The fight against terrorists and extremism requires nations to be on constant guard, asserting their rights to safety and security on many fronts. It’s a fight that needs to be taken to groups and individuals who plot and scheme or act in subversive and seditious ways, entities that assume a charitable front on one hand while acting in treasonable and treacherous ways on the other. Vigilance is essential, and so too is maintaining an updated list of these nefarious groups and persons.
The governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia have now added nine groups and nine persons to their terrorism lists. Among them are citizens of Qatar, Libya and Yemen, while the groups themselves have aided and abetted the spread of seditious activities. Indeed, our Arab brothers in Yemen and Libya are suffering directly from the acts of these entities and persons, and the troubles and travails endured by the broader citizenry are attributable to these and other forces of darkness.
For the past six weeks, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt have been pressuring Qatar to cease its support for individuals and groups that spread terror and extremism across the region. Qatar has given voice to these radicals; it has failed to live up to its explicit undertakings to cease and desist from such activities and to join its Arab brothers and the international community in ending the scourge wrought by these extremists.
These groups and persons have been aided by Qatar in spreading their aggressive agenda of sedition and subversion. Indeed, for far too long, the people of this region have suffered at the hands and actions of such persons, so-called charities and meddling groups who impart hatred and division. It’s a situation that has gone on for too long, is intolerable and unsustainable. It’s for these and other reasons that the ill-advised, ill-conceived and illegal actions of the Government of Qatar must be tempered through a concerted action by the UAE and its brotherly allies.
These most recent measures will help tighten the noose on those who spread division and extremism in Libya and Yemen. The citizenry there has endured hardship, violence and pestilence as a direct result of Qatar’s support for radicals and extremists.
We have a duty to ensure voices of extremism are silenced and the actions of the seditious are nullified. There is a responsibility upon us all, acting in concert, to bring peace and stability to this region. That responsibility extends to Qatar too.
