WASHINGTON – Qatar’s defense minister says Saudi Arabia and the United ArabEmirates had planned a military invasion of his country at the beginning ofa diplomatic crisis that erupted last year when several states cut offdiplomatic relations with Doha.In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday, Khalid bin Mohammad AlAttiyah said Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had “tried everything” to destabilizeQatar, but “we have diffused this intention.”
“They have intentions to intervene militarily,” said Attiyah.
“They tried to provoke the tribes. They used mosques against us. Then theytried to get some puppets to bring in and replace our leaders,” he added.
Attiyah, who traveled to the United States last week and held talks withhis US counterpart Jim Mattis, described the beginning of the crisis by theSaudi-led bloc as an “ambush” that was “miscalculated.”
Asked about Qatar’s relations with Iran, Attiyah said that Qatar maintained”friendly relations with everyone.”
The Qatari defense minister said that the Saudi-led bloc had “failed” inits attempt to replace Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with anew leader.
“They put their puppet, [Sheikh Abdullah bin Ali Al Thani, a relative of aformer Qatari emir], on TV,” he said.
“They can’t do anything. The Qatari people love their emir,” he noted.
Back in June, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE imposed a trade anddiplomatic embargo on Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism, anallegation strongly denied by Doha.
The Saudi-led quartet presented Qatar with a list of demands and gave it anultimatum to comply with them or face consequences.
The demands included closing the Al Jazeera broadcaster, removing Turkishtroops from Qatar’s soil, scaling back ties with Iran, and ending relationswith Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Doha, however, refused to meet the demands and denounced them asunreasonable.
Amid the diplomatic crisis, Abu Dhabi has taken an especially tough linetowards Doha.
The Qatari former deputy prime minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah,told Spanish daily ABC last October that the UAE had planned a militaryinvasion of Qatar with thousands of US-trained mercenaries, but it failedto secure the support of Washington.
A series of leaked documents revealed in November 2017 that the UAE had astunning detailed plot to launch an economic war on Qatar.
Dubai security chief Dhahi Khalfan also once called on the Saudi-ledcoalition involved in a deadly military campaign against Yemen to bomb AlJazeera.