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You are here: Home / Archives for Muslim Brotherhood

Jordan shuts down Muslim Brotherhood headquarters

April 13, 2016 by Nasheman

The movement has had strained relations with the authorities in recent years. AP

The movement has had strained relations with the authorities in recent years. AP

by BBC

Police in Jordan have shut the headquarters of the main opposition movement, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB), group officials say.

The building in the capital, Amman, was sealed on the city governor’s orders, an MB leader told Reuters news agency.

No reason was given for the closure, the official added.

The MB has a strong support base in urban areas and its political wing, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), is Jordan’s largest opposition party.

The group split in 2014 into the old movement and a new, more moderate, officially licensed branch. The headquarters of the original movement were targeted in Wednesday’s raid.

“We were surprised by this move from the Public Security Department,” spokesman Badi al Rafaiah told Reuters.

“Many policemen and gendarmes came… broke the door down and threw out all the staff with an order to close down the main centre, which they sealed off without giving any explanation.”

The rise in militant Islam in the region has increasingly strained relations between the Brotherhood and the authorities.

The IAF has boycotted parliamentary elections, alleging the system marginalises the party, while authorities have sporadically cracked down on the group.

Last year, a Muslim Brotherhood leader was jailed for criticising Jordan’s ally the UAE, in the first such case involving a top opposition figure in Jordan for years.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Jordan, Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt’s Brotherhood says member tortured to death

July 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Muslim Brotherhood says authorities asked family of leading member to collect bruised body weeks after disappearance.

Suez Muslim Brotherhood leader Tarek Khalil was tortured before he was killed, according to his family [@Ikhwanweb]

Suez Muslim Brotherhood leader Tarek Khalil was tortured before he was killed, according to his family [@Ikhwanweb]

by Al Jazeera

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood says another of its members has been killed by security forces two weeks after the man went missing, the movement has told Al Jazeera.

The group on Friday said Egyptian soldiers kidnapped two men, a businessman Tarek Khalil, who was in charge of the Brotherhood’s Development Committee, and another man, Mohamed Saad Alioua, on June 17.

Muslim Brotherhood members said Egyptian authorities asked Khalil’s family to collect his body from a mortuary on Friday. Family members said Khalil’s body showed marks of torture.

The group did not have information on what has happened to Alioua.

Calls for ‘revolt’

On Thursday the Brotherhood warned of “serious repercussions” and called on its supporters to “rise in revolt” after Egyptian police killed 13 leading members of the group.

Egyptian police raided an apartment in the Cairo suburb of 6th of October on Wednesday and killed the men, including a former member of parliament, Nasser al-Hafy, security sources and a member of the outlawed group said. 

The Brotherhood members were reportedly meeting to discuss sponsoring the families of detainees when the police stormed the building. The victims’ families said the men were unarmed and had been taken into custody earlier in the day but were released after giving fingerprints.

Egypt’s interior ministry, however, said the men were fugitive leaders who were plotting attacks – something the group denies – and said the group included two men who had previously been sentenced to death.

In a statement, the ministry said that investigators found weapons, 43,000 Egyptian pounds ($5,300), documents and memory cards and that the group was plotting attacks on the army, police, judiciary, and media.

Pro-Muslim Brotherhood Mekameleen TV said the leaders were detained inside a home and “killed in cold blood without any investigation or charges”.

In a statement following the deaths, the group described the killings as “a significant development with serious repercussions” and said it held “the criminal [Egyptian President] Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his gang fully responsible for these crimes and their consequences”.

“Rise in revolt to defend your homeland, your lives and your children,” the statement said, adding: “This murderer is now executing the largest and most horrid massacre against this homeland. Oust the heinous murderer. Destroy the castles of injustice and tyranny. Reclaim Egypt once again.”

The group said the incident “pushes the situation onto a very dangerous curve and makes the entire scene highly volatile”.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt court upholds Morsi death sentence

June 16, 2015 by Nasheman

Court confirms death sentence for deposed president Mohamed Morsi on charges related to a 2011 jailbreak case.

Former president Mohamed Morsi appeared inside a cage in the courtroom where he stood trial in Cairo [EPA]

Former president Mohamed Morsi appeared inside a cage in the courtroom where he stood trial in Cairo [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

An Egyptian court upheld a death sentence against deposed president Mohamed Morsi for plotting jailbreaks and attacks on police during the 2011 uprising.

The court had initially sentenced Morsi and more than 100 other defendants to death last month.

Tuesday’s ruling comes after the court consulted Egypt’s grand mufti, the government interpreter of Islamic law who plays an advisory role.

Earlier on Tuesday, the same court sentenced Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, to life in prison on charges of spying for the Palestinian Hamas movement, Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah, and Iran.

Tuesday’s verdicts can be appealed.

Then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ousted Morsi on July 3, 2013, and since then has overseen a sweeping crackdown against his supporters.

The crackdown has left hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters dead and thousands jailed.

Hundreds have been sentenced to death after speedy mass trials described by the United Nations as “unprecedented in recent history”.

In the jailbreak trial, exiled Egyptian-born cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was also condemned to death in absentia from his base in Qatar.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood

Muslim Brotherhood leader dies in Egyptian prison

May 25, 2015 by Nasheman

Defendants stand trial in Egypt for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)

Defendants stand trial in Egypt for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)

A leading Muslim Brotherhood member died on Monday morning inside a prison hospital in northern Egypt, a pro-Brotherhood website has reported.

Mohamed al-Falahgi, a former lawmaker and member of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, died in Gamasa prison in Egypt’s Damietta province, according to the Nafezat Masr website.

A lawyer for detained Brotherhood members in Damietta told the website that, prior to his death, al-Falahgi had been taken to a prison hospital with a gallbladder inflammation and kidney stones.

Al-Falahgi was arrested on violence-related charges in August of 2013. He was referred to Gamasa prison in October of the same year, according to the lawyer.

Al-Falahgi had been serving out a three-year jail term for involvement in the torching of a government building in Damietta. However, the verdict had been subsequently annulled and a retrial had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

Al-Falahgi was the second Brotherhood member to die in prison this month. On May 14, senior Brotherhood member Farid Ismail died in prison of health complications.

Ahmed Mafrah, who heads the Egypt desk at the Al-Karama foundation, a Geneva-based rights watchdog, told Anadolu Agency that al-Falahgi’s death brought the total number of deaths inside Egyptian prisons and detention facilities to 265 since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi – Egypt’s first elected president – by the army in mid-2013.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi had been a leading member, holds the Egyptian authorities responsible for the deaths of its detained members, citing “negligence” by prison officials.

The Egyptian authorities, for their part, insist that all its prison facilities are operated “in line with international human rights treaties” on the rights of prisoners.

(Andolu Ajansi)

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt sentences ex-leader Mohammed Morsi to death

May 16, 2015 by Nasheman

Verdict against former president referred to the Grand Mufti for confirmation.

(AFP/File)

(AFP/File)

by Al Jazeera

An Egypt court sentences former President Mohammed Morsi to death for passing state secrets for mass prison break, the Associated Press agency said.

The court ruled on Saturday that the sentencing of Morsi and 105 others will be referred to the Grand Mufti for confirmation.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood

Erdogan won't restore Egyptian ties 'until Morsi freed'

April 21, 2015 by Nasheman

Turkey’s ties with Egypt strained since Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

"Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom," said the Turkish president.

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” said the Turkish president.

by Al Jazeera

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, says Egypt should free ousted president Mohamed Morsi from prison and lift death sentences against his supporters before Ankara could consider an improvement in relations with Cairo.

Ties between the two former allies have been strained since then Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled elected president Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Egyptian security forces then mounted a fierce crackdown against the Brotherhood, killing hundreds of its supporters as they protested in Cairo, arresting thousands and putting Morsi and other leaders on trial.

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” Erdogan was quoted by Turkish newspapers as telling reporters as he returned from an official visit to Iran.

An official from Erdogan’s office confirmed his comments.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has close ties with Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded and which has emerged as one of the fiercest international critics of Morsi’s removal, calling it an “unacceptable coup” by the army.

Erdogan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, and his support of a Saudi-led military operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen in which Egyptian warships have taken part, had triggered speculation about a possible thaw in ties between Ankara and Cairo.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tayyip Erdogan

Egypt's Morsi sentenced to 20 years in jail

April 21, 2015 by Nasheman

Cairo court convicts toppled president of ordering the arrest and torture of protesters in 2012 clashes.

Morsi was overthrown and imprisoned by the military in 2013 [EPA]

Morsi was overthrown and imprisoned by the military in 2013 [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

A Cairo court has sentenced former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and 12 other defendants to 20 years in prison.

Morsi was convicted on Tuesday of ordering the arrest and torture of protesters in clashes outside the presidential palace in December 2012. The court acquitted the former president of murder charges that could have seen him face the death penalty.

Morsi also faces serious charges in three other cases, including an accusation that he passed intelligence to Qatar.

Mohammed Soudan, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and an official within its affiliated Freedom and Justice Party, told Al Jazeera that the trial was a “political farce”.

“The verdict is 100 percent a political verdict. Morsi, his advisers and supporters who are accused in this case were victims … police and army officers watched as the opposition attacked the presidential palace,” Soudan said.

“They killed 11 people and nine of them were supporters of Morsi. .. the verdict is a test for the protesters in the street, and also a test for the international community.”

Amnesty International also condemned the trial as a “sham”, and called for the release of Morsi and protesters.

“This verdict shatters any remaining illusion of independence and impartiality in Egypt’s criminal justice system,” Amnesty’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said in a statement released after the verdict.

Egyptian journalist, Yehia Ghanem, told Al Jazeera the Egyptian government was sending a message that it would not tolerate any opposition.

“The whole thing was calculated politically from the start. It sends a message to Egyptians and the rest of the world that there’s no future for any civil rule,” Ghanem said.

Morsi was deposed by his then military chief and Minister of Defence Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after mass protests against his rule in the summer of 2013.

Following the coup, the former president’s supporters launched a series of protests and sit-ins across the country culminating in a crackdown by security forces that left hundreds dead.

In the deadliest incident, at least 817 protesters were killed in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square when security forces opened fire on a sit-in. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the killings likely amounted to “crimes against humanity”.

Thousands have also been imprisoned, with many supporters of Morsi facing mass trials facing charges of involvement in violence.

At least 1,212 people have been sentenced to death since the start of 2014, including the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood

Party leader, 13 other Muslim Brotherhood members sentenced to death in Egypt

April 11, 2015 by Nasheman

A final sentencing for espionage charges faced by ousted Egyptian President and Brotherhood member, Mohamed Morsi, is scheduled for May 16. (AFP/File)

A final sentencing for espionage charges faced by ousted Egyptian President and Brotherhood member, Mohamed Morsi, is scheduled for May 16. (AFP/File)

by Al Bawaba

An Egyptian count has sentenced 14 Muslim Brotherhood members to death, including the organization”s leader, Mohammad Badie, Reuters reported from a judge’s televised session Saturday.

The sentences were handed down over charges of inciiting violence and chaos, according to the judge, and can be appealed only by a the highest civilian court.

Among the Brotherhood members sentenced is Islamist preacher Salah Soltan, whose son, US-Egyptian citizen Mohamed Soltan, was also handed a life imprisonment sentence for transmiting false news and supporting the shunned Islamist group.

Egypt has imprisoned scores of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates since the the 2013 ousting of newly-elected Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi, who belonged to the party.

Morsi’s own trial, where he faces charges of estionage, will take place on May 16.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Mohammed Badie, Muslim Brotherhood

Erdogan won't restore Egyptian ties 'until Morsi freed'

April 10, 2015 by Nasheman

Turkey’s ties with Egypt strained since Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

"Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom," said the Turkish president

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” said the Turkish president

by Al Jazeera

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, says Egypt should free ousted president Mohamed Morsi from prison and lift death sentences against his supporters before Ankara could consider an improvement in relations with Cairo.

Ties between the two former allies have been strained since then Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled elected president Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Egyptian security forces then mounted a fierce crackdown against the Brotherhood, killing hundreds of its supporters as they protested in Cairo, arresting thousands and putting Morsi and other leaders on trial.

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” Erdogan was quoted by Turkish newspapers as telling reporters as he returned from an official visit to Iran.

An official from Erdogan’s office confirmed his comments.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has close ties with Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded and which has emerged as one of the fiercest international critics of Morsi’s removal, calling it an “unacceptable coup” by the army.

Erdogan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, and his support of a Saudi-led military operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen in which Egyptian warships have taken part, had triggered speculation about a possible thaw in ties between Ankara and Cairo.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey

How former Treasury officials and the UAE are manipulating American journalists

September 26, 2014 by Nasheman

Photo: Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency Press Office/AP)

Photo: Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency Press Office/AP)

– by Glenn Greenwald

The tiny and very rich Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar has become a hostile target for two nations with significant influence in the U.S.: Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is furious over Qatar’s support for Palestinians generally and (allegedly) Hamas specifically, while the UAE is upset that Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (UAE supports the leadersof the military coup) and that Qatar funds Islamist rebels in Libya (UAE supports forces aligned with Ghadaffi).

This animosity has resulted in a new campaign in the west to demonize the Qataris as the key supporter of terrorism. The Israelis have chosen the direct approach of publicly accusing their new enemy in Doha of being terrorist supporters, while the UAE has opted for a more covert strategy: paying millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm – composed of former high-ranking Treasury officials from both parties – to plant anti-Qatar stories with American journalists. That more subtle tactic has been remarkably successful, and shines important light on how easily political narratives in U.S. media discourse can be literally purchased.

This murky anti-Qatar campaign was first referenced by a New York Times article two weeks ago by David Kirkpatrick, which reported that “an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel” is seeking to depict Doha as “a godfather to terrorists everywhere” (Qatar vehemently denies the accusation). One critical component of that campaign was mentioned in passing:

The United Arab Emirates have retained an American consulting firm, Camstoll Group, staffed by several former United States Treasury Department officials. Its public disclosure forms, filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of Qatar’s role in terrorist fund-raising.

How that process worked is fascinating, and its efficacy demonstrates how American public perceptions and media reports are manipulated with little difficulty.

The Camstoll Group was formed on November 26, 2012. Its key figures are all former senior Treasury Department officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations whose responsibilities included managing the U.S. government’s relationships with Persian Gulf regimes and Israel, as well as managing policies relating to funding of designated terrorist groups. Most have backgrounds as neoconservative activists. Two of the Camstoll principals, prior to their Treasury jobs, worked with one of the country’s most extremist neocon anti-Muslim activists, Steve Emerson.

Camstoll’s founder, CEO and sole owner, Matthew Epstein, was a Treasury Department official from 2003 through 2010, a run that included a position as the department’s Financial Attaché to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A 2007 diplomatic cable leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks details Epstein’s meetings with high-level Abu Dhabi representatives as they plotted to cut off Iran’s financial and banking transactions. Those cables reveal multiple high-level meetings between Epstein in his capacity as a Treasury official and high-level officials of the Emirates, officials who are now paying his company millions of dollars to act as its agent inside the U.S.

Prior to his Treasury appointment by the Bush administration, Epstein was a neoconservative activist, writing articles for National Review and working with Emerson’s aggressively anti-Muslim Investigative Project(Epstein’s published resume omits his work with Emerson). His pre-Treasury work for Emerson’s group, obsessed with The Muslim Threat Within, presaged Peter King’s 2011 anti-Muslim witch hunts.

In 2003, for instance, Epstein told the U.S. Senate that “large sections of the institutional Islamic leadership in America do not support U.S. counterterrorism policy” and that “the radicalization of the Islamic political leadership in the United States has developed parallel to the radicalization of the Islamic leadership worldwide, sharing a conspiratorial view that Muslims in the United States are being persecuted on the basis of their religion and an acceptance that violence in the name of Islam is justified.” He declared: “the rise of militant Islamic leadership in the United States requires particular attention if we are to succeed in the War on Terror.”

Camstoll’s Managing Director, Howard Mendelsohn, was Acting Assistant Secretary of Treasury, where he also had ample policy responsibilities involving the Emirates; a 2010 WikiLeaks cable details how he “met with senior officials from the UAE’s State Security Department (SSD) and Dubai’s General Department of State Security (GDSS)” to coordinate disruption of Taliban financing. Another Managing Director, Benjamin Schmidt, worked with Epstein at Emerson’s Investigative Project before his own appointment to Treasury; a 2009 diplomatic cable shows him working with Israel on controlling financing to Palestinians. A Camstoll director, Benjamin Davis, was the Treasury Department’s Financial Attaché in Jerusalem.

On December 2, 2012 – less than a week after Camstoll was incorporated – it entered into a lucrative, open-ended consulting contract with an entity wholly owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Outlook Energy Investments, LLC (its Emir, the President of UAE, is pictured above). A week later, Camstoll registered as a foreign agent working on behalf of the Emirate. The consultancy agreement calls for Camstoll to be paid a monthly fee of $400,000, wired each month into a Camstoll account. Two weeks after it was formed, Camstoll was paid by the Emirates entity a retainer fee of $4.3 million, and then another $3.2 million in 2013.

In other words, a senior Treasury official responsible for U.S. policy toward the Emirates leaves the U.S. government and forms a new lobbying company, which is then instantly paid millions of dollars by the very same country for which he was responsible, all to use his influence, access and contacts for its advantage. The UAE spends more than any other country in the world to influence U.S. policy and shape domestic debate, and it pays former high-level government officials who worked with it – such as Epstein and his company – to carry out its agenda within the U.S.

What did Camstoll do for these millions of dollars? They spent enormous of amounts of time cajoling friendly reporters to plant anti-Qatar stories, and they largely succeeded. Their strategy was clear: target neocon/pro-Israel writers such as the Daily Beast‘s Eli Lake, Free Beacon‘s Alana Goodman, Iran-contra convict Elliott Abrams, The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin, and American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin – all eager to promote the Qatar-funds-terrorists line being pushed by Israel. They also targeted establishment media figures such as CNN’s Erin Burnett, Reuters’ Mark Hosenball, and The Washington Post‘s Joby Warrick.

In the latter half of 2013, Camstoll reported 15 separate contacts with Lake, all on behalf of UAE’s agenda; in the month of December alone, there were 10 separate contacts with Goodman. They also spoke multiple times with Warrick. At the same time, they were speaking on behalf of their Emirates client with their former colleagues who were still working as high-level Treasury officials, including Kate Bauer, the Treasury Department’s Emirates-based Financial Attaché, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Danny McGlynn.

In the first half of 2014, as the Emirates attack on Qatar intensified, Camstoll spoke multiple times with Lake, Hosenball, and Erin Burnett’s CNN show “Out Front,” and had conversations with Goodman and the NYT‘s David Kirkpatrick. They continued to meet with high-level Treasury officials as well, including Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser (highlights added):

comstall-fara-doc

This work paid dividends for the UAE. In June, when the Obama administration announced a plan to release Guantanamo detainees to Qatar, Lake published a widely cited Daily Beast article depicting Qatar as friends of the terrorists; it quoted anonymous officials as claiming that “many wealthy individuals in Qatar are raising money for jihadists in Syria every day” and “we also know that we have sent detainees to them before, and their security services have magically lost track of them.” Lake himself pronounced that “Qatar’s track record is troubling” and that “the emirate is a good place to raise money for terrorist organizations.”

He then went on Fox News and said that “there still is a major issue with just terrorist financing in Qatar” and that in Doha there are “individuals who are roaming free who have raised a lot of money for al Qaeda, Hamas and other groups like that.”

Meanwhile, CNN sent Burnett to Doha where she broadcast a “special report” entitled: “Is Qatar a haven for terror funding”? CNN touted it as “an in-depth look into the people funding Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked groups, including ISIS.” She began her report by noting that “the terror group ISIS is committing atrocities in Iraq. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki blames Saudi Arabia and Qatar for providing ISIS militants with money and weapons.” She then put on a source, former Bush deputy national security adviser and Treasury official Juan Zarate, to say that “Qatar is at the center of this. Qatar has now taken its place in the lead of countries that are supporting al Qaeda and al Qaeda-related groups.”

On camera, Burnett asked her source: “So how high up in the government in Qatar does the support for Islamic extremism for these al Qaeda-linked groups go?” The answer: “Well, these are decisions made at the top. So Qatar operates as a monarchy. Its officials, its activities follow the orders of the government. And to the extent that there’s a policy of supporting extremists in the region, that’s a policy that comes from the top.” She then brought on the GOP Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, and asked whether he agrees that “money out of Qatar could end up being used to fuel the ambition, the dream, of attacks against the United States directly,” and he quickly said he did.

Camstoll’s work with the Post‘s Warrick also proved quite productive. Camstoll spoke with Warrick on December 17, 2013. The very next day, thePost reporter published an article stating that “private Qatar-based charities have taken a more prominent role in recent weeks in raising cash and supplies for Islamist extremists in Syria, according to current and former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.”

Camstoll representatives spoke again with Warrick on December 20 and December 21. The day after, he published another more accusatory article citing “increasing U.S. concern about the role of Qatari individuals and charities in supporting extreme elements within Syria’s rebel alliance” and linking the Qatari royal family to a professor and U.S. foreign policy critic alleged by the U.S. government to be ”working secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda.”

As one of his sources, Warrick in the first of his articles cited “a former U.S. official who specialized in tracking Gulf-based jihadist movements and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of his work for the government was classified.” That perfectly describes several Camstoll Group members, though Warrick did not respond to questions from The Interceptabout whether this anonymous source was indeed a paid agent of the UAE working at Camstoll.

Also on Camstoll’s list of journalistic contacts was Kirkpatrick, who produced the article in the NYT two weeks ago headlined “Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far.” It noted that Qatar “has tacitly consented to open fund-raising” for Al Qaeda affiliates.

But unlike all the other reports helpfully produced by Camstoll’s journalistic allies, Kirkpatrick expressly described, and cast skeptical light on, the concerted campaign to focus on Qatar, not only mentioning Camstoll’s behind-the-scenes work but also reporting that “Qatar is finding itself under withering attack by an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, which have all sought to portray it as a godfather to terrorists everywhere.” Kirkpatrick also noted that “some in Washington have accused it of directly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” a claim he called “implausible and unsubstantiated.”

In response to questions from The Intercept about Camstoll’s role in his reporting, Lake refused to answer any questions, stating: “I don’t talk about how I do my reporting. I meet with many representatives and officials of foreign governments in the course of my job.” (So many journalists pride themselves on demanding transparency and accountability from others while adopting a posture of absolute secrecy for their own work that would make even a Pentagon spokesperson blush: “I don’t talk about how I do my reporting”). Goodman similarly said: “as I’m sure you understand, I can’t discuss my private conversations with contacts.” Camstoll’s contacts with Goodman and Hosenball appear to have produced no identifiable reports. Camstoll, Warwick, and Hosenball all provided no response to questions from The Intercept.

The point here is not that Qatar is innocent of supporting extremists. Nor is it a reflection on any inappropriate conduct by the journalists, who are taking information from wherever they can get it (although one would certainly hope that, as Kirkpatrick did, they would make clear what the agenda and paid campaign behind this narrative is).

The point is that this coordinated media attack on Qatar – using highly paid former U.S. officials and their media allies – is simply a weapon used by the Emirates, Israel, the Saudis and others to advance their agendas. Kirkpatrick explained: ”propelling the barrage of accusations against Qatar is a regional contest for power in which competing Persian Gulf monarchies have backed opposing proxies in contested places like Gaza, Libya and especially Egypt.” As political science professor As’ad AbuKhalil wrote this week about conflicts in Syria and beyond, “the two Wahhabi regimes [Saudi Arabia and Qatar] are fighting over many issues but they both wish to speak on behalf of political Islam.”

What’s misleading isn’t the claim that Qatar funds extremists but that they do so more than other U.S. allies in the region (a narrative implanted at exactly the time Qatar has become a key target of Israel and the Emirates). Indeed, some of Qatar’s accusers here do the same to at least the same extent, and in the case of the Saudis, far more so. As Kirkpatrick noted: “Qatar is hardly the only gulf monarchy to allow open fund-raising by sheikhs that the United States government has linked to Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front: Sheikh Ajmi and most of the others are based in Kuwait and readily tap donors in Saudi Arabia, sometimes even making their pitches on Saudi- and Kuwaiti-owned television networks.”

One U.S. government cable from 2009, also published by WikiLeaks, identified Saudi Arabia, not Qatar, as the greatest danger in this regard:

Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.

The writer of that cable complained that “it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”

Prior to his appointment as a Treasury official – and before he began working as a paid agent of the UAE to finger Qatar as the key threat – Camstoll’s founder and CEO, Epstein, himself fingered Saudis as the key financiers of Al Qaeda and anti-American terrorism. His 2003 Senate testimony included this statement: “the Saudi Wahhabists have bankrolled a series of Islamic institutions in the United States that actively seek to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy at home and abroad”; he added: “in the United States, the Saudi Wahhabis regularly subsidize the organizations and individuals adhering to the militant ideology espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and its murderous offshoots Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, all three of which are designated terrorist.”

While the 2009 cable claimed claimed that ”Qatar’s overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region,” it said this was “out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals.” But the cable also identified other U.S. allies in the region as key conduits for terrorist financing, stating, for instance, that “Al-Qa’ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point.” It also heavily implicated the Emirates themselves: ”UAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups, including Hamas.”

One of the most critical points illustrated by all of this tawdry influence-peddling is the alignment driving so much of US policy in that region. The key principals of Camstoll have hard-core neoconservative backgrounds. Here they are working hand in hand with neocon journalists to publicly trash a new enemy of Israel, in service of the agenda of Gulf dictators. This is the bizarre neocon/Israel/Gulf-dictator coalition now driving not only U.S. policy but, increasingly, U.S. discourse as well.

Margot Williams and Andrew Fishman contributed additional reporting.

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