TEL AVIV — President Barack Obama ignored repeated warnings from Sunni Arab countries about Qatar’s ties to jihadist organizations in Syria and elsewhere, an Arab intelligence source told Breitbart Jerusalem.

According to the source, a number of Arab countries, including Jordan and Egypt, raised the issue of suspect connections between Qatar and the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda, and other jihadist organizations many times, “but President Obama chose to ignore the warnings of the Arab countries.”

He continued: “The Obama administration was prisoner to the perception that the Muslim Brotherhood was a significant component in American interests and Qatar is the political and regional patron of the Muslim Brotherhood, so the administration refused to confront the facts presented to it, especially with the media and economic support provided by Qatar and various Qatari funds to groups like the Nusra Front and others.”

The source said that prior to the crisis in Syria, Arab and Western intelligence sources presented Obama with information regarding relations between Qatar and the Taliban, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and even Hezbollah, “but the Obama administration preferred to bury its head in the sand and not do anything.”

“The emergence of terrorist organizations in Syria is in part a result of the lack of American action. The international efforts to confront these organizations today could have been much simpler if the administration hadn’t turned a blind eye to the tremendous support the jihadists and terrorist organizations received from Qatar.”

The source added, “The fact that Qatari intelligence mediates between terrorist organizations, particularly al-Qaeda, and other countries to secure the release of foreign journalists or religious hostages, as happened with the 19 monks who were abducted, should send the message that the Qataris are playing a very dangerous double game.”

According to the source, “Because the American administration was determined to get rid of President (Bashar) Assad’s regime at all costs, and because the Muslim Brotherhood initially played a key role in the Syrian opposition, the cooperation between Qatar and the Islamist organizations reached dimensions that had already made it difficult to control these organizations and sources within these organizations began to play an independent and very dangerous role.”