Qatar hosts 2nd largest number of global terrorists: Otaiba

CAIRO – 30 August 2017: “Qatar hosts the second-largest number of designated terrorists in the world,” Iran comes first, Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States said during the Atlantic interview on Monday.

Since July 5, Arab countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab of Emirates turned on Qatar with a complete air and trade boycott over terrorism support accusations and choosing sides with the extremist government of Iran.

Otaiba further said that Qatar harbors 59 UAE-designated terrorists, 12 are U.S.-designated and 14 others are placed on the UN watchlist, adding that those terrorists are at large fundraising for terrorist organizations such as al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda and others of the same ilk.

On a related note, the Emirati ambassador noted that he believes that the current Qatari Emir is not having the sole word in the regime, saying that he “is not fully in charge. It’s possible his parents continue to call the shots in Qatar.”

Speaking on Al-Jazeera’s role in the current Gulf rift, Otaibi said that Al-Jazeera has contributed to radicalizing people, referring to it being the voice for people like the Qatari-based Yusuf al-Qaradwi and Muslim brotherhood leaders for a long time.

Otaiba highlighted the role of Egypt and Saudi Arabia in fighting terrorism in the region, attributing that to Egypt being the house of Al-Azhar which promoted moderate Islam, and Saudi Arabia for it being the land of Mecca and Medina.

“If those two countries are not stable, if those two countries are not moderate—can you imagine if Al-Azhar was graduating clerics like Yusuf al- Qaradawi? You think ISIS, with 30,000 foreign fighters, is a problem? It would be like 300,000 or 3 million foreign fighters. When you have preachers who go out and say, “Go fight in the name of Islam, good luck fighting that,” Otaiba added.