The Qatar Monitor (TQM) – A New MEMRI Project In Defense Of The U.S. And Western World

Introduction

Qatar is a big winner in the Syrian revolution, having supported the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani (formerly ISIS and Al-Qaeda and now Muslim Brotherhood) who has a $10 million bounty on his head.[1] This is Qatar's classic game: support the Islamist terrorists and then present itself as a mediator, liaison, and even peacemaker – the arsonist playing firefighter. As in Afghanistan, as in Egypt in 2010, and as in every Muslim country.

In every Muslim country where there is a battle between the Islamists and the secularists, Qatar supports the Islamists, as in Gaza supporting Hamas for years, building its military might and enabling October 7. And now, guess what – they are back in the saddle as mediators.

Who brought them back to the negotiations after the secular pro-U.S. president of Egypt threw them away?[2] The U.S. – the country that has suffered more than any country from Qatar's duplicity and hidden subversive, anti-U.S. activities, including the 9/11 attacks.

While the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were mainly Saudis, recruited to Al-Qaeda as individuals, the mastermind of the attacks, Khaled Sheik Mohammad (KSM), was a former Qatari government employee at the Ministry of Electricity and Water in the capital Doha, who frequently was allowed to embark on terrorist missions in the world (see below). And when, in 1996, the FBI came to arrest him and told only the Emir, KSM disappeared within hours.[3]

All of this has been substantiated in American intelligence and judicial documents, including KSM's confession.[4]

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Indeed, President-elect Trump threatened those holding hostages in Gaza with "all hell to pay" if they are not released by January 20. But this threat was not directed to any specific address and therefore devoid of any practical result. Had he directed it to Qatar, the patron of Hamas and the enabler of October 7, it would have helped, because without Qatar, Hamas is doomed. And Hamas will listen to Qatar's demands.

But since he did not point to the culprit, Qatar, but on the contrary brought Qatar back to the negotiations as an honest broker who tells him, together with a choir of "pundits" – former and current lobbyists of Qatar – that the pressure should be directed against Israel – the hostages are doomed.

Moreover, instead of helping in the negotiations, Qatar is leaking false information about a deal cut, just to disrupt the Egyptian efforts, without the U.S. even understanding what Qatar is doing.[5]

This is the price of not having all the facts, and unfortunately, the hostages will pay it.

All that Trump needed to do in order to rescue the hostages, among them American and other nationals, is to hint that the U.S. may reconsider relocating the CENTCOM base in Qatar to a safer location – on the soil of America's true allies (Saudi Arabia, the UAE). This would have been enough to make the ruling family of Qatar tremble and act like an ally rather than a deceiving enemy. Why would a threat to Qatar have such an impact? Because without the presence of the American base in Qatar, the ruling family will be removed in no time by its adversarial neighbors.

Although Trump is a seasoned politician who knows the difference between friend and foe, in the case of Qatar, Trump does not know, and his team is not helping him (some of them themselves are former lobbyists for Qatar).

In 2017, Trump still knew who Qatar is, and seemed to have joined his allies – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt – to bring down the ruling Aal-Thani family in Qatar, which is the cornerstone of the country's Islamism and terrorism worldwide.[6] But then his assistants at the time, like those of today, dissuaded him from supporting the Gulf countries' move. Qatar would fail him again in his efforts to expand the Abraham Accords, which he began in his first term.

Every vegetable vendor and taxi driver in the Muslim world knows the truth about Qatar and its Islamist and anti-U.S. activities, except for the American, European, and Israeli governments and intelligence agencies (who possibly also know but act as if they don’t). This is because Qatar developed over the decades a Western image that totally contradicts its actual behavior. In order to understand the soul of Qatar and what motivates it in its Islamist terrorist activities in the West in subversive, deceptive ways devised for modern times,[7] it is enough to read the speech[8] of the Emir of Qatar at the time, the father of the present Emir, at the December 16, 2011 inauguration of the Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab mosque.

The Speech Of Then-Emir Of Qatar Inaugurating The Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab Mosque: Outlining Qatar's Mission And Goals Worldwide

In his speech (see Appendix C) the Emir made the following points:

1. He associated the construction of the mosque in Doha with the construction of the Ka'ba mosque in Mecca, as recounted in the Quran and Hadith.[9] He gave it nearly the same importance as the Ka'ba, implying an almost equal importance of Qatar as a religious da'wa (propagation of Islam) powerhouse and beacon in confronting Saudia Arabia's central role in the Muslim world.

2. The Emir ties his family's da'wa activities over generations to the revered figure of Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (d. 1792), founder of the Wahhabi movement, which attempted a return to the principles of Islam as practiced by its early forebears (salaf). Thus, the Emir portrays Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab as the epitome of virtue and piety and as the proponent of a wide-ranging da'wa mission. It is notable that, in a 2010 conversation with then-Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi, the then-Emir claimed to be the 16th-generation heir of Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab.[10]

3. The Emir draws a clear difference between a) a rejuvenator of Islam, a Mujaddid (and Muslih), a description he uses for Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (a religious scholar who interprets the basic authentic principles of Islam in light of modern context and time), and b) a "reformer" who compromises the principles of Islam to fit modern social norms (committing bid'a, a completely forbidden practice which is regarded as a transgression).[11]

4. He describes Wahhabism as the epitome of Islam, associating da'wa initiatives by the Qatari royal family with those of the Wahhabi movement, and by extension, those of the Prophet Muhammed. He enumerates the many virtues of Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab and his relentless da'wa mission, describing them as the peak of Islamic piety and virtue.

5. The paramount importance of da'wa: The emir repeatedly emphasizes the significance of da'wa. He underscored that da'wa must be carried out in the exact same manner as in the early days of Islam, and as practiced later by Wahhabis. He placed emphasis on the global aspect of da'wa efforts in modern times, which transcend the Arabian peninsula and extend to the entire world. (For full text of the speech, see Appendix C.)

This explains that wherever Qatar is allowed to be involved with its money, such as financing the Lebanese army, rebuilding Gaza, or investing in the West, it does so under the lofty goal of promoting radical Wahhabi Islam in the world. In the case of Gaza and Lebanon, and possibly Syria, it will only build a new cycle of Islamism and terrorism.

This document will answer to the vital need to inform governments and legislatures in the U.S. and the West about the threat that Qatar constitutes to their security and interests as well as to Western civilization in general.

It will put forward a plan of action to answer to this need by:

1. Creating a comprehensive research data base about Qatar and its activities, which will serve a worldwide political network, the Anti-Qatar Coalition, that will counter Qatar's subversive activities in various ways;

2. Explaining who is Qatar and what it does (see Appendix A);

3. Explaining the silence about Qatar in the U.S. and the western World (see Appendix B);

4. Presenting the speech at the inauguration of the Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab mosque (see Appendix C).

The Qatar Monitor – A New MEMRI Project

MEMRI will, in January 2025, launch a special project dedicated to documenting Qatar's ideological Islamist drive and the scope of its subversive as well as open operations and enabling terrorist organizations both in the West and in the Muslim world. The Qatar Monitor (TQM) will serve primarily to lay the basis for the establishment of an anti-Qatar coalition – a high-level international political network.

The project will also expose Qatar's efforts to deceive the West about its true nature. It will serve as a repository of open-source information. In addition to translations, research, and analysis from all types of media (print, video, and online, including social media), it will also include material provided to the project by former officials from various governments worldwide who have come across Qatar's support of terrorism and other anti-U.S. activity that has not been reported before. Access to this latter information online will be restricted.

This repository, as well as the project's ongoing research, will also provide a basis for legal measures to be taken against Qatar by victims of Qatar's activities and of organizations owned by or affiliated with it, such as public organizations, both cultural and social, operating in the West that are headed by Sheikha Moza, the mother of the present Emir and the wife of the former Emir.

The TQM database will also provide countries that have been severely harmed by Qatar's pro-terrorism activities – for example, the U.S. by 9/11 and Israel by 10/7 – with a basis to demand reparations from this gas-rich emirate.[12] This will be similar to the reparations paid by Germany to Holocaust victims. It will also serve to support personal claims such as those already being litigated against Qatar in the U.S. and U.K.

TQM Categories of Research

1. 25 years of MEMRI reports on Qatar.

2. Links to all relevant reports published by other think tanks, Western and non-Western governments, universities, and independent researchers, as well as reports from Western media.

3. Ongoing monitoring of social media concerning Qatar from all possible sources and in all languages.

4. Exposure of the Qatari education system's support for jihad and opposition to Christians and Jews.[13]

5. Content provided by whistleblowers to enhance TQM research on Qatar's anti-West, pro-Islamist, and terrorist activities – as noted, access to this content will be restricted.

6. Exposure of lobbyists for Qatar that are registered in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which is public information, as well as exposure of unregistered lobbyists such as the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera (see below), which has not complied with a Department of Justice order to register as a foreign agent.[14]

7. Exposure of Qatar's establishment, hosting, and sponsorship of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), an ideological promoter of Islamism, jihadism, and antisemitism.

8. Exposure of Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-owned media arm promoting Islamism, jihadism, terrorism, and anti-U.S., antisemitic, and anti-West incitement, as well as all other Qatari state-owned, state-funded or state-affiliated media outlets.

9. Exposure of Qatari political and financial infiltration of the Muslim world and the U.S. and West in general.

10. Exposure of Qatar's antisemitic activities.

11. Exposing Qatari deceptive operations regarding its pro-Islamist and terrorist nature, as well as illegal anti-American activities

More information and more categories will be added.

Appendix A: Who Is Qatar? A General Review

The population of the emirate of Qatar comprises 200,000-300,000 Qataris and over 2 million foreigners. For decades, Qatar has been the foremost global sponsor of Islamist terrorist organizations and movements, both Sunni and Shia, across the Muslim world. These organizations and movements seek to topple non-Islamist regimes and replace them with Islamist ones – and have succeeded in places like Egypt and Afghanistan.

Qatar and Iran were the two enemies of the U.S. that rose after the fall of the Soviet Union and the formation of the U.S.-led unipolar world, with the aim of challenging the U.S. leadership and the Western world order. At the same time, the other leading Arab countries – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and many others – focused on Westernization and development.

It was Qatar and Iran (and to some extent Algeria), that launched a battle against the U.S.; Iran did so openly, while Qatar did so deceptively.[15]

Qatar adheres to and promotes the Muslim Brotherhood movement and ideology. At the same time, it promotes Wahhabism-  the most extremist movement in Islam. The Qatari ruling family presents itself as an heir to the Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, the 18th-century founder of Wahhabism.[16]

Thus, while the UAE established the Abrahamic Family House compound – in which a church, a mosque, and a synagogue are situated side by side to symbolize religious understanding (and to which it invited the Pope to visit), the Qatari capital Doha features one large mosque named for Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab.

At the inauguration of the mosque, then-Emir Hamad bin Khalif Aal Thani expressed the Aal-Thani affiliation with Al-Wahhab and his religious message, swore to promote it, and committed to do so worldwide.[17]

Qatar sponsored the mastermind of 9/11 – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) – who was brought to Qatar from Bosnia. KSM worked for the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water and travelled freely to terrorist missions across the world. When the FBI came to arrest him in Doha, and confidentially alerted only the Qatari Emir, KSM disappeared within hours.[18] KSM then fled to Pakistan, and a few years later, in 2001, he surfaced as the man behind 9/11. He has acknowledged responsibility for the 1993 World Trade Center attacks in 1993 and 2001, and for another 27 terrorist attacks and plots.[19]

On November 28, 2024, the Guardian reported that the lawyer for a group of Syrians, including a former intelligence official, who had sued Doha bank for transferring funds to the anti-regime terrorist organization Al-Nusra Front, alleged that witnesses in the case had been threatened with kidnapping and bribed by agents working for Qatar, and that tracking devices were used against them, in an attempt to thwart the case.[20]

As a close ally of Iran, Qatar regularly coordinates with the Iranian regime. A new plan for an undersea tunnel between Iran and Qatar will, if implemented, enable Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to move into Qatar if and when needed, and to confront the CENTCOM base, if it remains there.[21]

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt launched a full boycott against Qatar, with the aim of bringing down its ruling family because of its alliance with Iran and support for terrorism. Qatar turned to Iran (and Turkey) to help it survive the boycott.

Qatar has no friends in the Arab world except for the Algerian regime. It buys support from Arab regimes on and off, by injecting billions of dollars into them here and there.

Qatar is also an ally of Turkey, ruled by an Islamist authoritarian president who has deployed Turkish troops to Doha to defend the ruling family.[22] Turkey itself promotes anti-U.S. incitement, and hosts the U.S.-designated terror organization Hamas, which on October 7, 2023, as noted, murdered and took hostage dozens of American citizens. Turkey has also helped Islamist terrorists join ISIS via its territory.

Qatar has sustained the Taliban terrorist organization for years, hosted their leadership in Doha, and enabled them to take over Afghanistan's democratically elected secular government of Ashraf Ghani in 2021, during which 13 American soldiers were killed.[23]

Qatar has been exposed in various cases of bribery of political figures in the West.[24] It also, according to documents obtained by MEMRI, hired a former CIA officer to spy on U.S. members of Congress who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. In order to understand how Qatar has operated in the U.S., details can be seen in the court case between Elliott Broidy, a long-time critic of Qatar, and a former CIA official hired by Qatar. Another name mentioned in the court case is Ahmad Nimeh, the son-in-law of former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar Patrick Theros, known today as someone who writes positively about Qatar in the media.[25] He should have known better about KSM's activities in Qatar and how his arrest by FBI was thwarted.[26]

Qatar sent at least $3 billion to Hamas-ruled Gaza over a 10-year period, enabling its military buildup. This was done with the full consent and facilitation of the Israeli government and, according to reports, with U.S. approval.[27]

Appendix B: Why Is The Truth Of Qatar Not Known In The West?

So why aren't the facts about Qatar's pro-Islamist, pro-jihad, anti-U.S., and antisemitic activities known in the West? And why aren't they being countered by the West?

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It is because these facts are being sidelined by the governments and intelligence agencies of the U.S., Israel, and European countries, in what amounts to a coverup. This incredible phenomenon has been going on for years, even though the truth about Qatar is well known to every vegetable vendor and taxi driver in the Muslim world.

In the case of Europe, it is clear to political commentators, researchers, and journalists that Qatar purchases its status, both with money and with huge investments in economic enterprises and in payments to members of parliament. In the case of Israel, it is because Israel's governments have collaborated with Qatar for at least a decade, and facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars in Qatari funds to Hamas-ruled Gaza, which enabled the build-up of Hamas' military might (see below).

Therefore, the Israeli government is afraid to expose the buildup of Hamas' military power – 500 kilometers of tunnels, a 30,000 strong military, and tens of thousands of missiles and munitions – and the enabling of the October 7 attack, because it was in full collaboration with it. Exposing Qatar means at the same time exposing itself. Since October 7, Israel's prime minister, who blamed Iran for October 7, has never said a word about the billions of Qatari dollars that enabled October 7.[28]

In the rare cases that the Qatari regime has been meekly criticized by Israel, Qatar's ruling family assiduously stresses the fact that it was all done in collaboration with the government of Israel, and publishes documents showing this.[29] For example, see a leak by Qatar, a letter from the former head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, to the Qatari government thanking it for (among other things) having contributed to "security and stability."[30]

As for the U.S., there could be many explanations for this phenomenon – and some appear to indicate motivations that have no strategic or political logic. For example, why ally with a state sponsor of terrorism like Qatar while betraying the interests of traditional U.S. allies in the Arab and Muslim world, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and many others?

Commentators usually point to the presence of the CENTCOM base in Qatar as the explanation, maintaining that the U.S. needs Qatar and is in its debt because it allowed the use of its territory for the base. Furthermore, in recent weeks, the argument that the U.S. is indebted to Qatar gained more traction, with reports that the U.S. has deployed nuclear bombers at CENTCOM base in order to deter Iran from attacking U.S. bases in the Middle East. (In exchange, Qatar extracted from the U.S. a middle-of-the-night agreement to extend the presence of the CENTCOM base another 10 years.)[31]

First of all, deploying the nuclear bombers to CENTCOM is a matter of the last few weeks and it cannot hold as explanation for the cover up of Qatar's enemy-type activities against America. Second, the years long truth is the total opposite.

It is Qatar that is indebted to the U.S.; it is Qatar that needs to maintain America's base on its soil, because the base protects Qatar's very existence, and without the base, the Qatari ruling family would be toppled within days by its adversarial neighbors. But Qatar has never returned the favor in any way – not even by pressuring Hamas to release the handful of American hostages that remain alive in Gaza,[32] after it murdered 46 of them on October 7.[33] Qatar has also officially stated, on more than one occasion, that it will not allow the U.S. to use CENTCOM for an attack on Iran.[34]

In 2022, the Biden administration named Qatar a major non-NATO ally (MNNA), and in 2024 the CIA even awarded the George Tenet Medal to Qatar's intelligence chief – despite Qatar's pro-terror and anti-U.S. activities.

In addition to the sidelining of the truth about Qatar in the West, Qatar itself has worked hard to conceal its true nature and its subversive pro-Islamist and anti-U.S. activities, by all possible means. These means include media, particularly the state-owned Al-Jazeera network; sports; lobbying agencies; academia; Western politicians who became collaborators with Qatar; and massive financial investment. It has done this to deceptively present itself as firefighter, mediator, honest broker, problem solver, and the like – while in reality it is the arsonist.

Appendix C: Text Of The Emir's Speech

Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

The occasion that brings us together today is unparalleled and unmatched. What greater honour could there be than to be shaded [under the roof of the house] today by the mercy of Allah as we have raised the foundations of one of His houses and completed its construction? Is there a nobler and greater act of devotion than performing the Dhikr[35] under the roof of a new house among the houses of Allah? We have named this mosque, which we are honored to inaugurate today, after Sheikh Imam Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, the great scholar, this capable re-establisher,[36] and pioneering rejuvenator.[37]

We ask Allah that he be among those whom the Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke of (in the Hadith), saying: "Indeed, Allah will send to this Umma (nation) at the beginning of every hundred years someone who will rejuvenate his religion."[38]

I am certain that this mosque, which sprouts from the soil of Qatar as if it were an eternal part of it, will be a pulpit for rejuvenation and the faithful call to Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, away from innovation and whims, benefiting people in this world in a manner that aligns with the spirit of the age, and saving them in their Hereafter, in a way that pleases Allah and His Messenger, as Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab and his call did.

The light that Sheikh Imam Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, may Allah have mercy on him, spread among the people throughout the Arabian Peninsula and brought them back to the right path and guided them to the sound way, according to the Quran and the pure Sunna. It removed the distortions that had become mixed in the minds [of people] and the deviations that had entered their souls. Indeed, Imam Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab was an exemplary figure due to the qualities that characterized his personality as a caller to Islam – asceticism, God-fearing piety, steadfastness, foresight, and understanding of reality. These are qualities of which callers to Islam today are in dire need.

Our founding father, Sheikh Jassim ibn Muhammad bin Thani, may Allah have mercy on him, who was both a scholar of religion and a ruler, was one of those who embraced the call of Sheikh ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, adopted it, and spread it within our lands and across the Muslim world. He, may Allah have mercy on him, took it upon himself to shoulder the responsibility of publishing the books of the Wahhabi call and other books, having them printed in India in order to teach the religion of Allah and the message of His Prophet. To this day, we continue to follow in the footsteps of those great forebears, guided by the Qur'an and the Sunna of His Messenger, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him. We will spare no effort in carrying forward this mission and spreading the compassionate teachings of Islam throughout the world.

Indeed, we see that the Umma [the Muslim community worldwide] today stands in need of rejuvenation and drawing inspiration from the determination and experience of the Wahhabi call, in a manner that aligns with the current age and its developments.

As we gather today to inaugurate this mosque and bestow upon it the name of Imam Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, we honor the scholars who continue to carry his thought and his call in service of Islam and Muslims.

It is with great honor that I, together with you, conclude by inaugurating this mosque. I beseech Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, to grant us success, both now and in the future, so that this mosque remains a beacon of light and a torch of guidance.

Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

*Yigal Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI.