Exposing the ‘blowback’ roots of terrorism

The Qatari card is not the last one to be dealt in this “game of terrorism.” The magician’s hat still has plenty of other cards that will reveal our inattention which was exploited against us and made us kill one another.

The game is much bigger than Qatar, and like any other crime, the criminal tries to eliminate evidence. Getting rid of the evidence may drain Qatar, particularly after being financially and politically exhausted and especially that it fulfilled its role in toppling a number of Arab regimes and dividing their states and influence zones. The other cards though are related to intelligence apparatuses in regional and European countries. Exposing them will expose the secrets of Sunni and Shiite Islamic terrorist groups.

The Hezbollah-ISIS deal in Jurud Arsal and the international coalition’s protection of the ISIS convoy are one example of the cards which revealed Iranian-ISIS and American-ISIS cooperation. Although American President Donald Trump and his Russia counterpart Vladimir Putin repeatedly emphasized the role of the former “American administration” in creating ISIS, many among us still believe that ISIS is a Sunni organization that emerged to fight the Shiites and that Shiite organizations spontaneously emerged to defend the Shiites.

It was a common belief that the American administration had relations with terror groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. And now it’s become clear that Iran harbors Sunni al-Qaeda members and funds Shiite Hezbollah commanders. Qatar funds armed organizations in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen and it cooperated with Iran to seal deals to get ISIS out of Lebanon. It also paid $53 million to Abu Malek al-Talli, Golani’s friend, according to Rima Karnaby, the deputy of Arsal’s municipal chief who requested a plane to transfer him to Turkey.

British academic and freelance investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed and British historian Mark Curtis recently worked together on an investigative report, which Curtis published on his website on June 3. The report stirred controversy in Britain as it discussed the Manchester Arena bombing which Salman Abedi, whose father Ramadan was fighting in Afghanistan, carried out. Curtis and Ahmed said Abedi was sent to Libya to fight to topple Qaddafi in 2011 and then joined the Qatari-funded February 17th Martyrs Brigade. So how does the British intelligence allow such “jihadists” to be present in Britain?

In an article entitled “How British intelligence primed both sides of the terror war” and published in March 2015, Ahmed discussed how the British intelligence creates Islamic symbols and figures and polishes their image to present them to the British media as “jihadists” who turned into moderates.

Curtis also wrote a book documenting the Muslim Brotherhood’s relation with British intelligence since the beginning of the 1940s. He based his work on documents which the British government made public. In the book entitled “Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam” which was published in 2010, Curtis predicted change in Egypt and predicted the British intelligence’s role in the January 25, 2011 revolution. So, do you know now who ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are? Do you know who Hezbollah, the Popular Mobilization, Al-Ashtar Brigades and other Sunni and Shiite terror groups are? Do you know who founded them, supported them and who protected them and sponsored them? All of them stand behind intelligence apparatuses of foreign countries which manipulated our Arab youths and deceived them. The agreement between Qassem Soleimani and ISIS to get the latter’s members into Iraq again to fight the Iraqis is yet another striking example of the declining Arab awareness!

This is the real face of terrorism which at the beginning I called a game and a tool developed by British and American intelligence. Qatar got involved in this project as a financier and coordinator. Millions fell victims to this terrorism as they were either killed or displaced.

This article is also available in Arabic.
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Sawsan Al Shaer is a Bahraini writer and journalist. She tweets under the handle @sawsanalshaer.