LONDON: Qatar has been strongly criticized for its alleged funding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK by a senior British Army veteran and counter-insurgency expert, who also called the group a “terrorist organization.”
Col. Tim Collins, who served in Northern Ireland and the second Iraq War, was speaking in Westminster and said the Muslim Brotherhood was a problem in the UK and that the government needed to challenge it more.
He also hit out at Qatar for allegedly funding the organization, questioning why the Gulf state would “hurt a friend” like the UK.
“(The Muslim Brotherhood) has been a problem and continues to be a problem in the United Kingdom and we need to challenge it — and indeed it is challenging our response to terrorism,” Collins told Arab News.
“The Qataris are actively funding this, what do they think they are doing?”
“We are a close ally and we stood by them in tumultuous times. They’ve been isolated in the Gulf yet we’ve stood by them, we have to ask them to show their friendship and comradeship and stop doing this,” he said.
Four years ago the UK government ordered a review into the Muslim Brotherhood. The result, the Jenkins Commission, concluded that the organization — while outwardly purporting peaceful means to promote its agenda — was willing to use violence and terror in pursuit of its long-term goals and that aspects of its ideology and tactics “are contrary to the (UK’s) national interests and security.”
Collins said he would go further and describe the Brotherhood as an out and out terror group.
“We have to work with allies and friends to reduce (the Muslim Brotherhood’s) influence.”
“We need to challenge it and to do so in such a way we don’t offend, isolate or alienate our Muslim population so we have to be very careful in how we do that.”
Qatar slammed for funding ‘terrorist’ Muslim Brotherhood in UK
Updated 09 January 2018