CEP Advisiory Board Member Sir Ivor Roberts writes: “This week, a rare light was cast into the shadows of state sponsorship of terrorism. Documents obtained by the BBC reveal that in 2015, Qatar paid approximately $1 billion to one of the most dangerous Iraqi terrorist organisations, Kata’ib Hezbollah – an offshoot of the namesake organisation in Lebanon – who had taken hostage 28 Qatari nationals, including two close relatives of the Qatari Foreign Minister. The payment was ostensibly made to set hostages free but make no mistake: this was terrorist financing plain and simple. It was a direct transfer of funds knowingly made to support the activities of some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Kata’ib Hezbollah collaborates with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, and with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Some of the funds made their way to a number of other terrorist groups, including the infamous al-Nusra Front.”