France seeks Qatar defence cooperation amid tensions

French ministries battle for influence over online counterinterference effort 

The French foreign and defence ministries are vying for leadership on strategic communication in response to foreign propaganda, while Viginum, an agency created to fight online interference, and the intelligence services are increasingly cooperating on its monitoring.

• UNITED STATES/AFGHANISTAN - Islamabad and Doha aid CIA-Taliban meeting.

• UNITED KINGDOM - Intelligence issues in British space strategy.

• RUSSIA - Intelligence services at heart of new Ukraine coordination council.

• SERBIA - Vucic blends geopolitics with internal security.

Qatar's French Mirage head for Jakarta 

Initially considered for training missions in France, then promised to Bulgaria, 12 French Air Force Mirage will instead wing their way to Indonesia, whose government is trying to wean itself off Russian materiel.

UAE's sovereign fund Tawazun seeks military procurement role in the French mould 

Tawazun, the UAE's civil sovereign fund which handles military procurement, is being empowered to coordinate all state military programmes under the impetus of national security adviser Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The fund is seeking advisers to help it build a more structured local defence industry.

CS Group and Thales hope for windfall from Franco-Qatari anti-drone warfare cooperation 

With the 2022 Football World Cup looming, French companies have set their sights on Qatar's major anti-drone contracts. The firms are backed in their efforts by France's army, national gendarmerie and interior ministry.

Barzan Holdings, Doha's mystery defence project, gets off the ground 

The isolated emirate is poised to launch its own public defence investment fund.

Bettahar Boudjellal, the discreet guardian of Qatar's secrets 

Based in Doha for over a decade, the Franco-Algerian lawyer may turn out to be an unexpected link in the chain between the PSG spying affair and the 'Qatargate' affair at the European parliament. The figure at the centre of the Paris football club inquiry, the lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane, recently launched legal action against him in Algeria, while Belgian investigators want to question him about his links to the MEP scandal.