Qatar said on Tuesday it has disrupted two sleeper cells working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and arrested ten operatives tasked with surveillance and sabotage.
“During interrogation, the suspects admitted their affiliation with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and that they had been tasked with espionage missions and sabotage activities,” reported the state-run Qatar News Agency (QNA).
QNA said seven of the suspects in custody were assigned to conduct surveillance on “vital and military facilities,” while the other three were supposed to carry out sabotage operations. The suspects reportedly had information about sensitive facilities in their possession when they were arrested.
Qatar quickly came under attack from Iran after Operation Epic Fury was launched, ostensibly targeting U.S. assets at first, although Iran’s indiscriminate attacks have been hitting civilian targets and national infrastructure as well.
The Qatari Ministry of Defense said it has detected three cruise missiles, 101 ballistic missiles, and 39 drones from Iran entering its airspace since Saturday.
“Qatar was surprised by these unjustified attacks,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said on Tuesday.
“There were attempts to attack Hamad International airport. They were all thwarted,” Ansari said.
The defense ministry said on Tuesday that an Iranian missile struck the U.S. airbase at Al Udeid, the largest American base in the Middle East. Several previous Iranian attacks on Al Udeid were intercepted, and the missile that finally made it through reportedly caused no injuries.
Qatari officials are indignant that Iran would attack them without hesitation, especially after Qatar paid a significant price over the years for attempting diplomacy with Tehran. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), led by Saudi Arabia, effectively blacklisted Qatar in 2017 because the Qataris were allegedly working with Iran to destabilize the other GCC governments. Qatar received warm applause from Tehran for refusing GCC demands to sever its ties with the world’s worst sponsor of terrorism.
Qatar withdrew from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) during the dispute, which lasted through the first Trump administration, concluding with a reconciliation brokered by the U.S. and Kuwait in 2021.
Qatar’s representative at the United Nations sent an angry letter to the United Nations on Monday, condemning Iran’s attacks as a “flagrant violation of its national sovereignty” and hinting that Qatar might respond “in a manner commensurate with the nature of the attack.”
The Qatari letter also condemned Iran’s indiscriminate attacks on the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, pledging “full solidarity” with the nations that once booted Qatar out of the GCC club for being too close to Iran.
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