WASHINGTON: The controversial role played by Qatar in manipulating the US media has been exposed.
The regime in Doha paid a lot of money to pressure groups and think tanks to cover Qatar’s subversive role in the region and support for terrorist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.
David Reaboi, a national security and political warfare consultant, published a lengthy investigative report in the Federalist, laying bare Qatar’s dirty tactics, including hacking and online eavesdropping to silence its critics and denigrate its opponents.
He cited the case of former Republican Party fundraiser Elliott Broidy, who filed a complaint in Washington, accusing three Americans working for the “tiny but remarkably wealthy terror-funding Emirate of Qatar” of conspiring to silence one of that country’s most prominent critics by hacking his emails and distributing their contents to the media in an effort to destroy his reputation and his ability to oppose Qatar’s continued sponsorship of Islamist groups.
Unfortunately, the breach of Broidy’s privacy seems to have been a result of the tremendous sums that Qatar has spent on lobbyists, media and think tanks in service of its ongoing feud with its Gulf neighbours on the issue of Qatar’s support for virulent strands of both Sunni and Shi’ite Islamism.
The lawsuit said that lobbyists for Qatar, Nick Muzin and Joey Allaham, together with Greg Howard of the prominent public relations shop Mercury Public Affairs and others took part in the operation, organising and distributing confidential information in Broidy’s emails to journalists.
The report said that since the ascent of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, Gulf countries, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have taken the threat of Islamist movements to heart.
Both countries have banned the Brotherhood’s operations on their soil and have halted funding to Islamist groups.
Meanwhile, in Qatar, the Brotherhood – and its many offshoots – flourish with official state support and prestige.
“It would take a tremendous effort, including large sums of money, to obscure these facts in the United States,” the report said.