Four Arab nations cut diplomatic ties to Qatar early Monday morning, further deepening a rift among Gulf Arab nations over that country’s support for Islamist groups and its relations with Iran.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all announced they would withdraw their diplomatic staff from Qatar, a gas-rich nation that will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Saudi Arabia also said Qatari troops would be pulled from the ongoing war in Yemen.

The countries also were ejecting Qatar’s diplomats from their territories. The Qatari government has not responded to the severing of diplomatic ties, though it has previously denied funding extremist groups.

The nations also said they planned to cut air and sea traffic. Saudi Arabia said it also would shut its land border with Qatar, effectively cutting off the country from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.

It wasn’t immediately clear how Monday’s announcement would affect Qatar Airways, one of the region’s major long-haul carriers that routinely flies through Saudi airspace. The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Qatar is also home to the sprawling Al Udeid Air Base, which houses the U.S. military’s Central Command and some 10,000 troops. It wasn’t clear whether the decision would affect U.S. military operations. Central Command officials and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Arabia said it made the decision to cut diplomatic ties because of Qatar’s “embrace of various terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at destabilizing the region” including the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Islamic State and groups supported by Iran in the kingdom’s restive eastern province of Qatif. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry accused Qatar of taking an “antagonist approach” toward Egypt and said “all attempts to stop it from supporting terrorist groups failed.”

The tiny island nation of Bahrain blamed Qatar’s “media incitement, support for armed terrorist activities and funding linked to Iranian groups to carry out sabotage and spreading chaos in Bahrain” for its decision. The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the decision would affect its operations.

The decision comes after Qatar alleged in late May that hackers took over the site of its state-run news agency and published what it called fake comments from its ruling emir about Iran and Israel. Its Gulf Arab neighbors responded with anger, blocking Qatar-based media, including the Doha-based satellite news network Al Jazeera.

Qatar long has faced criticism from its Arab neighbors over its support of Islamists. The chief worry among them is the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist political group outlawed by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE as it challenges the nations’ hereditary rule.

Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia fell out with Qatar over its backing of then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member. In March 2014, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar over the rift. Eight months later, they returned their ambassadors as Qatar forced some Brotherhood members to leave the country and quieted others. However, the 2014 crisis did not see a land and sea blockade as threatened now.

In the time since, Qatar repeatedly and strongly denied it funds extremist groups. But it remains a key financial patron of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and has been the home of exiled Hamas official Khaled Mashaal since 2012. Western officials also have accused Qatar of allowing or even encouraging funding of Sunni extremists such as Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, once known as the Nusra Front.

Qatar also maintains ties with Iran as it shares a massive offshore gas field with the Islamic Republic.

The crisis also comes after President Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia for a summit with Arab leaders. Since the meeting, unrest in the region has grown.

At that Saudi conference, Trump met with Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

“We are friends, we’ve been friends now for a long time, haven’t we?” Trump asked at the meeting. “Our relationship is extremely good.” </s> Thus, the Comoros has become the ninth country to sever ties with the Persian Gulf state.

On June 5, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic relations with Qatar. The states accused Qatar of supporting terrorist groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist movement, as well as of interfering in other countries' domestic affairs. Libya made a similar decision. Yemen cut diplomatic relations citing Doha's links with Houthis. The Maldives took the same step, citing extremism and terrorism concerns. Mauritius joined the boycott. Mauritania broke off diplomatic ties with Qatar while Jordan downgraded ties with the country on June 6. </s> Saudi Arabia and at least four other Arab nations are cutting all ties with Qatar, citing concerns over terrorism and regional stability and igniting debate over the rift's impacts among key U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Qatar's government "expressed deep regret over the decision" and said it was the victim of "an instigation campaign" that is meant to hurt the nation.

"Such measures are unjustified and are based on baseless and unfounded allegations," the government's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The moves came in quick succession, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and the Maldives all announcing that they were ending diplomatic relations with Doha and giving Qatari diplomats and citizens days or even hours to get out of their territories. The nations are closing ports and airspace.

Saudi Arabia is also shutting its border to neighboring Qatar, locking the state out of its only over-land border crossing. Qatar is a peninsula that is otherwise surrounded by the Persian Gulf.

The Qatari government says its citizens won't be affected, but news of the closing sent citizens rushing to grocery stores to stock up on supplies. The country imports 90 percent of its food, "mostly through the land border with Saudi Arabia," according to the UAE site The National.

"I've never seen anything like it – people have trolleys full of food and water," a resident told Doha News while at a Carrefour grocery store in a mall.

Saudi Arabia's government says it's cutting ties to protect itself "from the dangers of terrorism and extremism," the Saudi Press Agency reports.

The Sunni-ruled Arab nations are unhappy with Qatar's ties to Shiite-ruled Iran. They also say its authorities have supported both ISIS and al Qaeda. Egypt has led the way in faulting Qatar for giving a safe haven to leading figures of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Saudi news agency also said Libya and Yemen had cut ties with Qatar, but those claims have not been independently verified.

Qatar blamed Egypt for coordinating the severance of ties and said the other countries' goal is "the imposition of guardianship over the State."

As for the U.S. response, both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis say they don't think the decision will affect the fight against terrorism.

"I do not expect that this will have any significant impact — if any impact at all — on the unified fight against terrorism in the region or globally," Tillerson said in Sydney, where he's attending security talks along with Mattis.

Mattis predicted the diplomatic rift will be healed, but he wasn't sure when.

"I believe Iran's actions speak louder than anyone's words," Mattis said, "and they are going to incite the international community in that region to try to block them."

NPR's David Welna, who is traveling with Tillerson and Mattis, notes that the rift among U.S. allies "comes just 10 days after President Trump addressed an anti-terrorism summit of Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, and some see Trump's siding there with Sunni monarchs and his rhetoric against Iran as having given a kind of green light to blackballing this Gulf nation."

As David notes, "the biggest U.S. air base in the Middle East is in Qatar, while the Navy's fifth fleet is based in Bahrain." </s> The Bahraini news agency published the list of demands which Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt handed over to Qatar via Kuwait.



According to BNA, Qatar was requested to decrease diplomatic representation with Iran and curb ties with it, expel revolutionary guards from Qatar, limit relations with Iran to commercial trade without violating the sanctions imposed on Iran and without violating the security of Gulf Cooperation Council countries and sever any military or intelligence cooperation with Tehran.



The demands also called on Qatar to immediately shut down the Turkish military base which is being built in Qatar and to suspend any military cooperation with Turkey inside Qatar.



They also include severing all relations with terrorist, sectarian and ideological organizations, primarily those which threaten Bahrain, and other organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as Al-Nusra Front, and the Lebanese Hezbollah Party and listing them as terrorist entities and including them as terrorist organizations in any future lists.



Qatar was also demanded to suspend all forms of funding to terrorist or extremist individuals, entities or organizations and to all those included in the Saudi, Emirati, Bahraini and Egyptian terror lists and in the American and international lists and to surrender all figures designated as terrorist by these lists while holding their property until they’re handed over.



They also demanded Qatar not to host any of these designated terrorists in the future and to commit to providing information about them, such as information on their activity, residence and finances. This is in addition to demands to shut down Al-Jazeera television channels and all channels affiliated with it.



Qatar was also ordered to stop interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and foreign interests and refrain from granting the Qatari nationality to any Saudi, Bahraini, Egyptian and Emirati citizenship and extradite all those who had been granted a Qatari nationality via procedure which does not comply with these four countries’ regulations.



They also demanded Qatar to submit a list of those who have been granted a citizenship from these four countries and to submit all previous information about cooperation between Qatar and those naturalized.



The demands also include submitting all data about the opposition figures that Qatar supported and shutting down all media outlets which Qatar directly or indirectly supports.



The four countries called on Qatar to be in harmony with its Arab and Gulf surrounding on the military, political, economic, social and security levels in order to guarantee security and to activate the Riyadh 2013 agreement and the Riyadh 2014 agreement.



According to BNA, these demands are somehow similar to the Riyadh agreement which Qatar signed in 2014. Its report concluded that Doha thus has no justifications to reject these demands.



Last Update: Sunday, 25 June 2017 KSA 10:07 - GMT 07:07 </s> DUBAI/DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar faces possible further sanctions by Arab states that have severed ties with Doha over allegations of links to terrorism, as a deadline to accept their demands is expected to expire on Sunday night.

 Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said the demands were made to be rejected, adding that the Arab ultimatum was aimed not at tackling terrorism but at curtailing his country's sovereignty.

 State news agency QNA reported that he would inform the ruler of Kuwait, a neutral Gulf Arab country seeking to mediate in the spat, of Qatar's response on Monday.

 Sheikh Mohammed earlier told reporters in Rome that Doha remained ready to discuss the grievances of its Arab neighbors.

 "This list of demands is made to be rejected. It's not meant to be accepted or ... to be negotiated," Sheikh Mohammed said.

 "The state of Qatar instead of rejecting it as a principle, we are willing to engage in (dialogue), providing the proper conditions for further dialogue." 

 He added that no one had the right to issue an ultimatum to a sovereign country. 

 The feud erupted last month when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic and travel ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism and being an ally of regional foe Iran, charges that Doha denies.

 The countries have threatened further sanctions against Qatar if it does not comply with their list of 13 demands presented to Doha through Kuwait 10 days ago.

 The demands include closing a Turkish military base in Qatar and shutting the Al Jazeera pan-Arab television network, which Doha also rejected. 

 Foreign ministers from the four countries will meet in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss Qatar, Egypt said on Sunday.

 "At the invitation of Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, there will be a quartet meeting of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in Cairo on Wednesday July 5 to follow up on the developing situation regarding relations with Qatar," Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement.

 A State Department official said on Sunday that the United States encourages "all parties to exercise restraint to allow for productive diplomatic discussions. We are not going to get ahead of those discussions. We fully support Kuwaiti mediation." 

 Qatar's Gulf critics accuse Al Jazeera of being a platform for extremists and an agent of interference in their affairs. The network has rejected the accusations and said it will maintain its editorial independence.

 

 FRESH PENALTIES

 Gulf countries have insisted the demands were non- negotiable.

 The UAE ambassador to Russia has said that Qatar could face fresh sanctions if it does not comply with the demands. 

 Gulf states could ask their trading partners to choose between working with them or with Doha, he said in a newspaper interview last week.

 They have not specified what further sanctions they could impose on Doha, but commercial bankers in the region believe that Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini banks might receive official guidance to pull deposits and interbank loans from Qatar. 

 A more serious sanction would be to ban investors from holding Qatari assets, but authorities have given no sign of doing this.

 Qatar's stock market fell sharply on Sunday. The Qatari stock index <.QSI> sank as much as 3.1 percent in thin trade, bringing its losses to 11.9 percent since June 5, when Saudi and the other countries cut diplomatic and trade ties.

 The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, played down the chances of an escalation, saying "the alternative is not escalation but parting ways", suggesting Qatar may be forced out of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

 The Western-backed body was formed in 1981 in the wake of Iran's Islamic Revolution and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.

 Speaking in Washington last week, the Qatari foreign minister said the GCC was set up to guard against external threats. 

 "When the threat is coming from inside the GCC, there is a suspicion about the sustainability of the organization," Sheikh Mohammed told reporters.

 

 "DAVID AND GOLIATH"

 Qataris appeared defiant on Sunday, with newspapers decrying a "siege" and sharing on social media a cartoon of David and Goliath to illustrate Qatar's struggle with its larger neighbors.

 A Qatari artist whose portrait of Qatar's emir has been draped from skyscrapers and affixed to car windows across the capital signed T-shirts for Qataris at a museum on Saturday.

 "As you see, the photo is now all over, it's a sign of loyalty to the emir and love for the country," he said. 

 Saudi Arabia's permanent representative to the United Nations, Abdullah bin Yahiya al-Moallemi, said on Twitter that Qatar had failed to take opportunities offered by its neighbors in the past to stop supporting terrorism.

 "Qatar had insisted on shaking the security of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and interfering in the affairs of countries in the region," Moallemi said.

 The crisis has hit travel, food imports and ratcheted up tensions in the Gulf and sown confusion among businesses, while pushing Qatar closer to Iran and Turkey.

 But it has not hit energy exports from Qatar, the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas and home to the region's biggest U.S. military base.

 The rift opened days after U.S. President Donald Trump met Arab leaders in Riyadh and called for unity against regional threats such as Iran and hardline Islamist militant groups.

 

 (Reporting by Sylvia Westall, Tom Finn, Rania El Gamal, Philip Pullella and Yeganeh Torbati; Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Cairo; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sandra Maler) </s> RIYADH: Bahrain sees no resolution in sight to a diplomatic row between Qatar and its neighbors, which cut diplomatic and trade ties with the tiny Gulf Arab state nearly a year ago.

 “The information in our hands today does not indicate any glimmer of hope for a solution now, as the matter does not happen suddenly,” Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa told Alsharq Alawsat newspaper on Sunday.

 Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt severed travel and trade ties with Qatar last June, alleging it was backing Iran and supporting terrorism. Qatar denies this and says the boycott is an attempt to impinge on its sovereignty and rein in its support for reform.

 After initially disrupting Qatar’s imports and triggering the withdrawal of billions of dollars from its banks by depositors from the four states, the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas quickly developed new trade routes and deployed tens of billions of dollars from its sovereign wealth fund to protect its domestic lenders.

 The dispute has evaded mediation attempts by Kuwait and Washington, which has strong alliances with both sides and fears the split among Sunni Muslim US allies could benefit Iran in a decades-old tussle for influence in the Middle East.

 Bahrain’s foreign minister said Qatar was prolonging the crisis by taking its case to Western allies, instead of dealing with it inside the Gulf Arab bloc.

 “We were expecting from the beginning of the crisis with Qatar that the emir of Qatar would go to Saudi (Arabia) but this did not happen,” he told the pan-Arab newspaper.

 Saudi and UAE officials have said that Doha has yet to meet 13 demands made by the four states, including closing the state-funded Al Jazeera television station and reducing ties to Iran.

 UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said last week on Twitter that Qatar had not dealt wisely with those demands: “Perhaps the passing of a year of the boycott will produce a new thought and a wiser approach from Doha”. </s> Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Maldives cut diplomatic ties Monday with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Qatar's Foreign Affairs Ministry said the measures are "unjustified and are based on baseless and unfounded allegations."

Last month, reports quoted Qatari leader Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani as questioning U.S. hostility toward Iran and claiming "tensions" between Qatar and the United States. Those reports were published on the Qatar News Agency website.

Qatar said it had been the victim of a "shameful cybercrime." Despite Doha's official denial, media outlets in several Gulf countries reported the emir's comments as fact.

Although Qatar claims the posted comments were false, the country has long been seen by its neighbors as supporting Islamists in the region - particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist political group outlawed by both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Doha before in 2014 over its backing of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member. Eight months later, the envoys returned when Qatar forced a number of Brotherhood members to leave the country.

United States: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he does not expect Monday's actions to have an impact on the fight against terrorism in the region or globally. He urged all of the parties to address their disagreements.

Tillerson said that if there's any role the U.S. can play "in terms of helping them address those" issues, "we think it is important" that the Gulf Cooperation Council "remain unified."

Saudi Arabia: "(Qatar) embraces multiple terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at disturbing stability in the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS (Islamic State) and al-Qaida," Saudi state news agency SPA said. Saudi Arabia also shut down Qatar-based Al Jazeera news' local office Monday, according to state media.

Egypt: Through its state news agency said that Qatar's policy "threatens Arab national security and sows the seeds of strife and division within Arab societies according to a deliberate plan aimed at the unity and interests of the Arab nation." </s> Baku. 5 June. REPORT.AZ/ Residents of Qatar are hastily buying food and drinking water amid the rupture of diplomatic relations with number of countries. Report informsnews portal Youm7 writes."Residents rushed to all nearby grocery stores and supermarkets, buy up milk, water, rice, eggs.

Products are taken from stores by cars, the shelve are immediately emptied after the news about the closure of the borders with Saudi Arabia, through which a large flow of food was going, "eyewitnesses reported.According to them, "nothing like this has ever been seen."

According to the Al Jazeera TV channel, in the area of the Saudi-Qatar border, heavy trucks are accumulated that can not enter the territory of Qatar.

Notably, today, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and moved to close off access to the Gulf country over what they say is the country's support of terrorism.After them, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives also announced the break of diplomatic relations with Qatar. </s> DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar said on Wednesday a decision by four Arab states to add 18 groups and individuals allegedly linked to Doha to their "terrorist" lists was "a disappointing surprise" and that it was doing all it could to fight extremism.

 Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain put another nine groups based in Yemen and Libya and nine people from several Arab countries on the blacklist, saying all were associated with Qatar.

 "(The new list) comes as a disappointing surprise that the blockading countries are still pursuing this story as part of their smear campaign against Qatar," Sheikh Saif Bin Ahmed al-Thani, director of the Gulf kingdom's Government Communications Office, said in a statement sent to Reuters.

 "This latest list provides further evidence that the blockading countries are not committed to the fight against terrorism. As we have previously stated, all individuals with links to terrorism in Qatar have been prosecuted."

 Sheikh Saif said Qatar constantly reviews its anti-terror laws to "remain on the front foot in the fight against extremism and terror financing".

 The four countries severed relations with Qatar on June 5, accusing the major gas-exporting Gulf state of financing terrorism, meddling in the affairs of Arab countries and cozying up to their arch-rival Iran.

 Western-backed efforts by Kuwait to mediate in the dispute, the worst between the Gulf states in years, have so far yielded little progress. On Wednesday, remarks by a senior UAE official suggested no compromise would come any time soon.

 It was important to look beyond "crisis" and to think of it as a "new set of relations in (the) Gulf replacing old ones," UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter, adding that the current state was set to continue.

 "We have to go on without Qatar; a conservative Gulf monarchy, in (a) totally anachronistic place. Promoting policies and values it does not practice," he wrote.

 The boycotting countries want Qatar to cut back ties with Iran, close down a Turkish military base in Qatar and shut the Al Jazeera TV channel, which they view as critical of their governments.

 Qatar and Turkey have been important backers of the Muslim Brotherhood movement that has challenged entrenched Arab rulers. Qatar, however, said last month that charges of support for Islamist militancy "hold no foundation in fact".

 Doha signed an agreement earlier this month with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson aimed at combating terrorist financing, part of a U.S. effort to end the worst rift between Western-allied Arab states for years.

 In Tuesday's statement, the four countries accused Qatari, Kuwaiti and Yemeni nationals of helping raise funds for al Qaeda militants. Their blacklist now include three Yemeni charities, three Libyan media outlets, two armed groups and a religious foundation, some of which are already subject to U.S. sanctions.

 

 (Editing by Sylvia Westall, Larry King)
Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the internationally recognized government of Yemen sever diplomatic ties with Qatar, ordering Qatari citizens in those countries to be expelled as well as cutting all land, air and sea connections. "National security," "media incitement" and Qatar's support of Iran are variously cited.