Analysis: Gulf governments sponsored anti-Semitic hate preachers during Ramadan 2019
Hate preachers were hosted by Gulf governments at multiple events during Ramadan 2019. The Government of Qatar continued to be the worst offender in this regard.
Hate preachers were hosted by Gulf governments at multiple events during Ramadan 2019. The Government of Qatar continued to be the worst offender in this regard.
America’s Gulf allies — Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — still sponsor hate preachers during Ramadan.
The US Treasury Department designated Muhammad Hadi al-‘Anizi as an al Qaeda terrorist earlier this month. He was detained in Afghanistan in late 2001 at the age of 15. Al-‘Anizi was freed and thanked Kuwait’s leadership for his repatriation. He is now based in Kuwait.
The US Treasury Department announced today that Muhammad Hadi al-`Anizi, a Kuwait-based “facilitator and financier” for al Qaeda and its Syrian branch, has been designated as a terrorist. Al Qaeda’s senior leadership appointed Al-`Anizi as al Qaeda’s “representative in Syria” sometime in 2014. His brother was previously designated by Treasury, which has repeatedly targeted al Qaeda’s support network in Kuwait.
Al Qaeda’s rebranded guerrilla army in Syria is fighting alongside other jihadists, Islamists and Free Syrian Army-branded rebels in an offensive intended to break the Assad regime’s siege of Aleppo. Most of the participating groups belong to two coalitions: Jaysh al Fath (“Army of Conquest”) and Fatah Halab (“Aleppo Conquest”). These same two alliances tried and failed to break the siege earlier this year.
The State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism for 2015 suggests that several Gulf States still have a lot of work to do when it comes to terrorist fundraising.
The US Treasury Department has designated 5 members of al Qaeda’s international “facilitation and fundraising” network, as well as one of the Islamic State’s “critical facilitators” in North Africa. One of the newly designated jihadists, known as Abu Sulayman al Muhajir, was as an extremist preacher in Australia before relocating to Syria and joining Al Nusrah Front.
A Guantanamo detainee who was transferred to Kuwait in 2006 had quickly returned to the battlefield. He killed 13 Iraqi soldiers in a suicide truck bomb at a combat outpost in Mosul, Iraq in 2008.