Al Jazeera, the international satellite television network owned by Qatar, in October 2003 broadcast Osama bin Laden’s warning: “I say to the American people we will continue to fight you and continue to conduct martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States.”
Al Jazeera controlled by Emir Al Thani’s family, has broadcast similar messages from Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamists that reach the Arab world. The result is that jihadists have been emboldened to attack U.S. interests. Al Jazeera ideologically sympathizes with these Islamists, by helping to spread their evil mantras across the airwaves.
As the Arab Spring in North Africa unfolded, Al Jazeera’s broadcast coverage helped to incite the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. In January 2011 a New York Times article noted, "the protests rocking the Arab world...have one thread uniting them [namely] Al Jazeera, whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next".
Qatar has been a supporter of al-Qaeda linked Islamists operating in North Africa and the Sahel region. This oil rich nation, that receives billions of dollars in military and economic aid from the U.S., also gives financial aid and supports groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar al-Sharia and Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), all active in destabilizing African governments and attacking Western interests.
The Wahhabi fundamentalist sect founded in Saudi Arabia has spread its influence throughout the Arabian Peninsula, Africa and elsewhere. The al-Saud monarchy has spent billions of dollars to spread their doctrine around the world. Osama bin Laden and many of his al-Qaeda lieutenants were students of Wahhabi imams. The Salafi fundamentalist movement which originated in Egypt has also spread its tentacles in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
In an Examiner website article former CIA Director James Woolsey testified to Congress stating, “Wahhabi extremism today is the soil in which al-Qaeda...terrorist organizations are growing”. The Council on Foreign Relations noted, “Saudi Arabia is also a source for financing al-Qaeda.”
Qatar and Saudi Arabia have succumbed to the fundamentalist imams, who control religious indoctrination, to avoid uprisings and possible regime change in their kingdoms.
A New York Times article noted in October 2012, “Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hardline Islamic jihadists and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster”. The same article noted that the Obama Administration knew that military aid intended for rebel militias was ending up in the hands of radical Islamists.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both U.S. allies, were supposed to be the intermediaries responsible for the arms reaching the “right militia groups”. This also was a concern in North Africa, where weapons ended up in the hands of radical Islamists responsible for the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Today radical Salafi Islamists in Libya and Tunisia are attempting to take over the governing process, and create Islamic states. The Muslim Brotherhood is attempting to take over in Algeria, and gain influence in the Arabian Peninsula--with Syria currently under siege.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia continue to finance and support al-Qaeda linked Islamist extremists. Writer Robert Tilford has appropriately stated, “In the end, when you support a supporter of terrorism, you become a supporter of terrorism yourself”.