Robert Fisk: ‘Have no Doubt about Qatar’s Close Link with Jabhat al-Nusra’

 LONDON, (ST)-British journalist and writer Robert Fisk has stressed that the relation between “Jabhat al-Nusra” terrorist group and Qatar is evident despite attempts by the Qatari regime to deny direct ties with the group.

He pointed out that Qatar has great influence on the terrorist group’s members.  

“Have no doubt about Qatar link, Nusra boys have just released three Spanish journalists held in northern Syria for the past 10 months, after which the Qatari state news agency boasted that the Qatari authorities were involved in freeing them,” said Fisk in an article published today by the British “The Independent” newspaper.

 He added “Qatar denies direct ties with the group, and yet six months ago the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel interviewed Nusra’s leader, Mohamed al-Jolani.

Fisk referred to the West’s continuous attempts to introduce “Jabhat al-Nusra” terrorist organization as a “moderate opposition”, stressing that endeavors to promote al-Nusra disassociation from al-Qaeda won’t work.

“Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief executive successor, has told the [Jabhat al-Nusra] that it can dissociate itself from Al-Qaeda. Good public relations: Nusra doesn’t like the Isis “caliphate” very much, but as long as it remains a Qaeda clone, it can’t get off America’s terrorist list and qualify to join the (non-existent) 70,000 Syrian “moderates” dreamed up by David Cameron and a lot of American television networks,” Fisk wrote.

Meantime, some western and regional countries keep trying to divide terrorism into “moderate” and “extremist” in accordance with hidden agendas. But, actually all the groups fighting in Syria under different names like “Daesh”, “Jabhat al-Nusra” and “moderate opposition” are all linked to each other and they commit same crimes against civilians.

Last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharva affirmed that the United States won’t be able to force what they call “moderate opposition” groups they support to distance themselves from Jabhat al-Nusra.

The terrorists, calling themselves “moderate opposition” while they are within the ranks of the terrorist organizations, are the very party which violates the cessation of hostilities agreement in Syria and keep attacking civilians by all savage means, Zakharova said.

Hamda Mustafa