Qatar using Twitter to stoke dissent

Saudi Arabia, which is leading a four-country blockade of Gulf neighbour Qatar, yesterday accused Doha of being behind over 23,000 Twitter accounts it blames for trying to stoke dissent in Saudi Arabia.

"We found over 23,000 Twitter accounts driven by Qatar, some of them linked to accounts calling for 'revolution' in Saudi Arabia," Information Minister Awwad Saleh al-Awwad told AFP during a visit to Paris.

They included the @mujtahidd account, which claims to have the inside track on the Saudi royal household and has over 1.8 million followers, he said.

The account, which has backed Qatar, claimed that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates had set out to overthrow Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani but decided against after coming under pressure from the United States, an ally of both Riyadh and Doha.

Al-Awwad accused a London-based Saudi dissident, Saad al-Faqih, of being behind the account, "together with Qatar".

His remarks came as Saudi Arabia vowed to push on with its month-old boycott of Qatar after the emirate refused to meet a list of demands to end the diplomatic crisis.

These include Doha ending support for the Muslim Brotherhood and closing its flagship broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

Saudi Arabia and its supporters have severed air, sea and ground links with Qatar, cutting off vital routes for imports including food.

Qatar has dismissed the demands as "unrealistic".

Meanwhile, Germany's foreign minister said he no longer sees the risk of military escalation in the Gulf standoff.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that, while the reaction sounded harsh, many demands that were initially made were no longer mentioned.

Gabriel visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and mediator Kuwait this week as the Saudis and others seek to isolate Qatar over its alleged support for extremists.

He said Germany's intelligence service would participate in efforts to clear up the accusations by Qatar's neighbours.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have not said what steps they could take next, but there are fears of a wider embargo that would hurt the Qatari economy. Credit ratings agency Moody's announced it was changing Qatar's outlook to negative over the crisis.