RAF acts as Emir of Qatar’s arm in terrorism financing

Fatma Abdelghani

Qatar continues to use charity work to cloak the backing it offers to terrorism and terrorist organizations in different parts of the world.

According to intelligence report, the Qatari civil society organization, RAF, uses its work in the humanitarian and charity field to hide its financing of extremist groups in Syria, especially in the countryside of the northeastern Syrian province of Idlib.

Sources said RAF, which is headed by Thani bin Abdullah al-Thani, a brother of the emir of Qatar, had offered funding to al-Nusra Front, formerly al-Qaeda.

The organization had provided this terrorist organization with up to $130 million in funding, the sources said.

Qatar also used its charity organizations in distributing hundreds of millions of dollars on extremist groups and terrorist organizations, according to the news site, Middle East Online.

It said Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt had cut off diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar in June 2017 against the background of accusations that Qatar worked to destabilize Arab countries and expand its influence in the region.

Middle East Online noted in its report that RAF had transferred millions of dollars to al-Nusra Front, now called Tahrir al-Sham.

It added that the Qatari government had played the mediator on a number of occasions that entailed the payment of ransom in return for the release of western hostages in the custody of the terrorist group, especially between 2012 and 2015.

The same report said that Qatar had offered arms for groups affiliated to al-Qaeda in Syria.

It also offered refuge to the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and Hamas, Middle East Online said.

It said RAF is among a number of civil society organizations accused of sponsoring terrorists.

Al-Nusra Front facilitator and terror-listed Mohammed Jassim al-Sulaiti was identified as a member of an RAF Foundation delegation led by RAF’s General Manager, it said.

Nabil al-Awadi and Shafi bin Sultan al-Ajmi are on both US and UN blacklists for raising money through RAF Foundation to fund terrorism.

Wagdy Ghoneim, a fundraising associate of UN- and US-sanctioned Al-Qaeda facilitators Saad bin Saad al-Kaabi and Abdullatif bin Abdullah al-Kawari, was a guest lecturer at a number of RAF Foundation events in Qatar to raise funds in support of RAF’s activities in Syria, Middle East Online added.