The terror-sponsoring Arab states of Qatar and Dubai have now gained control of the London Stock Exchange.

QATAR has upped its share in London’s Stock Exchange to nearly 24 per cent, giving the gulf state and neighbour Dubai a controlling stake of nearly 52 per cent.

Quoting LSE sources, a Qatari newspaper reported the gas-rich Gulf state bought an additional 3 per cent of shares on Friday, a day after it bought a 20 per cent slice of Europe’s oldest stock exchange.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the investment unit of the Qatar government, initially bought a 20.8 per cent stake off two hedge funds.

This would put the QIA’s overall share in the LSE at nearly 24 per cent.

The United Arab Emirates’ group Borse Dubai meanwhile agreed to buy a 28 per cent LSE holding from Nasdaq, meaning the two now hold nearly 52 per cent of the stock exchange.

UPDATE at 9/23/07 10:12:42 pm:

As if this weren’t troubling enough, Persian Gulf states are also staging a takeover of the Nordic Exchange: Bidding war expected as Qatar buys into OMX.

Nordic market operator OMX looked set Thursday to become the centre of takeover bidding battle between Gulf rivals Dubai and Qatar.

In a deal announced early Thursday, Dubai market operator Borse Dubai and US group Nasdaq said they had joined forces to acquire OMX together in a deal that would give Borse Dubai 19.99 percent of US-based Nasdaq and 28 percent of the London Stock Exchange.

The companies had previously been competing to buy OMX.

But just when OMX’s fate appeared to be sealed, a state-owned Qatari investment fund jumped into the fray and bought 9.98 percent of OMX shares and urged OMX shareholders “to take no action with respect to the revised conditional offer by Nasdaq/Borse Dubai.”

Dubai and its neighbour Qatar are both seeking to become the Middle East’s centre of global trading. Both emirates have an independent market regulator.

Shares in OMX closed up by almost 7.69 percent at 269 kronor following speculation that Qatar’s interest in OMX could lead to a bidding war.

“Who knows how far the bidding could go, just like Dubai, they’ve (Qatar) got more money than God,” Thomas Johansson, an analyst at Kaupthing Bank, told financial newswire Thomson Financial News.

(Hat tip: Against Socialism.)