Wash Post: Sulaimani official reportedly received $50M for Qatar hostage release

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – An unnamed Sulaimani provincial official received $50 million for his role in helping to arrange the release of 25 Qatari hostages in 2017, according to a Washington Post report published on Saturday.

The 25 Qataris, including nine members of the royal family, along with two Saudis and a Pakistani, were kidnapped, while on a hunting trip in southern Iraq in December 2015.

The details of their kidnapping, as related by The Post, implicate Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, headed by Qasim al-Araji, who was long a senior figure in the Badr Organization, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia, and who was twice detained by US forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

In applying for a permit for their hunting excursion, the Qataris gave the coordinates of their camp to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, and Iraqi officials “made a surprise visit” to the camp, shortly before the hunting party was seized, The Post reported.

After the kidnapping, Qatar learned that the men were held by an obscure Shiite extremist group, linked to Kata’ib Hizbollah, which, like the Badr Organization, is a major Shiite militia with close ties to Iran.

Kata’ib Hizbollah was prominently involved in attacking US troops during OIF, and in 2009, it was designated a terrorist organization by the US government.

In confusing and prolonged discussions with Qatar, often through shadowy intermediaries, the kidnappers’ demands emerged. One key demand was money.

In the end, the Qataris agreed to provide $50 million to Qasim Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It was Soleimani who would eventually make the final call that secured the Qataris’ release.

The transaction was to take place in Sulaimani province, and an unnamed provincial official who “facilitated the negotiations” was to receive another $50 million, The Post said.

The leader of Kata’ib Hizbollah was to receive $25 million, an Iranian official (“Banhai”) $20 million, and a Kata’ib Hizbollah negotiator $5 million.

Following the release of the hostages on April 25, 2017, Qatar’s ambassador in Iraq confirmed the payments to his superiors.

“They are done and distributed,” he stated in a brief voice-mail message (The Post’sreporting is based on electronic intercepts provided by a foreign government).

The kidnappers’ second key demand was for a population transfer in Syria that would “forcibly uproot every resident of four strategically located towns,” The New York Times reported last month.

Lebanese Hizbollah, established by Iran and Syria in the 1980s, had two Sunni towns in Syria under siege; Qatari-funded radical Sunnis had two Shiite towns under siege.

Qatar facilitated the exchange by paying the radical Sunni groups $50 million. The population transfers “advanced Tehran’s larger goal of transforming Syria—along with Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen—into satellite states that will enshrine a dominant Iranian role across the region,” The Times said.

Saturday’s Washington Post report was the first such story to include details of the role of a Kurdish official in the Qatari hostage deal.

Last October, Tehran—namely, Quds Force commander Qasim Soleimani—engineered a military assault on Kirkuk by Iraqi forces, along with Iranian-supported Shiite militias.

The assault would not likely have succeeded, except that some elements from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Kirkuk broke Kurdish ranks and collaborated with Soleimani.

The new details in The Post report suggest that such collaboration between Iran and some Kurdish elements did not suddenly emerge in October but has a history.

Experts at a Hudson Institute seminar on Thursday criticized the Trump administration for not doing more to counter Iran’s increasing influence in Iraq, including, potentially, among the Kurds.

As Brookings Institution scholar Ranj Alaaldinstated, “Iran doesn’t play by the rules.” It intimidates, kills, bribes—and so forth. “But at the same time,” the Iranians “put themselves forward as partners,” including to groups aligned with the West, like the Kurd.

That is to say, Iran wields carrots and sticks ruthlessly, and, often, effectively.