Renegade intelligence: The terrorist face of Qatari, Turkish intelligence agencies

Shaimaa Hassan

The core mission of intelligence service worldwide is to safeguard national security and enhance a country’s best interests at times of peace and war. However, the duties of intelligence agencies have become rather complicated in the wake of regional and world developments, impacting the foreign policies of countries and combating spying for foreign nations.

As international relations include cooperation and conflict, intelligence agencies have various forms and interactions of alliance or conflict.  That may pose a threat to regional stability and security. That raises a question: How does the role of an intelligence service become a hazard to the security of countries?

Some intelligence agencies — Qatar and Turkey in particular — have helped extremist groups during the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in the wake of intervention of some world and regional intelligence agencies.

Qatar’s intelligence under scrutiny

Qatar’s support to the takfiri groups, which pose a threat to the regional and Arab security, is no secret to all. Qatar has found these takfiri, or self-styled Islamist, groups an effective means to influence the political situations in countries in a way that best serves its interests and objectives.

Qatar’s intelligence agency has provided all kinds of material and media support to takfiri groups. This support includes media platforms and mediation with terrorists to release hostages. It also includes financial assistance via direct transfers of funds carried out by Qatari charities.

Qatar’s intelligence agency has relied on a few names, Qatari nationals and others, to trigger chaos and instability in the region.  Major General Mahmoud Mansour, who founded Qatar’s intelligence service, said that the Amiri Diwan used tribesmen and members of the al-Thani family to execute terrorist operations.

Abd Al-Rahman al-Nuaimi, Saad al-Kaabi and Abd al-Latif al-Kuwari are the top Qatari nationals who take part in supporting the takfiri groups. Qatar Charity, Madid Ahl al-Sham and Alkarama Foundation were have been involved in sending funds and relief to Tahrir al-Sham and Al-Nusra Front in Syria since 2011.

Although these names were listed as terrorists by the Qatari authorities in March 2018, they are on the loose carrying out their duties. This proves Qatar’s commitment to fund and protect terrorists and takfiri groups. It also proves Qatar’s reliance on terrorists to implement its foreign policies.

It also reflects high coordination between Qatari decision-makers and security officials.

Qatar’s involvement in destabilization of the Arab Gulf

The Qatari intelligence role has shifted to pose a threat to the Arab Gulf countries. The UAE intelligence service has detected a number of accounts on the social media defaming Saudi and UAE figures, especially Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan and Dhahi Khalfan.

Hamad Al-Hammadi, a Qatari intelligence officer, admitted that Qatar’s intelligence service introduced digital management division, commissioned to monitor everything on the Saudi and UAE social media.

The digital management division is assigned to create fake accounts on Twitter and Instagram, broadcasting views and posts that denote citizens’ resentment.

Al-Hammadi said he was commissioned by Jassim Rustom, deputy head of Qatar’s intelligence service for operations, in 2013 to create fake account on the social media to stir opposition as well as defaming Saudi and UAE political symbols.

Qatar’s intelligence service also supported the opposition in Bahrain, according to Qatari opposition activist Mona al-Sulaiti, who added that Doha planned to intervene in Bahrain more than 10 years ago.

Although Qatar took part in the Peninsula Shield Force during the Bahraini uprising in 2011, it financially backed the opposition in Bahrain. Al-Arabiya channel broadcast recordings of Hamad bin Jassim, an advisor to Qatar’s emir, talking with a Bahraini opposition leader at the time of the uprising.

The suspicious role of Qatar’s intelligence service was a main reason for diplomatic boycott of Arab countries decided on June 5, 2017. Qatar’s role in backing the takfiri groups and enticing sedition has been evident in a number of Arab countries.

Qatar has escalated the tension when Al-Jazeera cannel broadcast demands of the Arab Quartet countries as its intelligence service leaked the demands to the media. The move reflected Qatar’s endeavor to back Iran and Turkey at the expense of Arab interests and jeopardizing Arab stability and order.

Qatar & Taliban

In October 2013, the Afghan Taliban opened an office in Doha under the auspices of Qatar’s intelligence service, under the administration of former US President Barack Obama.

In line with the old proverb “Keep your friends close, but make your enemies closer”, a Taliban office would make negotiations easier to reach an agreement helping the Obama administration withdraw its troops from Afghanistan as pledged and put an end to the war that gnawed at the US economy.

The US did not mind a Taliban office in Qatar, where Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US air base in the Middle East is located. The US airstrikes which target terrorist groups, including Taliban, take off from Al Udeid Air Base.

Despite demands made by by some US politicians to shut down the Taliban office in Doha, the CIA refused citing the US national security and interests in the Middle East.

The CIA used the Taliban office in Doha to launch peace talks and the US presence in Afghanistan. That was revealed during a visit of US envoy for peace, Zalmay Khalilzad, to Afghanistan.

Certainly, the Qatar’s intelligence service, backed by the US, helped the two sides hold the talks, which paved the way for more US meetings with the Taliban’s officials in Doha.

We can say that Qatar’s intelligence service has been a liaison, which is approved by the two sides.

That was not the first time Doha mediated deals between the US administration and Taliban.

In 2009, the Qatar’s intelligence service mediated between the US and Taliban to free an American soldier abducted in Afghanistan in exchange for 5 Taliban leaders jailed in Guantanamo. The deal was carried out in 2014.

We may say that Qatar has become a direct deputy of the US administration by the opening of a Taliban office in Doha for communicating with Taliban, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Washington.

Qatari arms in Africa

Qatar’s intelligence service has provided adequate finance to the Somali Al-Shabaab movement via Abd Al-Rahman al-Nuaimi, who has strong ties with its leader, Hassan Aweys.

Reports say al-Nuaimi transferred $250,000 to Al-Shabaab in 2012.

Qatar’s intelligence service has also provided logistics needed to fund a camp of the Mujahideen Youth Movement in Kenya. The camp provided takfiri militants who eventually joined the movement’s branch in Somalia and Boko Haram group in Nigeria.

The Qatari role was not confined to financial support and armament to the militant movements, which are listed as terrorists in Africa, but it also extended to pushing the sacking of Hussein Osman, head of the Somali intelligence service.

Osman was sacked for running for local elections. He was replaced by Fahad Yasin, former correspondent of Al-Jazeera channel in Somalia. The move was aimed at boosting Qatar’s influence in Somalia and reshuffling the Somali intelligence service in a way that serves its best interests.

Qatar has also trained and funded a militant group and mercenaries in south Libya to attack the Libyan National Army. Chadian militants said after their arrest that they had received funds from Qatar.

Chad’s interior and foreign ministries said Qatar was responsible for supporting militants in south Libya to destabilize Libya and attack Chad.

Saeed el-Laounidi, an expert on international relations, said Qatar’s support to militants in south Libya was aimed at continuing chaos in Libya and seizing Libyan oil.

New Ottomanism drives Turkey to ally with Brotherhood

Since the eruption of what the media called the Arab Spring, Turkey collided with all of the region’s ethnicities, especially Arabs, Kurds and Iranian, including non-Muslims in  addition to anti-Brotherhood Shiites and Sunnis.

The enmity has been nourished by the background of President Recep Tayyip Erdoga and his Justice and Development Party, which adopts the ‘new Ottomanism’.

Turkey has taken advantage of its ties with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood organization to achieve its lost dream to establish a caliphate.

Yasin Aktay says the Muslim Brotherhood is Turkey’s soft power arm in the Arab world. The group approves Turkey’s role in the region and a proxy of the Islamic caliphate.

In 2016, the German intelligence service said that Turkey’s policy had turned it into a hub for radical Islamist groups and a central platform for Islamists.

Following the removal of the Brotherhood from power in Egypt thanks to the June 30 Revolution, Turkey and the Brotherhood set up a spy network. Egypt’s intelligence service said the network began operations in 2013 as part of a full-fledged plan laid out by the Brotherhood according to directives from Turkey’s intelligence service and funded by Qatar.

The network aimed at getting secret social, economic and security information, as well as transferring phone calls in an obscene violation of the law.

Turkey’s intelligence after the 2016 coup

Turkey has not only set up a spy network and nor provide the Brotherhood’s leaders with a safe haven and media mouthpieces, but it also targeted Egypt’s eastern border.

Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan said the terrorists who fled the Syrian city of Raqqa, were sent to the Sinai desert.  The Turkish intelligence service supervised the transfer of takfiris to the Sinai desert.

We may say the transfer of takfiris from Raqqa to Sinai was under direct supervision of Erdogan, who issued in 2016 a decree enabling him to supervise the intelligence service following the failed coup.

The decree enabled Erdogan to head the National Intelligence Coordination Board, fully controlling the army and intelligence service.

Turkey’s intelligence & jihadi war in Syria

As Turkey backed the Brotherhood, it also supported ISIS. Turkish journalist Jengis Gandar said the Turkish Intelligence Organization (MIT) was like ‘a midwife’ for the birth of ISIS. He said MIT had direct and close ties with ISIS.

MIT facilitated access to Turkey, Raqqa and Mosul for ISIS. Former Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said the Turkish security allows ISIS infiltration from Turkey to northern Iraq and Syria.

MIT also pledged to buy the Iraqi and Syrian oil and sell it on the black market for $20 per barrel, which is the lowest price.

Moreover, it provided ISIS with medical service to injured militants, who hospitalized in Turkey.

Turkey’s intelligence & IHH

IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation was involved in sending arms to takfiris in Syria. The Turkish intelligence service protected these arms shipments to reach the Ankara-backed takfiri groups.

Turkey’s intelligence service & al-Qaeda in Syria and Libya

The Turkish support also extended to back the Al-Nusra Front, or Tahrir al-Sham, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in Syria. Yousef al-Hajar, leader of Tahrir al-Sham, told Al-Jazeera channel that the group had strong ties with Turkey for ensure stability in the north Syria.

The Qatari and Turkish intelligence services have drawn on the subversive approach for applying their foreign policies. This is deemed to be a means for indirect aggression.

According to this approach, the intelligence agencies draw on negative propaganda, spying, encouraging coups, in addition to then training, funding and arming the militant groups. Qatar’s intelligence agency has become an enemy of the Arab quartet, posing a threat to the regional security and stability.

We conclude that the ideology adopted by Turkey’s ruling party and the Qatari rulers play a significant role in laying out the foreign policies of the two countries. That is reflected in the role of the intelligence services in carrying out the vision of the political leadership.

This role makes them renegade intelligence agencies posing a threat to the region’s security and stability.