Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Doha Bank of Qatar was accused in the UK High Court on March 2 of funneling money to an ISIS judge who had ordered executions, including that of James Foley, an American journalist beheaded by ISIS in 2014.
Another court case is making its way through the commercial division of the UK High Court in London, which alleges Qatar funneled money to the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jibhat al-Nusra. Qatar National Bank and Doha Bank stand accused of facilitating the transactions. The UK and Qatar are close allies, and Doha Bank does business in London.
Nine unnamed Syrians filed a claim for damages against two Qatari banks, multiple charities, businessmen, politicians, civil servants, and other defendants, alleging that the Gulf state’s monarch’s private office was central to a scheme of illicit money transfers to Jibhat al-Nusra. The accusers are claiming damages for financial losses, torture, arbitrary detention and threats of execution at the hands of Jibhat al-Nusra. Matthew Jury, the managing partner at McCue & Partners, said: “British justice is the envy of the world, a refuge for victims to hold perpetrators of international crimes to account and we must ensure it remains that way.”
The case alleges that the conspiracy includes the Muslim Brotherhood, meetings in Turkey and money laundering. The defendants include Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar’s former prime minister, also known by his initials as HBJ.
HBJ, has been recently talking to the media and opening up the “black box” of Qatar’s policies. In a recent video, HBJ revealed that a military operations room was established to effect ‘regime change’ in Syria. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the US, Turkey, and Jordan participated. All military support to the Radical Islamic terrorists used in the US-NATO attack on Syria went through this delegation.
In November 2020, allegations of perverting the course of justice emerged in London in the case against Doha Bank. Ben Emmerson QC, who represents four of the claimants, told the high court that interference with justice had included “harassment, intimidation, pressure, unlawful covert surveillance overseas, threatened visits by armed and masked men during the night, attempted bribery and criminal inducements”. The Met police counter-terror unit investigated the allegations.
In 2013, the Financial Times reported that Qatar had spent as much as $3bn bankrolling opposition groups in Syria. Jibhat al-Nusra is listed by the UN, US and EU as a terrorist group; however, it became the strongest armed group on the ground fighting for ‘regime change’ in Syria. Western media continues to wrongly refer to Jibhat al-Nusra as ‘rebels’ as they occupy Idlib today and hold about three million civilians as human shields.
Jibhat al-Nusra was founded in Syria in 2011 by followers of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would later become the leader of ISIS, but was then leading Al Qaeda in Iraq. Jibhat al-Nusra changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al Sham after the US declared it a terrorist group. The name changed then allowed the US and allies to continue to support the group.
Turkey was the physical location, Qatar provided the funding, but it was the US Central Intelligence Agency’s office in Southern Turkey which coordinated weapons, training, satellite imaging and logistics for the terrorists in Syria. Weapons were sent from Libya to Turkey via Hillary Clinton’s ordered ‘Rat Line’ and handed over to the terrorists. Turkey used military trucks to ferry weapons across the border to Idlib, and in one case, an American reporter witnessed a UN truck carrying arms and terrorists crossing the border. Serena Shim from Michigan was killed shortly after her reporting in Turkey.
HBJ’s defense points in a 2017 interview where he pointed the finger of blame at former US President Obama, who was the co-architect of the war on Syria, alongside former French President Nicholas Sarkozy. The Gulf countries had participated at the behest of their ally the United States. As HBJ said recently, the US and the West uses the Gulf as treasury, to be tapped for dirty jobs, when the US has a project. In 2017, Trump shut down the CIA project “Timber Sycamore” which was the military operation room that HBJ had described.
Radical Islam is a political ideology, and all of the terrorists and so called ‘rebels’ were following Radical Islam. France’s Macron states that France is at war with Radical Islam after having suffered many terrorist attacks on French soil. However, French President Sarkozy , US President Obama, and the UK Prime Minister Cameron knowingly supported terrorists in Syria for their narrow political agenda, to effect ‘regime change’.
A Qatari fundraising campaign for Syria called Madid Ahl al-Sham has been endorsed by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Jibhat al-Nusra, as a conduit for donations—a validation the campaign advertises on its own Twitter page.
Hayat Tahrir al Sham, is Al Qaeda, and was called Jibhat al-Nusra, and was funded by Qatar, at the behest of the United States. HBJ has identified in 2022 and 2017 interviews that Qatar was used alongside Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to bank-roll the US-NATO war on Syria for ‘regime change’. It is now evident that Qatar was bank-rolling ISIS as well as the other terrorist groups. There are no rebels in Syria.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
