Qatar’s double-game as peace broker and terror safe haven

The death sentence handed down by a Qatar court to eight former Indian Navy personnel is the latest international outrage from this tiny gas-rich Arab sheikhdom. The charge against the naval officers relates to espionage on behalf of Israel for a high-tech Italian-Qatari stealth submarine project.The Qatar court has not publicly revealed the specific charge before sentencing the eight men to death — in itself a violation of international law.India has taken the matter up at the highest diplomatic and political levels before filing a review in the Qatar Court of Appeal. Beyond that is the Court of Cessation, the highest judicial authority in Qatar.Since Qatar is a monarchical dictatorship ruled by the Al Thani royal family, the fate of the eight former Indian Navy officers rests essentially with the Al Thani family.Watch: What we know about the eight men behind bars medium nocaption104744908Qatar may be small but it has big ambitions. It runs Al Jazeera, one of the region’s most high-profile media organisations. Al Jazeera claims to be independent but functions strictly under the ruling family’s authoritarian thumb. The slightest criticism of the Al Thani family invites immediate censorship and punishment.Having discovered gas in the early 1970s, Qatar has set itself up as a regional power centre in West Asia to rival larger Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.What Qatar has become in the process is the region’s terrorism hub.Qatar offered the Taliban an office in its capital Doha. Delegations from the US, Russia, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan met regularly in Doha in 2021 to work out a deal that handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban, even as US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) troops scrambled to leave the war-torn country they had invaded in 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, DC.Watch: Navy chief affirms pursuit of legal measures medium nocaption104824223Qatar played both sides. To the Americans, Qatar was the honest broker using its close ties with the Taliban leadership to allow Nato a face-saving withdrawal. To the Taliban, Qatar was a fellow Sunni Muslim state with plenty of money to keep the exiled Taliban leadership in comfort and promise it future control of Afghanistan.The elected leaders of Afghanistan — Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani — were unceremoniously discarded. The fact that both were accused of corruption and rigged elections convinced the Americans that the Qatar-brokered deal with the Taliban was the best option to end a brutal 20-year war.Qatar not only hosted terrorist-designated Taliban leaders but gave sanctuary to Islamist terror groups across the region. Angered, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with Egypt and Bahrain, boycotted all land, air and sea links with Qatar in 2017. The rupture lasted for more than three years before the boycott was called off.Funding HamasMeanwhile, Qatar continued to finance Hamas in Gaza. Doha has given Hamas more than $1bn, enabling the organisation to launch several attacks on Israel, including the biggest so far over the past month.According to CTech, a technology news site from Calcalist, Israel’s leading financial daily, “Qatar has been identified for years, and certainly after the murderous attack of October 7, as belonging to the axis of evil. This follows the aid it provides to Hamas, either through financing or through hosting its leaders in its territory or through the broadcasts of Al Jazeera, which has become its mouthpiece. medium104883473“The Qatari funding for Hamas is divided into two periods. The first, in the years 2007-14, when the Qatari government financed Hamas as it saw fit, far from any international supervision and control, and the second from 2014 until today when Qatari financing is done in coordination with Israel, the United States and the United Nations. At the same time, independent financing channels operate all the time in Qatar, ignoring the authorities.”Double gameTrue to type, Qatar is again playing both sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict. To the West, it is seen as engaging with Hamas to free hostages captured during the initial attack on Israel on October 7. To Hamas, it remains its biggest funder and mentor.The death sentence given to eight former Indian Navy officers has placed India in a delicate position. Eight lakh Indians work in Qatar. Most are poor blue-collar workers employed on construction sites, though an estimated 6,000 Indian companies have operations in Qatar as well and employ qualified professionals.During the football World Cup in December 2022, human rights organisations condemned the treatment of foreign workers in Qatar — Indian, Filipino and others. Many were killed in accidents during the construction of stadiums in Qatar for the football World Cup.Qatar knows how to use its gas wealth. It has a per capita income of $64,000 — higher than the US. It is alleged — and widely acknowledged — that Qatar won the right to host the football World Cup by bribing international delegates of Fifa to swing the vote in its favour. medium104883425With eight lakh Indian citizens in Qatar dwarfing the population of three lakh local Qataris, India’s options to pressurise Doha are limited.Qatar has had a difficult relationship with India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited Qatar only once (in 2016) compared with multiple visits to the UAE and Saudi Arabia.It was Qatar’s threat, amplified by Indian jihadis and fraudulent fact-checkers, that forced Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma to go into hiding over a charge of blasphemy during a television debate.Qatar summoned Indian ambassadors across the region to protest against her alleged blasphemy.Emboldened by the Indian government’s apologetic reaction, Qatar has since 2022 needled India. The eight former Indian Navy officers’ death sentence is Qatar’s attempt to show that a tiny speck in the Arabian Gulf can hold the world’s fifth largest economy to ransom.Read more from the author here.