary executive of the Doha bureau of a Royal United Services Institute, a British investigate organization. “That’s a problem with a Qataris in Syria: They brew in a gray areas.”
The Qataris also changed solemnly to moment down on private donations to Jabhat al-Nusra and other nonconformist insurgency groups, according to Western officials who follow terrorism financing. The supervision here began to shorten appropriation final year after steady entreaties from a United States and European nations.
Attiyah concurred that his supervision does not always determine with a United States and a European allies about that Syrian antithesis groups should be deemed moderate, yet he also blamed a radicalization of a insurgency on Western oversight to a crisis.
“We squandered maybe 21/ 2 years classifying people,” Attiyah said. At a start of a conflict, he said, his republic had categorized groups as green, amber and red, formed on their tie to nonconformist organizations. Now, however, “when we went behind to a immature ones, they are already red. They didn’t have means to urge themselves. They didn’t have salaries. They didn’t have anything. And they have been captivated by a terrorists.”
For Qatar’s neighbors, a activities in Syria do not bleed a same regard as in Washington or European capitals. In Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and a UAE, a annoy is focused on Qatar’s purpose in Egypt and Libya.
Instead of acknowledging improved after Morsi’s ouster in Egypt, Arab officials contend Qatar has continued to support Egyptian members of a Brotherhood, that a country’s new supervision has designated as a militant organization, as have Saudi Arabia and a UAE. Attiyah pronounced his republic seeks to assistance “the people of Egypt,” yet he insisted that Qatar does not happen in Egyptian politics.
In Libya, Qatar is subsidy Islamist militiamen who have seized vast sections of a capital, Tripoli, and are battling an anti-Islamist coterie corroborated by Egypt and a UAE.
In new weeks, a fighting has spiraled into a substitute war. In late August, a UAE sent warrior jets to support a Egyptians in bombing a Qatari-supported militia. A few weeks later, Libyan officials indicted Qatar of drifting mixed planeloads of reserve to a militiamen.
Attiyah pronounced his republic is not interfering in a inner politics of Libya. Asked privately about a resupply flights, he responded, “Did we explosve with a planes?”
For Qatar, a brawl with a neighbors over Egypt and Libya involves a elemental disproportion over a purpose of domestic Islam in a Arab world. Saudi Arabia and a UAE conflict any Qatari efforts to foster a Muslim Brotherhood or other groups of domestic Islamists, observation all of them as a hazard to informal stability. To a Qataris, however, Islamists can't be congested behind into a genie’s bottle by peremptory regimes. It is better, a Qataris believe, to work with them.
In partial to damp a neighbors, however, a supervision here recently requested that 7 Brotherhood leaders leave a country. Attiyah pronounced a pierce does not prove a change of policy. If members wish to rivet in politics in another nation, he said, they need to do it from elsewhere. But if they do not, he said, “we yield protected haven.”
These days, al-Udeid Air Base is a frenzy of activity, and not only on a moody line, where rows of KC-135 tankers ready to take off for 12-hour loops over a Persian Gulf to refuel fighters tarnishing toward Iraq and Syria. The rest of a sprawling, sand-swept bottom is only as bustling — with construction.
Since it set adult emporium on Udeid, a U.S. infantry has housed crew in tents and trailers. Flight squadrons have worked out of quick fabricated steel buildings. The outpost had a transitory feel, as if it could be packaged adult and close down as quick as a demobilized bottom in Afghanistan.
To a Qataris, that sent a wrong message, so they asked a Americans to build — and helped to compensate for — rows of new concrete-walled buildings, including gentle vital buliding and distraction facilities.
“It’s an countenance of commitment,” pronounced Col. Steven DeSordi, a staff executive of a 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, a principal U.S. Air Force section on a base.
The construction is a many manifest denote of a infantry attribute that is sketch closer. In December, a United States and Qatar concluded on a new invulnerability team-work agreement. Although a terms are confidential, people informed with it contend a understanding gives a United States embodiment to use a trickery for a far-reaching operation of operations though seeking before capitulation from a Qataris. “It’s like being in a States,” an Arab central informed with a terms said.
This July, a Qataris concluded to squeeze $11 billion value of U.S. arms, including dual dozen AH-64 Apache conflict helicopters and 34 Patriot barb launchers. For Qatar, that used to buy many of a weapons from other nations, a sale represented a new enterprise to combine with a U.S. infantry over a use of dual bases. The merger of those weapons systems will lead to corner training and some-more integrated infantry exercises.
“This opens a doorway to an even closer vital attribute with them,” pronounced a comparison U.S. invulnerability official.
But a Qataris have done it transparent that they wish equal contend in defining a terms of a friendship. When a Obama administration asked them to join with a UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in a bloc to opposite a Islamic State, Doha consented. It launched French-made Mirage fighters, yet a Qataris did not join a other 3 Arab countries in dropping bombs. Instead, a Qataris flew atmosphere invulnerability patrols in support of a initial rounds of airstrikes.
“They wish to participate, yet they wish to do it possess their possess terms,” a comparison U.S. infantry officer said.
When a U.S. infantry indispensable an surrogate to take proxy control of 5 Taliban leaders expelled from a Guantanamo Bay apprehension trickery in Cuba in sell for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl this year, Qatar was a one republic on that a Taliban and a Americans could agree.
“Washington might not like all we do, yet we have been there to assistance again and again,” a well-connected Qatari researcher said. “You need a crony who is friends with people we don’t wish to be friends with.”