CAIRO – "Hamas and Taliban have offices in Doha," stated Michael Morell, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who added, "They are also supporting them and others with money and arms, including Al Nusra, another designated terrorist organization of the US in Syria, so clear -clear support of terrorist groups." Morell and UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba appeared on the Charlie Rose Show on Wednesday to discuss the Qatari crisis, discussing the role of the countries standing in the face of Qatar's terrorism supporting policies. Morell said that Qatar may have seen a chance to expand its control over the region by cooperating with the groups that no other country would cooperate with, as they are considered extreme terrorist groups. "I think Qatar, small country, small population, significant wealth from natural gas, wanted to have a foreign policy that was outsized for itself and they looked around and said where can we make a difference? And one of the areas that was open was talking to these groups that the rest of us won't talk to, and they saw an opportunity to play a role with that," Morell said. Otaiba added that this crisis is not recent, as Qatar has showed its support to terrorist groups over the past 15 years, not only welcoming groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Taliban to operate from Doha, but also letting them promote and justify their policies through Al Jazeera.
