{"id":32078,"date":"2019-02-06T15:24:23","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32078"},"modified":"2019-02-06T15:24:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T15:24:23","slug":"qatar-takes-delivery-of-first-french-built-rafale-jet-fighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32078","title":{"rendered":"Qatar takes delivery of first French-built Rafale jet fighter"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"91.4330244313\">\n<p class=\"speakable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/qatar.html\">Qatar<\/a> took delivery of the first of 36 Rafale multi-purpose fighter jets it ordered from French manufacturer Dassault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The hand-over ceremony on Wednesday in Merignac, in southwestern France, where the planes are built, was attended by Qatar Defence Minister Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and Dassault Aviation chief Eric Trappier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Qatar ordered 24 of the fighters in 2015, adding 12 more last year. It also has an option to buy 36 more.<\/p>\n<p>The twin-engine fighter has been in service with the French Air Force since 2004. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/france.html\">France<\/a> has also sold Mirage F1, Alpha Jets and Mirage 2000 fighters to Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>After failing to sell the Rafale abroad for several years, France finally won a contract from Egypt in 2015 for 24 jets, followed by the sale to Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>In September 2016, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/india.html\">India<\/a> also agreed to buy 36 of the fighters.<\/p>\n<p>Qatar has upped its defence spending after being diplomatically isolated by its Gulf neighbours.<\/p>\n<p>Since June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt have imposed a boycott on Qatar, accusing it of backing terrorism and being too close to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/iran.html\">Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Qatar denies the allegations and has accused the Saudi-led bloc of aiming to incite regime change in Doha.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Qatar took delivery of the first of 36 Rafale multi-purpose fighter jets it ordered from French manufacturer Dassault. The hand-over ceremony on Wednesday in Merignac, in southwestern France, where the planes are built, was attended by Qatar Defence Minister Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah and Dassault Aviation chief Eric Trappier. Qatar ordered 24 of the fighters&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}