According to the newspaper, after almost two years of negotiations, Doha allegedly decided to pay some $700 million to the Iranian Shia militants groups, and between $200 million and $300 million was paid to the Islamist groups in Syria, mostly to the Tahrir al-Sham.
Qatar’s deal with militant groups angered its neighbors in the Persian Gulf. The discontent ultimately lead to most of Gulf nations to sever diplomatic ties with Doha on Monday, as they considered Qatar's payment an excuse to finance extremists and terrorists in the region, the newspaper reported.
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.
The row between the countries intensified one week after the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, when the Qatari news agency posted a speech supporting the building relations with Iran on behalf of the country's emir. Afterwards, the official representative of the Qatari Foreign Ministry said that the agency's site was hacked and the emir's speech was published by hackers and had nothing to do with the Qatari leader.
