Talk:Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism

Political sensitivity

The first sentence in the article seems to me not to be completely objective which may produce problems especially considering this article is related to politics. Particularly, the use of the expression "small Arab country" and the contextual use of the word "only" in "bordered only" seem to try to induce a sense of innocence to Qatar, thus taking part in the matter, whether intentionally or not.

Let's further discuss whether that is true, and whether the sentence should be improved, while staying as objective and neutral as possible.

--FOSS-the-world (talk) 17:04, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with your observation re: "small" and "only". I searched for what constitutes small country (on wikipedia) and in terms of population or land size, it doesn't seem Qatar qualifies. I think it should be rephrased. We can agree maybe it's the smallest of the Arab states if someone argued to include the "small" reference. Level C (talk) 17:39, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

And another reason I wouldn't call Qatar small is because we don't call Israel small in its Wikipedia opening paragraph. Within the article it's OK to acknowledge its "relatively small size". Level C (talk) 20:42, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Dispute of Neutrality

The article was tagged with an NPOV because there are multiple instances where the other point of view isn't showing and opinions are stated as facts.

In the first sentence it says The Arab country of Qatar (...) has been accused of allowing terror financing. It doesn't state by who; nor the response made by the Qatari government.

In the second sentence, the citation refers to an article that does not represents the official statements made by the Qatari government (it doesn't link to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Qatar News Agency or any news outlet used by the government of Qatar to post official statements).

The last statement in the summary: "The Qatari government has a designated terrorist list. As of 2014, the list contained no names.[3]" There's no evidence of the Qatari government terrorist list (its existence or lack there of)

Finally the use of "In general" in the sentence "In general, in spite of its official commitment to a number of domestic and international initiatives centered on countering terrorist finance, Qatar remains non-compliant with international sanctions designating terrorists based on its territory, many of which still live with impunity on Qatari soil." is an opinion, not a fact.

The article needs to be heavily edited to establish a neutral tone regarding Qatar's links to terrorism. While the topic should be addressed, and all point of views should be included, the article should not reflect opinions, according to the Wikipedia Neutral Point of View standard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimaelcharif1 (talk • contribs) 15:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

... and might there be a conflict of interest in discussing this article on Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism. When asked about the copyright infringement you immediately answered that you already had received permission from the Embassy of the State of Qatar to publish information from their website to wikipedia Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani ? It seems you are pretty close to the subject. May I ask? Would you be willing to share if we should be concerned here about a conflict? Level C (talk) 16:32, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

... There might be a conflict of interest in me editing the article, which is why I refrained from doing so, or taking it down. However, it does not conflict with my dispute of neutrality, given the nature of my argument.Dimaelcharif1 (talk) 16:43, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

After reading the full guidelines of the Conflict of Interest, I'd like to disclose that I work at the Embassy of Qatar, but I am not from Qatar or a Qatari official. Nevertheless, I'd like to request a third party to review the neutrality of this article if possible and take into account the argument that I made as objectively as I can. I will take out the NPOV I added on the page. I did not edit this article. But I request a third objective non-biased party to review the neutrality of this, and if possible or deemed appropriate by the third party, to include the Qatari perspective, and take out the generalizations made. Instead, there should be a higher level of clarity that there has been accusations, reports and statements made by certain countries, individuals and groups linking Qatar to terrorist funding (with citations). But also, statements and reports made by US officials, institutions and the Qatari government against it; especially in the article's introduction. Dimaelcharif1 (talk) 18:22, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

This page is of such questionable source and bias it should be removed

This page should be deleted as it has many problems.

I found this page upon my first search of Google for news about Qatar. The presence of a wikipedia site presenting, essentially, the enemies of Qatars point of view is a dangerous bias and potentially the product of trolls or hackers with a planned agenda. Wikipedia should protect its integrally — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rober1236jua (talk • contribs) 23:20, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

The information is verifiable. If you think it fails WP:RS then take it to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, and have proof for what you wrote above.Level C (talk) 02:03, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Lead section is too long

The lead should be no more than 4 paragraphs long. This one is 7! the eloquent peasant (talk) 11:53, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Poor quality article ridden with omissions, lack of NPOV, and undue weight

I've given this article a glance through and found some problems. There seems to be a political slant to this article; certain individuals of little importance are given undue weight, a lot of relevant information is omitted from the sources, and this article seems to be pushing a certain narrative. Since I've no doubt some people may raise objections to some my edits which might appear brash, I will explain my claims in detail. I apologize for not being more concise but I think that such large-scale edits on a controversial article such as this require a proper explanation.

The lede

• "The country has been called "the Club Med for Terrorists"[1] and "most two-faced nation in the world, backing the U.S.-led coalition against the militants of the Islamic State while providing a permissive environment", in the words of one top American official, "for terrorist financiers to operate with impunity".[2]"
  • The first statement is useless without any attribution. I've added "by an Israeli official" to the end of that sentence and added a "who" tag as the source says, "an Israeli diplomat has even gone so far as to call the country, "Club Med for terrorists."".
  • Added a "who" tag at the end of "top American official" since the source neither names him or reveals his position.
• "Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists."
  • I have not edited this sentence but it seems a bit too general - could possibly use examples for each group, but then this would clutter the lede even more.
• "The Telegraph, a British newspaper, even started a "Stop the Funding of Terror" journalism campaign."[3]
  • The source states that "The Telegraph’s Stop the Funding of Terror campaign, has highlighted how Gulf states — including Qatar — have turned a blind eye to terrorist financiers operating within their midst." I've removed this sentence since the campaign is not exclusively aimed at Qatar.
• At the official level, the Qatari government pledged support for Hamas, the Palestinian group regarded as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, Egypt and Canada.[4]
  • It is misleading to say the Qatari government pledged support for Hamas, so I changed it to "Qatar has been accused of supporting Hamas". The source uses the biased wording "Qatar [...] has pledged $400 million in infrastructure funding for Hamas[...]", which, of course, means it pledged $400 million infrastructure funding for the Gaza Strip. The US Dept of State ([5]) clarified this point by reaffirming that the financial support will be sent to the "Palestinian people in Gaza", and not Hamas.
  • The Qatari position was also conspicuously absent in this paragraph, so I added details on Qatar's denial of support of Hamas from this source.
• I've moved Nouri Al-Malki's accusations to its own section, since it is an unsubstantiated accusation and not notable enough to be in the lede.
• The Qatari government has a designated terrorist list. As of 2014, the list contained no names.[6]
  • It would be nice if we could get a more reliable source for this claim than a Telegraph journalist. The US State Dept or the Qatari government would be appropriate sources, but in my search, I couldn't find any officials making this claim.
• "In general, in spite of its official commitment to a number of domestic and international initiatives centered on countering terrorist finance, Qatar remains non-compliant with international sanctions designating terrorists based on its territory, many of which still live with impunity on Qatari soil."[7]
  • The source states "Based on a review of publicly-available information, there is not a single case in which Qatar has detained, pressed charges against, and convicted a Qatari national on charges of terror finance after being designated by the US as a specially designated global terrorist." Firstly, what the source says does not equate to "being non-compliant with international sanctions." Secondly, the news outlet in the source is owned by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an organization linked to the UAE which has a strong incentive to demonize Qatar. Lastly, the US State Dept contradicts the source, saying "Qatar has made efforts to prosecute significant terrorist financiers.". I have changed the sentence to "Despite Qatar's efforts to arraign prominent terrorist financiers, some designated terrorists and terrorist financiers still live with impunity on Qatari soil.", citing the US State Dept and The Telegraph, and have also added the fact that Qatar has a functioning watchlist of suspected terrorists, according to the US State Dept.

Background section

• "In December 2013, the United States designated Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGTs). Nuaymi is based in Qatar. The U.S. Treasury Department placed sanctions on Nuaymi and declared him a "Qatar-based terrorist financier and facilitator who has provided money and material support and conveyed communications to al-Qa'ida and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen for more than a decade.""
  • Deleted sentence "Nuaymi is based in Qatar" since this fact is noted in the very next sentence, and changed the first sentence to reflect that he is a Qatari.
• "In September 2014, a diplomat in Qatar told the media that between 8 and 12 "key figures in Qatar" were raising millions of pounds for jihadist fighters for Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.[18][19]"
  • The second source is a one-paragraph long article published by Iranian propaganda outlet Al Alam which does not qualify as a reliable source. The first source, a Telegraph article, appears to be dead, and the only back-up source I could find was at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (pg 3). The FDD references the original Telegraph article as its source. The sentence states: "In September, a Western diplomat in Doha told the press that “there are eight to 12 key figures in Qatar raising millions of pounds for the jihadis,”". The problems with this sentence is, it doesn't tell us who the diplomat is, what his position is, how he obtained this information, or what country he's even from. An exorbitant claim like this needs more backing. This seems to be more fit for a tabloid than an encyclopedia, so I've removed it, until more information surfaces about this completely anonymous individual.
• "In December 2014, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Congressman Pete Roskam (R-IL) requested that the U.S. government, in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, impose sanctions on Qatar[...]"
  • Added State Department's response to the letter, which was conspicuously absent.
• "On May 10, 2016 Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) petitioned Jack Lew, currently serving as the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, with a letter in which he emphasized Qatar's enduring non-compliance with its commitment to the 2014 Jeddah Communiqué, a statement from the representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and the U.S. declaring that they would "stand united against the threat posed by all terrorism".[22][23] Sen. Kirk emphasized that Qatar remains a "permissive environment for terrorist financing", and urged U.S. authorities to address Qatar’s permissiveness towards terrorist financing, a source of further regional and international instability, by enforcing measures that would make Qatar abstain from continuing sponsorship to terrorism.[23][22]"
  • How notable is one senator's letter to the State Dept? And what exactly does it prove? Seems to give undue weight to this one senator. I've tagged these sentences as giving undue weight.
• "The Country Report on Terrorism 2015 released by the U.S. State Department on June 2, 2016 remarks that, in spite of Qatar's nominal membership and engagement in a number of counterterrorism and terror finance initiatives, "entities and individuals within Qatar continue to serve as a source of financial support for terrorist and violent extremist groups, particularly regional al-Qa'ida affiliates such as the Nusra Front".[8]"
  • Out of the 15 paragraphs in the report, why conspicuously highlight the single most negative sentence about Qatar? I've added in more details from the report.
• "In June 9, 2017, during a press conference, US President Trump blamed Qatar, stating it has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.[9]"
  • There is no context to this sentence. It is not a comment Trump made out of the blue, but was rather speaking in regards to the 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis. I've added context and noted that Trump's position of support for the quartet's blockade contradicted his secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

Al Qaeda

• "In testimony to the 9/11 Commission and Congress, Al-Fadl said that Bin Laden told him in 1993 that the Qatar Charitable Society (QCS), which was later renamed to Qatar Charity, was one of Bin Laden's main sources of funding.[27]"
  • This sentence cites the 9/11 Commission Report, p. 62, but strangely, I could not find this sentence on that page, or on any other pages in the whole report (the report I accessed was on 9-11comission.gov). I found a securityaffairs.org which states "As evidence submitted by the U.S. government in a criminal trial noted, in 1993 Osama bin Laden named the Qatar Charitable Society (currently Qatar Charity) as one of several organizations that financed al-Qaeda’s overseas operations." This is not the same as being "one of Bin Laden's main sources of funding", so I amended the text and replaced the reference.
• Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy and Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi are senior-level financiers of al-Qaeda. In 2014, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, announced that the two men were living freely in Qatar. Both men were on a worldwide terrorist blacklist. Al-Subaiy, as it turned out, had previously worked at the Qatar Central Bank.[3]
  • Strange enough, the details surrounding these two men's acquittals are not mentioned, or even the fact that they were tried and acquitted. According to The National Interest, "The apparent reasons for their respective acquittals were tied to the Qatari intelligence services inability to present the necessary evidence to a court without compromising its intelligence gathering capabilities." I've added in these crucial details.
• "According to Swiss registration records, Al-Nuayimi is the founder of Alkarama, a human rights NGO based in Switzerland established in 2004 to serve as a bridge between human rights mechanisms and individuals victims of violations in the Arab World. Most of Al-Nuaymi's activities in support to al-Qaeda trace back to the time following the establishment of Alkarama, yet the charity's alleged ties with Al-Qaeda transcend Al-Nuaymi's activities.[29] Rachid Mesli, Alkarama's legal director, was arrested at the Swiss-Italian border in August 2015 due to a 2002 international warrant issued by the Algerian authorities. Algeria accused Mesli of supporting terrorism for cooperating with a legal team of the Islamic Salvation Front.[30][31] Mesli was later released.[31] Alkarama was designated as a terrorist organization in November 2015 by the UAE government.[32]"
  • I see nothing relating to Qatar here. Alkarama is a Swiss-based organization, and isn't related to the government of Qatar at all. Nor is Algeria or Rachid Mesli. This wall of text doesn't seem relevant to the topic of "Qatar and state-sponsored terrorism" so I've deleted it.

I'm tired of sorting out all of this article's mistakes so I'll pick up at another time. The majority of the remainder of this article seems to focus on the exploits of various individuals with Qatari citizenry who seemingly have no connection to the state. It seems off-topic to repeatedly refer to these individuals with no mention of their relation to the government of Qatar, whether Qatari authorities knew of their actions, what the response of Qatari government was, etc. The only information I can find connecting them to the state is the infamous Telegraph article, which states that "Both al-Nuaymi and al-Subaiy are understood to be well-connected to Qatar’s ruling elite." The author provides no reference for this fact, and uses very weasel-like language. I'm of the opinion that such an exorbitant claim should have a better reference than this, and that until proven otherwise, the actions of Al-Nuaymi and Al-Subaiy shouldn't be considered to have been carried out on behalf of the Qatari government. Elspamo4 (talk) 07:18, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Page assessment

Hello all! As others have already commented, there are some serious problems with this article, particularly with giving undue weight to certain individuals. Some of these issues—as an example, the "most two-faced nation in the world" quote in the first paragraph of the lede, which is attributed to "one top American official". As Elspamo4 remarked in August 2017, the source does not identify the official or his/her position, and I have been unable to find any other source which does.

The page either needs to be updated or is cherrypicking US officials’ reactions: for example, while it is certainly true that US President Trump initially backed Saudi Arabia over Qatar in the Gulf crisis, in April 2018 he praised Qatar’s emir for being a "very big advocate" of combating the funding of terrorism. Both of Mr. Trump’s declarations should be included in the page to ensure that it takes a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV).

The page is also extremely focused on the United States. The "Background" section exclusively discusses US policymakers’ reactions to the allegations against Qatar, a singular focus which is especially unacceptable given that there is a later section on the United States’ position. There is notably no section whatsoever on other countries’ reactions.

Robert1236jua suggested that the page is so biased that it should be deleted. I’ll have to extensively read through the Wikipedia regulations to see if the page meets the criteria for deletion, but in the meantime I think it’s worthwhile having a discussion on here about whether this page is necessary beyond what is covered in the Qatar section on the main State-sponsored terrorism page.

While reading through the page, I also noticed a number of typos; I will start by correcting these and any other easy-to-fix errors I see. It would be great to have others’ input on a broader restructuring of the article to ensure it meets Wikipedia regulations and quality standards.

Thanks!

--WisdomWeezel (talk) 17:17, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I thought I add my five cents worth. Qatar Airlines, the official airline of Qatar, is the only airline practicing payment verification. If you buy a ticket for someone else, they demand you provide a copy of your passport and the credit card you used to pay for the ticket. If you happen to be in a city other than the city of the flight's departure, they demand you email them a copy of your passport and a full credit card statement. The info so requested suffices to create a fake identity with a fake passport and fake credit cards, similar to fake documents used by the 9/11 terrorists. I'd like to ask the authors of the page to address this issue as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.127.69.136 (talk) 19:53, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid edits

I have added an {{undisclosed paid}} tag to this article because of extensive editing by a UPE sockfarm, please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Frost joyce for evidence. Users relevant to this page include: Fact Checkmater (talk · contribs), Zulaikhah 1407 (talk · contribs) The article will need a thorough review ensuring due weight, neutral language, and use of reliable sources before the tag is removed. The sockfarm also introduced statements by unreliable source Consortium Against Terrorist Finance (stopterrorfinance.org), a website run by the Locality Labs spam network. MarioGom (talk) 14:45, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I have restored this tag again. This page was created by an anti-Qatar undisclosed paid editor. It has also been subsequently edited by a pro-Qatar undisclosed paid editing group (e.g. Jidano). MarioGom (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2024 (UTC)