Fox News: Will Qatar let Gitmo 5 ‘Magically Disappear?’

Fox News: Will Qatar let Gitmo 5 'Magically Disappear?' (Daily Beast)

Under the terms of the deal to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Qatar will keep the senior Taliban figures in house arrest for a year. But U.S. officials say relying on the emirate is unwise.

President Obama and his national security Cabinet expressed confidence this week in a still-secret agreement with the kingdom of Qatar to keep watch over the five senior Taliban figures released from Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

But privately, many U.S. military and intelligence officials say it’s unwise to rely on Qatar to monitor the Gitmo 5. U.S. officials have had long-standing concerns that Qatar has often turned a blind eye to terrorist financing inside its borders and failed to keep track of a former Guantanamo inmate who was transferred to the emirate at the end of the Bush administration. “We know that many wealthy individuals in Qatar are raising money for jihadists in Syria every day,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast. “We also know that we have sent detainees to them before, and their security services have magically lost track of them.”