page_title: Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism
section_title: Al-Qaeda
hierarchical_section_title: Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism / Activities of various groups in Qatar / Al-Qaeda
context_page_description: Qatar has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders, which has been one of the justifications for the ongoing Qatar diplomatic crisis that started in 2017. The country has been called "the Club Med for Terrorists" by Ron Prosor, an Israeli diplomat and "most two-faced nation in the world, backing the U.S.-led coalition against the militants of the Islamic State while providing a permissive environment", in the words of David S. Cohen, "for terrorist financiers to operate with impunity". Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.
  One of the leaked Podesta emails from August 2014, addressed to John Podesta, identifies Qatar and Saudi Arabia as providing "clandestine," "financial and logistic" aid to ISIL and other "radical Sunni groups." The email outlines a plan of action against ISIL, and urges putting pressure on Qatar and Saudi Arabia to end their alleged support for the group. Whether the email was originally written by Hillary Clinton, her advisor Sidney Blumenthal, or another person is unclear.
context_section_description: Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, Osama bin Laden's former business agent, defected to the United States in 1996, and testified to the 9/11 Commission and Congress, that Bin Laden told him in 1993 that the Qatar Charitable Society (QCS), (later renamed Qatar Charity) was one of Bin Laden's several sources of funding.
  
  In 2003, The New York Times wrote:
  "Private support from prominent Qataris to Al Qaeda is a sensitive issue that is said to infuriate George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. After the Sept. 11 attacks, another senior Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been the principal planner of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was said by Saudi intelligence officials to have spent two weeks in late 2001 hiding in Qatar, with the help of prominent patrons, after he escaped from Kuwait."
  Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy and Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi are senior-level financiers of al-Qaeda. Al-Subaiy was a previous employee of the Qatar Central Bank. In 2014, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, announced that the two men were living freely in Qatar. Both men were on a worldwide terrorist blacklist. The two men were tried and acquitted due to Qatari intelligence being unable to demonstrate evidence without "compromising its intelligence gathering capabilities".
  In response to Cohen's announcement and the release of the U.S. intelligence report, reporters from The Telegraph contacted Qatari officials. According to the Telegraph, "Qatar has refused to answer".
  At one time, Al-Nuaymi was the president of the Qatar Football Association. The U.S. report said that he sent more than 1.25 million British pounds per month to Al-Qaeda jihadist fighters in Iraq. He sent hundreds of thousands of pounds to fighters in Syria. The United States designated Al-Nuaymi as a terrorist in 2013. Britain sanctioned him in 2014.
  Al-Nuaymi is knowingly associated with Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman Al-Humayqani, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) whom the US Treasury sanctioned in 2013 for his role as fundraiser and executive for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The US Treasury claimed that in 2012 Al-Nuaymi supported financially a charity directed by Humayqani. By exploiting his status in the charitable community, Humayqani allegedly raised funds and facilitated transfers from al-Qaeda supporters based in Saudi Arabia to Yemen. Reportedly Humayqani had high level connections with al-Qaeda top operatives and often acted as an AQAP representative while meeting with Yemeni authorities. On behalf of AQAP, he allegedly recruited individuals for several murderous attacks in Yemen, and personally directed a "group of armed AQAP associates that intended to carry out attacks on Yemeni government facilities and institutions, including a Yemeni government building in al-Bayda Governorate".
  About ten months after being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, Nuaimi was also restrained from doing business in the UK. Al-Subaiy and Al-Nuaymi have close ties to senior leaders in the Qatari government. Robert Medick, a reporter for The Telegraph's "Stop the Funding of Terror" campaign, wrote in 2014 that Qatar "turned a blind eye to terrorist financiers operating within their midst".
  According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Subayi also provided financial support to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani al-Qaeda senior officer purported to be one of the architects of the 9/11 attacks.
  On August 4, 2015 the US Treasury sanctioned Qatari citizen Abd al-Latif Bin Abdallah Salih Muhammad al-Kawari for his alleged support to al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to the Treasury's designation, al-Kawari had worked with al-Qaeda facilitators since the early 2000s in his role as financier and security official for the terrorist group. Al-Kawari is also reported to have worked with US and UN terrorist designated al-Qaeda affiliates Mustafa Hajji Muhammad Khan and Ibrahim Isa Haji Muhammad al-Bakr to have funds delivered to al-Qaeda operatives in Pa
caption: Flag of Jihad