Barbara Plätusher

These are areas where you do have some U.S. economic interests. Now, the Interior Ministry did not specify the areas when it put out the notice of the evacuations, but from what we understand were people received alerts. One of them was the center of the city and a place called Mushereb.

So you have there companies like Google and American Express, also some Qatari government offices. And then there is a place that is known as Education City. It's a large 12-acre campus that also has a technical compound, and there you have a presence of Microsoft. And there were alerts there for evacuation as well, presumably because of the Microsoft office, but there are also branches of six American universities there. And where would these people be going once they've evacuated?

Well, we didn't get that information, but there have been evacuations here before. There was a similar area-specific evacuation, I think, last week around the U.S. embassy, and the Qatari interior ministry has said that they provide places for them. So they have a system for evacuations when they need to happen. What we heard was that the evacuation order in Mushaita came through just after midnight, I think.

People then rushed to underground car parks to take shelter because the alert said evacuate immediately to the nearest safe place. And then we had that enormous explosion that echoed around the city just at 1.30 in the morning. So that was an immediate threat it seems. But in terms of whether they have to stay longer before they can go back, I think the government is going to make arrangements for them. And briefly, what is the view of Qatar in terms of how long this will continue?

Luulen, että se on kuten kaikkea muualla. Kaikki miettivät, kuinka kauan se jatketaan. Heidän suurin huomio on, kuinka paljon vaikutusta se jatketaan, kun se jatketaan. Tietysti, kuten Frank sanoi, se on vaikuttanut ekonomiin, turismiin, öljyyn ja niin edelleen, kuten olemme osoittaneet.

But then also, once it ends, what will they be left with? The Americans are looking for a victory that they can then say, we've done it and we can go. But the Gulf Arab states, including Qatar, are going to be left with whatever the result is, with an Iran that has been quite radically bombarded, but the regime is still in place, possibly in a more hard line and radical form. So there's a lot of concerns here.