Four Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE which cut diplomatic ties with Qatar earlier this week, have designated the prominent scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and clerics on a terrorist list.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt said in a statement published by Saudi state media that 59 people, including the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and 12 organisations were named on the list.
The announcement increases pressure on Qatar in a political campaign to isolate the tiny oil-rich country, which hosts the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East.
It follows a previous listing of scores of groups in 2014 by Saudi Arabia and the UAE during a previous fallout with Qatar.
A Qatari official had no immediate comment on the designations but said that Qatar complies with UN Security Council resolutions on countering terrorism including eradicating the funding of terrorism.
Among the 18 Qataris listed are alleged “terrorism financiers”, as well as senior members of the royal family, a former interior minister, prominent politicians and businessmen.
Former Libyan resistance commander, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, is one of five Libyans listed, and prominent Salafi cleric Wagdi Ghoneim are among the 26 Egyptian nationals.
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The list also includes Iranian-linked Shia groups in Bahrain such as the February 14 movement, Saraya Mukhtar and the Saraya Ashtar.
The terror list also names two Jordanian, two Bahraini, three Kuwaiti, a Saudi, Yemeni and Emirati scholars.
