November 8, 2022

France, Qatar, FIFA and ISIS


France has always had a soft spot for radical Islamists. Let's hope karma comes around.


An excerpt from, "French company fined $777 million and pleads guilty to paying ISIS as terror group killed Westerners" By Eamon Javers and Dan Mangan, CNBC, October 18, 2022:

Lafarge SA on Tuesday pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $777.8 million to resolve a U.S. federal criminal charge related to the French company's payments to ISIS and another terror group to keep a cement plant operating in Syria.

The $10.24 million in payments to ISIS, the al-Nusrah Front and intermediaries were made from August 2013 through October 2014, and occurred even as the terror group was kidnapping and killing Westerners.

"Lafarge has admitted and taken responsibility for its staggering crime," said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in a statement. "Never before has a corporation been charged with providing material support and resources to foreign terrorist organizations."
An excerpt from, "Qatar Getting the World Cup Over U.S. Was Linked to $14B Arms Deal: Ex-FIFA Boss" By Dan Ladden-Hall, Daily Beast, November 8, 2022:
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter called the decision to host the 2022 soccer World Cup in Qatar a “mistake” which came about after the personal lobbying of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, Blatter said FIFA’s Executive Committee initially wanted to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to the U.S. “It would have been a gesture of peace if the two long-standing political opponents had hosted the World Cup one after the other,” Blatter said.
An excerpt from, "The Two Frances" By Thierry Meyssan, Voltairenet.org, December 30, 2019:
Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron and Emir Al-Thani created a new Libyan central bank and a new oil company to work with Total and BP. The CNTL was allowed to sell Libyan oil itself on the international market, under Qatar’s control, and to keep the profits. The lure of profit was too strong and no one was able to wait until the end of the conflict. In a letter to the Emir, the CNTL confirmed that it allocated 35% of the crude oil to France; a proportion that corresponds to the proportion of French bombardments in relation to all those of the Coalition.

In November 2011, Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative and former Secretary General of Amnesty International, Ian Martin, organized the boat transfer of 1,500 jihadists from Al Qaeda to Turkey [5]. Officially these men, single and armed, are "refugees". They are under the authority of Abdelhakim Belhadj - who has not left office in Tripoli - and Mehdi Al-Harati. They land in Turkey and are transported by buses chartered by MIT (Turkish Secret Service) to Jabal Al-Zouia in Syria. They constitute the first unit of the Free Syrian Army (ASL) under French command. Belhadj will return to Libya at Christmas, after being recognized in Syria by a Spanish journalist from ABC. Mehdi Al-Harati will then create another group, Liwaa Al-Umma (the Islamic Nation Brigade), to train Syrian fighters. In September 2012, this group will return to the free Syrian army.