Qatar promised Sulaimani official $50mn for safe return of its royals: report

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — An unnamed Sulaimani provincial official was promised $50 million to assist with the rescue of 25 Qataris, including nine royals and their servants, in Iraq, the Washington Post revealed in an investigatory report.

Qatar’s Ambassador to Iraq, Zayed bin Saeed al-Khayareen, acted as the chief negotiator after 25 Qataris were kidnapped in 2015 while using falcons to hunt other birds in southern Iraq.

Just days after their release on April 25, 2017, he used a mobile phone to contact his foreign minister. The intercepted communications were obtained by WaPo.

Khayareen listed five people who would receive $150 million from Qatar for the interlocutors who negotiated the release of the 25 Qataris, including nine members of the Al Thanis and their servants.

“Qassem, 50. Sulaymaniyah [provincial government official who facilitated the negotiations], 50. Abu Hussain, leader of Kataib, 25. Banhai [Iranian official involved in the talks], 20,” read WaPo’s summary of the hacked communications.

Qassem is an apparent reference to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ commander Qassem Soleimani, while Abu Hussain is a Kataib Hizbollah leader who has been active in Syria. The message added that Iraqi mediator Abu Mohammed al-Saadi would receive the remaining $5 million.

Soleimani is very active in the Middle East. He acted as a military advisor to the government of Iraq during the ISIS conflict. He has been under a UN travel ban and asset freeze since 2007.

Sulaimani, a province in the Kurdistan Region, is dominated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and its security forces.

Following the death of the party’s founder, Jalal Talabani, Soleimani wrote a note of condolence at the Kurdish leader’s tomb, saying Talabani was “a fighter who served nearly 60 years to achieve freedom for the Iraqi nation, including the Arabs Kurds, Turkmen, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, and Yezidis.”

The identities of the captors have never been established; however, one of the Qatari captives told the New York Times they heard the gunmen insult Aisha, the third wife of Prophet Mohammed. In Islam, such remarks are a giveaway, as Sunnis revere Aisha, but Shiites see her as a traitor who fought against Ali, who Shiites regard as the rightful immediate successor to Mohammed.

Rudaw has not been able to establish the identity of the Sulaimani provincial official or whether he received the money.

Qatar was reportedly offering the captors a $1 billion reward for the safe return of the hostages, and the interlocutors wanted to milk the Al Thani family for their services.

“The Syrians, Hezbollah-Lebanon, Kataib Hezbollah, Iraq — all want money, and this is their chance,” Khayareen wrote in the message uncovered by WaPo. “All of them are thieves.”