Qatari Emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani promised that his country would soon hold an international conference on the scourge of hacking and cyberwarfare, wrote Mohamed Fahmy, former bureau chief of Al Jazeera English in Egypt, to the Washington Times.
“That’s excellent” he continues, Qatar is the perfect country to host such a confab. The regime’s officials could give speeches about how they recruit hackers and select their targets; the cyber mercenaries on Qatar’s payroll could discuss their career paths in hacking the citizens of foreign countries; and the American media consultants who work for Qatar could hold a panel discussion on how to successfully pitch and place hacked emails to and in the American media. This conference is a great idea — Qatar has much to teach the world about hacking and cyberwarfare. After all, they’re at the forefront of state-sponsored hacking of foreign nationals and other individuals.
“The emirate’s fingerprints come out clearly in much of the network’s reporting”, Fahmy explained. Al Jazeera has routinely soft-pedaled terror organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah and al Nusra in Syria. It has offered favorable coverage of Iran in countless articles and news items. It has even used its “investigative journalists” to undertake elaborate snares and smears of pro-Israel activists in the United States and United Kingdom, presumably in an attempt to advance the emirate’s vendetta against the Jewish state.
These efforts have relied heavily on surreptitious recording and filming. But sting reporting is not the only tactic that Qatar has used in its espionage efforts. Qatar also hacked more than 1,000 email accounts.
Qatar’s hacking and state-run media attacks are merely the start of its nefarious activities at home and abroad. Even as Al Jazeera, and especially its millennial-themed brand AJ+, produce videos and “news stories” blasting racism and sexism in Western countries, the network’s and news site’s masters practice the most brutal forms of oppression in Qatar itself.
