Report: Qatar to banish Hamas' Mashaal, who will relocate to Turkey
Qatar has reportedly been under pressure from the international community to cease serving as a host of organizations considered by the West to be terrorist groups.
By JPOST.COM STAFFKhaled Mashaal(photo credit: REUTERS)
Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, is expected to leave his base in the Qatari capital of Doha and relocate to Turkey, Turkish press reports indicated on Tuesday.Qatar has reportedly been under pressure from the international community to cease serving as a host of organizations considered by the West to be terrorist groups.Hamas on Tuesday denied reports that Mashaal has been expelled from Qatar."There is no truth to what some media outlets have published over the departure by brother Khaled Meshaal from Doha," Hamas official Ezzat al-Rishq told Reuters by telephone.Another Hamas source confirmed that Mashaal was still in Doha and has no plans to leave the country.The ruling family in Doha has been accused of providing financial and political support to Hamas and other extremist groups in the Middle East.Last year, the emir of Qatar denied accusations that the Gulf sheikhdom is a sponsor and supporter of Islamist terrorist organizations.In an interview with CNN, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani rejected suggestions that the groups that Doha was backing were terrorist in nature.“We have to see the difference between movements,” Al-Thani told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I know that in America and some other countries they look at some movements as terrorist movements. In our part of the region, we don’t.”The Qatari leader did say that his government opposed “certain movements in Syria and Iraq,” a reference to the Islamic State. He denied accusations that Qatar was funding IS or that his government was turning a blind eye to private citizens’ activities in support of the group.
In the interview, Al-Thani never mentioned Hamas by name, despite the fact that his government is known to provide financial support to the Palestinian Islamist movement.Israeli officials have denounced Qatar for backing Hamas.Earlier this year, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Ron Prosor wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in which he deemed Qatar “the Club Med for terrorists.”“In recent years, the sheikhs of Doha, Qatar’s capital, have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza,” Prosor wrote. “Every one of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read ‘Made possible through a kind donation from the Emir of Qatar.’”
