Qatar has been accused of allowing terror financiers to operate within its borders, which has been one of the justifications for the Qatar diplomatic crisis that started in 2017 and ended in 2021. In 2014, David S. Cohen, then United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, accused Qatari authorities of allowing financiers who were on international blacklists to live freely in the country: "There are U.S.- and UN-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law." Accusations come from a wide variety of sources including intelligence reports, government officials, and journalists.

In response to these allegations, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in September 2014 went on US television to defend his government against claims that it harbors terrorist financiers. In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, the Emir stated he does not consider those organizations to be terrorists.

The Qatari government has a designated terrorist list. According to The Telegraph, the list contained no names in 2014. In July 2021, the list contained more than 550 people and 240 entities. Qatar uses it to vet passengers flying internationally. Despite Qatar's efforts to arraign prominent terrorist financiers, many designated terrorists and terrorist financiers live with impunity in Qatar.

Qatar has been accused of supporting Hamas, the Palestinian group designated as a terrorist organization by the US and western European countries. Qatar denies these allegations, stating that it does not support Hamas' political position, and that its policy is to help facilitate constructive engagement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Despite this, Hamas leadership lived and worked in Doha. Whether Qatari officials wanted them out is still debated. Hamas leaders were taken in by Turkey and other states. The Hamas offices remain open in Doha.

In 2004, 2010, 2014, and 2017, the Qatari government introduced new anti-terror laws to combat terrorism, terrorism financing and related crimes. In 2019, the Qatari government introduced a new anti-money laundering and counter terror financing laws.

Background

In 2003, the U.S. Congress was made aware that a plethora of charities based in Qatar were supporting al-Qaeda's activities by helping move and launder funds for the terrorist group. In 2010, it was reported that the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan was partly bankrolled by wealthy, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them. Other Arab countries which were listed as sources of militant money were Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. In December 2013, the United States designated a Qatari citizen, Abd Al-Rahman al-Nuaimi, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). 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.""Treasury Designates Al-Qa'ida Supporters in Qatar and Yemen "

Qatar was involved in Libya's civil war in 2011 as part of the multi-state NATO-led coalition, mainly by arming and funding groups fighting to topple the dictator Gaddafi. According to the Releifweb Libya had unavoidably been affected by the diplomatic crisis in the Middle East that had pitted a coalition of Arab nations against Qatar. The House of Representatives (HoR) and Khalifa Haftar's anti-Islamist Libyan National Army (LNA) are supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, while Qatar and (to a lesser extent) Turkey support the Presidency Council/Government of National Accord, which is based in Tripoli and is recognized by the UN (GNA).

Furthermore, in an August 2014 op-ed published in The New York Times entitled "Club Med for Terrorists", Ron Prosor, then Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, alleged that Qatar sought to improve its global image by funding prominent foreign universities in Doha and hosting the 2022 World Cup while simultaneously supporting Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In December 2014, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL) requested that the U.S. government, in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, impose sanctions on Qatar. The two congressmen asked for a full report on activities within Qatar from individuals, charities and organizations that fund Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the al-Nusra Front.Roskam and Sherman The State Department responded to the lawmakers' letters by stating that the US has a "productive relationship with Qatar", pointing out that Qatar has improved its counter-terrorism efforts in past years, although it conceded that Qatar's monitoring and prosecution of terrorist financiers and charities has remained "inconsistent".

In 2014, Qatar introduced new laws for charities and cybercrime prevention. Since 2014, all projects and international bank transfers of Qatari charities need authorization by the government's independent Charities Commission, which controls charitable giving to prevent misuse of donations and terrorism financing.

The United States and Qatar have a strong partnership in combating terrorism, with Qatar being a key partner in the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.

Qatar participated in the Department of State's Anti-terrorism Assistance program in 2015 and hosted the Global Counter terrorism Forum. In year 2015, Qatar hosted the UN Crime Congress and pledged funding to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Qatar's National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NATC) formulates policy, ensures transparency, and participates in conferences.The State Department also noted Qatar's maintenance of an active watch list of terrorist suspects, and stated that the country had made efforts to arraign prominent terrorist financiers. Furthermore, the report mentioned Qatar's restructuring of its National Anti-Terrorism Committee and recent enactment of counter-terrorism laws.

In October 2016, following a cyberattack attributed to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, one of the leaked Podesta emails from August 2014, addressed to John Podesta, accused Qatar and Saudi Arabia of providing "clandestine," "financial and logistic" aid to ISIL and other "radical Sunni groups." The email outlined a plan of action against ISIL, and urged putting pressure on Qatar and Saudi Arabia to end their alleged support for the group. Whether the email was originally written by Hillary Clinton, her advisor Sidney Blumenthal, another person, or the hackers is unclear.

Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated in May 2017 that he doesn't "know instances in which Qatar aggressively goes after (terror finance) networks of Hamas, Taliban, Al-Qaeda."

In a press conference on June 9, 2017, US President Trump backed Saudi Arabia and its allies in their diplomatic spat with Qatar, stating that Qatar has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level, and encouraging the countries to continue their blockade. He contradicted secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who asked the quartet to moderate its blockade on Qatar as it was harming US operations against ISIL.

In July 2017, the US and Qatar signed a memorandum of understanding to combat the financing of terrorism, making Qatar the first country in the region to sign the executive program with the United States to fight terrorism financing.

In April 2018, US President Trump welcomed Sheikh Tamim Al Thani to the White House and described him as "big advocate" of combating terrorist financing. In November 2018, Qatar started to participate in a 3-year United States Department of State Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program.

In December 2020, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) in cooperation with Qatar established the International Hub on Behavioral Insights to Counter Terrorism as an UNOCT Programme Office in Doha. In June 2021, a second UNOCT Programme Office on Parliamentary Engagement in Preventing and Countering Terrorism was established.

In September 2021, the government of Qatar and the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions against a major Hezbollah financial network based in the Arabian Peninsula.

Qatar is a member of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF), an associated body of the Financial Action Task Force.

Activities of various groups in Qatar

Al-Qaeda Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, Osama bin Laden's former business agent, defected to the United States in 1996, and testified to the 9/11 Commission and Congress, that Bin Laden told him in 1993 that the Qatar Charitable Society (QCS), (later renamed Qatar Charity) was one of Bin Laden's several sources of funding.

In 2003, The New York Times wrote:Tyler"Private support from prominent Qataris to Al Qaeda is a sensitive issue that is said to infuriate George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. After the Sept. 11 attacks, another senior Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been the principal planner of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was said by Saudi intelligence officials to have spent two weeks in late 2001 hiding in Qatar, with the help of prominent patrons, after he escaped from Kuwait."

Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy and Abd al-Rahman bin Umayr al-Nuaymi are senior-level financiers of al-Qaeda. Al-Subaiy was a previous employee of the Qatar Central Bank. 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. The two men were tried and acquitted; the "apparent reasons" for which, according to Sigurd Neubauer in The National Interest, were "tied to" Qatari intelligence being unable to demonstrate evidence without "compromising its intelligence gathering capabilities". In response to Cohen's announcement and the release of the U.S. intelligence report, reporters from The Telegraph contacted Qatari officials. According to the Telegraph, "Qatar has refused to answer".

At one time, Al-Nuaymi was the president of the Qatar Football Association. The U.S. report said that he sent more than 1.25 million British pounds per month to Al-Qaeda jihadist fighters in Iraq. He sent hundreds of thousands of pounds to fighters in Syria. The United States designated Al-Nuaymi as a terrorist in 2013. Britain sanctioned him in 2014.

Al-Nuaymi is knowingly associated with Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad 'Abd al-Rahman Al-Humayqani, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) whom the US Treasury sanctioned in 2013 for his role as fundraiser and executive for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The US Treasury claimed that in 2012 Al-Nuaymi supported financially a charity directed by Humayqani. By exploiting his status in the charitable community, Humayqani allegedly raised funds and facilitated transfers from al-Qaeda supporters based in Saudi Arabia to Yemen. Reportedly Humayqani had high level connections with al-Qaeda top operatives and often acted as an AQAP representative while meeting with Yemeni authorities. On behalf of AQAP, he allegedly recruited individuals for several murderous attacks in Yemen, and personally directed a "group of armed AQAP associates that intended to carry out attacks on Yemeni government facilities and institutions, including a Yemeni government building in al-Bayda Governorate".