Arab nations cut ties to Qatar, deepening rift in Persian Gulf

BEIRUT - Four Arab countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing the Persian Gulf nation of supporting terror and triggering the region's worst diplomatic crisis in years.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain announced plans to suspend all land, air and sea traffic with Qatar and eject its diplomats. Qatar was also expelled from the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen. Yemen's internationally backed government also severed relations with Qatar, as did the government in eastern Libya and the Maldives.

Saudi officials announced on state television that the decision to cut diplomatic ties was due to Qatar's 'embrace of various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region,” including the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida, the Islamic State and groups supported by Iran in the kingdom's eastern provinces.

Qatar's foreign affairs ministry responded with a statement calling the measures unjustified, based on false claims and assumptions.

'The state of Qatar has been subjected to a campaign of lies that have reached the point of complete fabrication,” the statement said, blaming 'a hidden plan to undermine the state of Qatar.”

While Gulf countries have pulled their ambassadors from Doha in the past and even blocked Qatar's borders, analyst Saeed Wahabi called Monday's coordinated blockade new and 'shockingly aggressive.”

'They are kind of putting them under sanctions. I can't think of some time when a Gulf country went under a siege or sanctions,” said Wahabi, who is based in the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE all requested Qatari nationals to leave within two weeks. The announcement also triggered a closing of borders, shutdown of flights, airspace and sea ports. Qatar Airways, a prominent international carrier, was among the airlines forced to suspend some flights.

Saudi Arabia shut the local office of the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel and revoked its license, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

Egypt gave the Qatari ambassador two days to leave the country, and ordered the Egyptian charge d'affaires in Qatar to return to Cairo within the same time frame. Egypt's foreign ministry accused Qatar of taking an 'antagonist approach” and said 'all attempts to stop it from supporting terrorist groups failed.”

Neighboring Bahrain blamed the blockade on Qatar's 'media incitement, support for armed terrorist activities and funding linked to Iranian groups to carry out sabotage and spreading chaos in Bahrain.”

Qatar has long faced criticism from Gulf neighbors for supporting Muslim extremists, chiefly the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist political group outlawed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE. Three years ago, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar over its backing of then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member. Eight months later, the ambassadors returned after Qatar forced some Brotherhood members to leave the country.

Qatari officials have since denied accusations that they fund the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and in Syria, including al-Qaida's branch, once known as the Nusra Front. But Wahabi said Qatar has been unwilling to enforce restrictions on terror financing and partner with the U.S. on counter terrorism the way Saudi Arabia has.

'Things have been improved in Saudi Arabia, controlled, and in the UAE as well,” Wahabi said. 'It's not easy to donate in Saudi Arabia. It's not easy to go to social media and say, ‘This organization has a bank account, can you donate?' It's getting harder and harder. But in Qatar, things are so relaxed.”

And Qatar's longtime links to Iran also worry Saudi leaders. In late May, Qatar's state-run news agency published comments from its emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Thani, expressing support for Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Israel, and suggesting President Donald Trump would not stay in power.

Qatari officials blamed the comments on hackers, but Wahabi said they highlighted a longstanding relationship with Iran, the Shiite power that is vying for regional influence with Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Muslim power.

Qatar is predominantly Sunni, but has a small Shiite minority.

Qatar has only about 1,000 troops in Yemen, and although they are well trained, with a Saudi force of several hundred thousand still fighting, their absence won't have a significant impact, Wahabi said.

The bigger concern is the economic implication of a prolonged blockade, he said. Turkish officials have offered to mediate, which is promising given their good relations with both Qatar and other Gulf countries. But it's the middle of the Muslim Ramadan holiday, then Eid. Many don't expect a resolution until at least the beginning of July.

Until then, Qataris who often cross the border to shop in Saudi Arabia will be blocked, and several airlines have suspended service: Qatar Airways suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia; Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-based carrier, suspended flights to Qatar 'until further notice”; and Emirates, which is Dubai-based, will suspend Qatar flights starting Tuesday.

The blockade comes just two weeks after Trump visited the Middle East and urged members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to join with him in an alliance against Iran.

'The Saudis and the Emiratis probably felt they had license to act in this way without the U.S. intervening,” said Michael Knights, a Boston-based analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, adding that the message sent by U.S. officials at the Riyadh summit was clear: 'Trump has subcontracted the fight against political Islam to them and they need to take the lead.”

'This is them using that mandate to settle some old scores. There's always been this tension with Qatar, this rivalry between the UAE and Qatar, the Saudis and Qatar. What we're seeing now is a very brutal exercise in humiliation, to break Qatar's independent spirit,” Knights said, 'score settling within the Gulf states.”

He said the blockade is also indicative of a quicker, more decisive Saudi foreign policy that has been encouraged by the United States.

'We'll see if that mandate holds over the next few days,” Knights said, noting that U.S. business and military interests could lead officials to pressure Gulf allies to stand down.

The U.S. has an air base in Qatar that houses central command and 10,000 troops. The military said it had no plans to change its operations in the region, The Associated Press reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson downplayed the seriousness of the dispute Monday and said the U.S. was willing to help resolve it.

'We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences. ... We think it is important that the GCC remain unified,” Tillerson said during a visit to Australia, adding, 'I do not expect that this will have any significant impact, if any impact at all, on the unified - the united - fight against terrorism in the region or globally.”

Iranian officials condemned the blockade as the latest instance of the U.S. expanding its influence in the region.

'What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance,” tweeted Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, referring to Trump's traditional dance with the Saudi king during last month's Riyadh summit.

Aboutalebi predicted the blockade would only exacerbate tensions in the Middle East. 'The era of cutting diplomatic ties and closing borders is over. ... It is not a way to resolve a crisis,” he said.

He and other Iranian officials suggested resolving the dispute through discussions instead.

'The solution to resolving the differences between the countries of the region, including the present difference between the three governments neighboring Qatar, is only through political, peaceful, transparent and clear talks between the parties,” Bahram Ghassemi, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, told the state-run Fars news agency.