Eid, a Qatar-based charity organisation possibly funded by Qatar government, has allegedly funnelled more than US$ 1 billion into Islamic terror outfits like Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood and their offshoots. The fund has been channelized to foment trouble in India too.
In an interview with our sister channel NewsX, a journalist Jordon Cope from a think-tank Middle East Forum claimed that “the Qatari government is not using charity for its diplomacy but as a facade to promote its Islamist agenda, especially for states that endorse the Salafi ideology.”
Cope claimed that while working as a scholar with the Middle East Forum he had translated Qatar government documents, which clearly showed the money trail. “These documents from the Qatari government ultimately indicated trends of using charity as a facade for financing Islamist organisations in particular those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he further said. “I have seen reports suggesting that the Qatar Government has given terrorist organizations anything between 1.1 and 1.8 billion dollars since 2012,” he further claimed.
Al Ihsan Charitable Society, Yemen’s Rahma Charity Foundation, Al Hikma Al Yamania Charitable Society,
Jerusalem International Foundation and Ihsani Yardim Vakfiih are some of the prominent charitable organizations which, according to Cope, have received funding from Eid charity. “There were many affiliates of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that received funding such as the Al Ihsan Charitable Society, which received about $17.8 million dollars,” he said in the interview. According to him Ahrar al-Sham was provided funding by Qatar during the Syrian civil war.
Referring to an article published by Abhinav Pandya, another Middle East Forum scholar, Cope told that about US$ 5 million was given to the Kerala-based Salafi Philanthropic Society.
Qatar’s support to the Muslim Brotherhood, a designated terror organization, is an open secret. The U.S. ally is facing investigation by federal prosecutors for terror funding after the family of slain journalist Steven Sotloff filed a law suit. Sotloff’s family has alleged that some Qatar-based organizations had transferred US$ 800,000 to an Islamic State judge for the execution of Sotloff and James Foley. The two American journalists were beheaded in Syria in 2014. Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani, the half-brother of Qatar’s ruling emir, is alleged to have provided aid to Al Nusra, a Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate.
In an article published last year in Asian Times, Cope had exposed how Eid, the state-run Qatari charity, had made 45,000 grants worth more than US$ 143 million to various charities across 70 countries, linked to various Islamic terror outfits, including Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. These organizations are spread across Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Canada, Mexico, the UK, France and Germany. The founder of the Eid Charity, Abd Al-Rahman al-Nu’aym, is a designated terrorist.