Qatar will be front row on the international stage like never before when the FIFA World Cup kicks off later this month.
The small, wealthy nation, located on a peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf, has seen its international profile rise as Doha harnessed its huge offshore natural gas fields to make it one of the world’s richest per capita.
With those funds, he has organized the tournament, in addition to creating the most well-known satellite news channel in the Arab world, Al Jazeera; build a major military base housing US troops and become a reliable interlocutor for the West, including with the Taliban.
Here’s a look at some more Qatar facts ahead of the World Cup:
QATAR’S PLACE IN THE WORLD
Qatar is located on the Arabian Peninsula and shares a land border with Saudi Arabia. It is also close to the island nation of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, where Abu Dhabi and Dubai are located. On the other coast of the Persian Gulf is Iran, with whom it shares a huge offshore natural gas field. Qatar has an area similar to that of Jamaica and most of its 2.9 million inhabitants live around the capital, Doha, which is on its eastern coast. It is a mainly flat and desert country where, in summer, the temperature exceeds 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) with high humidity.
GOVERNMENT
Qatar is an autocratic nation led by its emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, 42, who assumed power in June 2013 after the abdication of his father. He has absolute power, although a council of 45 members offers him advice. As in other Arab Gulf nations, political parties are banned. The right to form trade unions and to strike remains very limited and there are no independent human rights organizations operating in the country. Barely 10% of its population are citizens enjoying vast government benefits, and nationalization is rare.
HISTORY
The Al Thani family has ruled Qatar since 1847, though first under the Ottoman Empire and later under the British. It became an independent nation in 1971, following the departure of the British from the region. Oil exports began after World War II, but 1997 did not start shipping liquefied natural gas to the world. That new money fueled his regional ambitions: He founded the satellite television station Al Jazeera, which brought an Arab perspective to the media that helped fuel the Arab Spring protests in 2011. He also launched Qatar Airways, a major airline for the transit between East and West.
INTERNATIONAL POLICY
Qatar follows an ultra-conservative form of Sunni Islam called Wahhabism, though unlike neighboring Saudi Arabia, foreigners are allowed to drink alcohol. His faith conditions politics. Qatar backed Islamists in the Arab Spring, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, as well as those who rose up against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Al Jazeera became famous for disseminating the communiqués of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It has served as an intermediary for the Palestinian insurgent group Hamas, in addition to hosting the negotiations between the United States and the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021. His support for the Islamists, in part, earned him a boycott of several years by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which ended when Joe Biden was preparing to reach the White House.
ITS MILITARY IMPORTANCE
After allowing Western troops to base themselves there during the 1991 Gulf War, Qatar built its massive Al Udeid airbase for more than $1 billion. US forces began using it in secret after 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan. Its use was made public during a trip to the Middle East by then-Vice President Dick Cheney in March 2002, although secrecy about its presence continued for years. Washington moved its military Central Command headquarters to Al Udeid in 2003 and launched air operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, including during the rise of the Islamic State extremist group and the evacuation of Kabul in 2021. It is now home to some 8,000 American soldiers. Turkey also has a military base in Qatar.