Qatar harbored planner of 9/11 terrorist attacks, says ex US adviser

Qatar harbored Jihadist Khalid Sheik Mohammed the planner of 9/11 terrorist attacks, said John Hannah the former national security adviser of US Vice President Dick Cheney during George Bush’s administration.

Hannah accused Qatar in a video obtained by Egypt Today on Saturday of funding the most radicalized groups and governments in the Middle East region, such as the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood government of former President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt.

Hannah said that Qatar kept Mohammed from the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) two decades ago, by granting him a job and an asylum inside the emirate, adding that the planner of 9/11 terrorist attacks was helped by Qatari Ministers and officials to escape the FBI attempts to apprehend him.

Qatar had also a major role in providing radical Islamists in Syria and Libya by weapons and money, said Hannah, pointing out that the emirate should quit its two-faced policies in the region.



In an article published on Foreign Policy on May 22, Hannah said that Qatar “the key backer — politically, financially, militarily, and ideologically via Al Jazeera, the Doha-based state-funded broadcaster — of some of the region’s most radical, destabilizing, and dangerous forces.”

“The bill of indictment against Qatar is too long to rehash in full. But a sampling is bad enough. Its role earlier this month as chief sponsor of Hamas’s effort to whitewash its genocidal agenda toward Israel was just the tip of the iceberg. Qatar has been Hamas’s principal outside supporter for years, both its most important financier as well as a safe haven for its leadership. In the struggle for the soul of the Palestinian national movement between the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas, the Qataris have without fail — and, for the most part, without penalty — placed their bets on the violent Islamists in Gaza committed to Israel’s destruction,” he said.

“If anything, Qatar’s destructive handiwork was even more egregious in Libya and Syria, encompassing not just money and incitement, but weapons as well, flowing to all manner of radical Islamists. Despite sustained U.S. efforts in both countries to direct the support of its partners to more pragmatic and secular forces, the Qataris consistently disregarded U.S. concerns, running large quantities of guns to many of the extremist militias of greatest concern to Washington policymakers,” he added.