Syria

The Washington Post speaks of Qatar’s private donations to rebels in Syria

The Washington Post speaks of Qatar's private donations to rebels in Syria

On September 21, the Washington Post published an opinion piece written by Joby Warrick which put the focus on Gulf countries and more specifically Qatar’s role in the Syrian crisis and their insistence to arm radical groups.
The Washington Post speaks of Qatar It read, “The stream of U.S. weapons heading to moderate rebel groups in Syria is being offset by a fresh torrent of cash for extremists, much of it from small networks of Arab donors who see the Syrian conflict as a step toward a broader uprising across the region, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials say.”

Moreover, “While radical groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham have long relied on charitable giving from Persian Gulf states, the flow of private cash has enabled the extremists to retain their battlefield edge despite the loss of support from key Arab backers such as Qatar, which cut off aid to the most radical groups under pressure from the United States and Saudi Arabia, U.S. and Middle Eastern.”

Dollars raised over the Internet are wired between private banking accounts and hand-delivered by courier, often in border towns like this city of 1.4 million, about 20 miles from the Syrian frontier, according to Middle Eastern intelligence officials who monitor the activity. Some fundraising pitches ask for specific pledges to cover the cost of a weapon, for example, or to finance an operation. For $2,400, a donor can pay for the travel, training and arming of a single non-Syrian fighter.

“They are like militia-group venture capitalists,” said McCants, director of the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World. “They are trying to pick winners, seeing which groups are growing and performing well. And they have a lot of money and no real restrictions.”

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