Dubai Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan, who earlier courted controversy by tweeting that the illegal siege of Qatar would end immediately if the state gave up hosting rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has struck again.
The senior UAE security official has now sparked outrage after calling for the bombing of Al Jazeera, the Doha-based media network.
In a series of posts on Twitter on Friday, Khalfan launched a scathing attack against Al Jazeera, accusing it of provoking a bomb and gun assault on a mosque in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
على التحالف أن يقصف الآلة الداعية للارهاب..قناة داعش والقاعدة والنصرة جزيرة الارهاب
“The alliance must bomb the machine of terrorism ... the channel of ISIL, Al Qaeda and the Al Nusra front, Al Jazeera the terrorists,” the former police chief tweeted out to his 2.42m followers.
“For how long will they [Al Jazeera] continue to tamper with the security of Egypt and the Arab world?” he tweeted.
Khalfan then posted an image of Al Jazeera's iconic logo superimposed in front of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, head of ISIS group, former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and 91-year-old Islamic theologian Yusuf Al Qaradawi.
جزيرة الارهاب pic.twitter.com/DDqqFXoOHx
Yaser Abuhilalah, managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic, said Khalfan bore ‘full responsibility for any attack against Al Jazeera and its employees.’
“The UAE needs to respond (to Khalfan's comments). He's not just an Emirati citizen but an official in the UAE government,” Abuhilalah told Al Quds Al Arabi.
“He’s using a moment of anger and grief over the terrible attack in Sinai to fuel his hatred against Al Jazeera.
“What Dhahi Khalfan is doing is incitement to terrorism. Terrorism isn’t just limited to committing a crime, but any act or statement that paves the way for a terrorist act or incites it, and incitement to terrorism is terrorism itself,” he said.
Khalfan has made several controversial comments in the past but has never been prosecuted under the UAE’s anti-hate speech laws.
In March of last year, he made headlines after urging Arabs to ally with Israel against ‘enemies of the Middle East’ — a veiled attack against Iran and the region’s Shia Muslims.
And earlier this year, the 66-year-old tweeted his ‘complete support’ for US President Donald Trump's Muslim ban.
Khalfan railed against Iraqis, Somalis and Iranians, nationalities included in the US travel restrictions, calling them ‘unproductive groups,’ mocked the war and poverty afflicting Iraq, and would also call on the UAE to annex Qatar, referring to it as an ‘eighth emirate.’
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