On Friday, Dubai Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan unleashed a tweet-storm to millions of his followers - calling for the bombing of Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based media network. Khalfan’s tweet-storm was in response to the horrific terrorist attack in northern Sinai that killed more than 300 people, including at least two dozen children.
Interesting enough, Al Jazeera was the only media outlet to report on their own bomb-threat as most outlets fell silent. Here is how Al Jazeera interpreted Khalfan’s tweets,
“The alliance must bomb the machine of terrorism … the channel of ISIL, al-Qaeda and the al-Nusra front, Al Jazeera the terrorists,” the former police chief and now head of security in the Emirate told his 2.42 million followers on the social media site.
“For how long will they [Al Jazeera] continue to tamper with the security of Egypt and the Arab world?” he tweeted.
Khalfan then posted an image of Al Jazeera’s iconic logo superimposed in front of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and 91-year-old Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
????? ??????? pic.twitter.com/DDqqFXoOHx
— ???? ????? ???? (@Dhahi_Khalfan) November 24, 2017
In particular, one of Khalfan’s tweets translated on twitter and said, “presumably include Faisal al-Qassem Ahmed Mansour and all broadcasters Al Jazeera terrorism on the list of terrorists”.
????? ????? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? ??????? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ????? ??????????.
— ???? ????? ???? (@Dhahi_Khalfan) November 25, 2017
Yaser Abuhilalah, managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic, released a statement in response to Khalfan’s tweet-storm,
What Dhahi Khalfan is doing is incitement to terrorism. Terrorism is not just limited to committing a crime, but any act or statement that paves the way for a terrorist act or incites it, and incitement to terrorism is terrorism itself.
Abuhilalah added
“he is using a moment of anger and grief over the terrible attack in Sinai to fuel his hatred against Al Jazeera.”
The campaign against Qatar started to intensify on June 05, when UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain cut ties with the country, accusing it of supporting “terrorism”, a claim that Doha has denied. Tensions erupted again in September, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE considered military action in Qatar, but war efforts were thwarted by President Trump.
Aggression towards Qatar by Arab countries have primarily been in response to the country’s support of Iran.
In July, countries in the region served Qatar with a list of 13 demands and one of them stated: “shut down Al Jazeera and its affiliate stations.”
As for the events leading up to Khalfan’s tweet-storm about bombing Al Jazeera - it really comes at no surprise. War in the Middle East is pending.