Posted on 01/29/2015 8:05:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Problematic, in a very big way even if the offer was made.
Qatar’s ties to Al Qaeda and ISIS aren’t news. They’ve effectively served as intermediaries in everything from ransom exchanges for hostages to Taliban negotiations. But actually trying to secure terrorist swaps for prisoners on their own behalf would have been a new frontier.
Before he was released from a U.S. maximum-security prison last week, a confessed al Qaeda sleeper agent was offered up in a potential prisoner swap that would have freed two Americans held abroad.
According to two individuals with direct knowledge of the case, the proposition was made shortly after the Obama administration traded five Taliban fighters for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Those fighters were also sent to Qatar, where they’re to remain under government watch until later this year.
The proposal to trade Al-Marri came from an individual described by one source as a “government contractor” and close friend of Qatar’s attorney general, Ali Bin Mohsen Bin Fetais Al Marri, who is said to be a relative of the confessed terrorist. The emissary met with the then-U.S. ambassador to Qatar, Susan Ziadeh, and raised the idea of trading Al-Marri for Matthew and Grace Huang, an American couple who’d been living in Qatar and were convicted in the still-unexplained death of their adopted daughter, in what was widely criticized by human-rights groups and legal experts as an unfair show trial.
“Qatari government officials told the Huang team that they floated the idea of a prisoner swap to the U.S. ambassador,” Richard Grenell, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on the Huang case, told The Daily Beast. That account was corroborated by a second source.
A State Department spokesman said that “no such proposal was ever on the table,” and noted that Al-Marri was eventually released from prison and sent home to Qatar as scheduled “and not as the result of any U.S.-Qatari agreement.” Asked for further clarification on whether the swap was raised as described and what the U.S. reaction was, the spokesman declined to comment further.
The article has plenty of more details on who Al Marri was.
The Huangs were free to leave and Al Marri was freed within a month of each other. That’s a suspicious timeline for two otherwise unrelated cases where an exchange offer had been made.
Qatar does specialize in plausible deniability exchanges and this administration lies constantly so we may never know the truth.
But it’s a warning that Qatar is now beginning to more blatantly behave like a terrorist group.
Same thing as Iran contra. I guess its ok when democrats organize it.
They are going to have to fumigate the White House after these Democrats leave.
I disagree with the basic premise of this article that Qatar is a U.S. ally.
RE: I disagree with the basic premise of this article that Qatar is a U.S. ally.
So, why do they allow our bases (the Al Udeid Air Base ) to be there?
To keep the Bedouin at bay?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
“Did US Ally Qatar.....”
.
Wrong premise to start with. Qatar is not our friend nor ally just like Saudi is not one.
They didn’t do it when the Clintons were replaced.
That’s why the stench still remains, or perhaps it is just a common body odor typical of politicians?
This is a guy who arrived in the US the day before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
al Marri used to be an auditor at Qatar Islamic Bank. He was also a senior auditor for the Qatari government
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) was founded in 1982, becoming the country’s first Islamic financial institution and Sharia’-compliant Bank. —according to the bank’s website
Al Qaeda sleeper al Marri has family deeply involved in that bank...and this bank is in turn involved in at least one partnership with the ailing Deutsche Bank...and Deutsche bank is partly owned by the royal family of Qatar.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/178382/qatar-royal-family-consider-share-in-deutsche-bank
HSBC Holdings, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Qinvest, part-owned by QIB, are lead managers on the deal.-—
Qatar Islamic Bank Launches $750m Sukuk, Oct 3, 2012 , Reuters via
Gulf Business http://gulfbusiness.com/qatar-islamic-bank-launches-750m-sukuk/
He also has a brother who likewise is a terrorist.
His brother’s name is Jarallah al Marri.
According to Jeffrey N. Rapp the Director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism in 2004, in a 16-page sworn statement containing many allegations against Al Marri :
Al Marri was to hack into the US banking system, and “to wipe out balances and otherwise wreak havoc with banking records in order to damage the U.S. economy.”
Investigator had found information about hydrogen cyanide on Al Marri’s laptop... “The highly technical information found on al-Marri’s laptop computer far exceeds the interests of a merely curious individual.”
Obama was on this guy’s release train within 2 days of his inaugeration.
The list is long and includes Jarallah al Marri, who was repatriated from Guantanamo Bay on Qatari assurances that he would be kept on a tight leash, but was allowed to travel and has recently backed militant fundraising campaigns on his Twitter account.
-——U.S. Ally Qatar Shelters Jihadi Moneymen; The world’s most two-faced nation fights ISIS while letting terrorists raise money. Why won’t Washington stop them?, by Jamie Dettmer, 12.10.14 5:55 AM http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/10/rich-little-qatar-big-ugly-ties-to-terror.html
He’s shown up in the UK on leftwing seminar circuits with Moazzem Begg and a former Gitmo guard who self describes himself as a punk rocker while describing his former unit as “toothless hillbillies.”
HSBC ... as in FBI’s crack prosecutor Comey.
HSBC ... which brings us to Comey...
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