Saudi Arabia, UAE hired US firm for anti-Qatar documentary

After almost a year of the onset of the U.S.-backed Gulf crisis, in which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt severed relations with Qatar, covert details surrounding the embargo continue to emerge one after the other, the last of which came from the producers of a film defaming Qatar.

It was revealed that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Selman and UAE’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayid are behind the black propaganda plans against Qatar.

It was recently uncovered that these two countries hired a U.S.-based firm, Andreae & Associates, to create a six-part movie called "Qatar: A Dangerous Alliance" to discredit the gulf state.

The company’s current CEO Charles Andreae, who is also a registered lobbyist, previously had a $500 million contract with the Pentagon to create fake terrorist videos in Iraq while he was heading PR firm Bell Pottinger.

“In August 2017, Andreae, former CEO of Bell Pottinger USA, was given over $500,000 to produce a six-part film linking Qatar with global terrorism,” according to a report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Copies of the film were given out at a Hudson Institute event where U.S. President Donald Trump’s former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was a key speaker. The video has been viewed over 700,000 times on YouTube.

The contract of the film was exposed when a law passed requiring all U.S. companies to disclose lobbying and PR contracts for foreign clients.

The UAE had formerly paid $2.5 million to Elliott Broidy, who is close to Trump, to get Washington to stand against Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Yemen announced in June 2017 that they cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism, charges that Qatar denies. They also imposed a land, sea and air blockade, causing the largest diplomatic crisis in recent years.