British MP Ian Paisley Jr. told colleagues in the House of Commons last week that the United States is no longer sharing military intelligence with Qatar due to the country's close ties to Iran, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.
Paisley Jr. said the revelation came from a report by the British geopolitical risk firm Cornerstone Global Associates detailing Qatar's links to Iran-backed terrorism. The report warned that Israel's renewed relations with Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have made Qatar even less willing to engage with fellow Arab states. Instead, Qatar has intensified cooperation with Turkish and Iranian media campaigns against the new U.S.-led coalition.
Adding to concerns about Doha's complicity in international terrorism, a new lawsuit from American families living in Israel alleges that Qatari banks have secretly developed a backchannel with Palestinian terrorists responsible for killing U.S. citizens, sending millions to those groups.
The lawsuit charges that Qatari royal family members orchestrated "a terrorism financing conspiracy" that enriched Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, two groups considered radical terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. Plaintiffs say the Qatar National Bank has facilitated the transfer of money to those groups since 2014 through dozens of accounts, potentially enabling the groups to plan seven attacks that have killed several American citizens.
Qatar poses a potential strategic problem for Washington as it currently hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East. Doha was also the site of peace negotiations between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Taliban earlier this year.