Here - Seerecon

Transcription

Here - Seerecon

Security and Intelligence Series
Special Analytical Report
December 2014
SEERECON
From the Balkans
to ISIS
Militant Islamism in
Southeastern Europe
Copyright © 2014 by Gordon N. Bardos
SEERECON LLC
All rights reserved
From the Balkans to ISIS:
Militant Islamism in Southeastern Europe
Contents
Acknowledgments
ii
Abbreviations
iii
Executive Summary
iv
I.
Introduction
1
II.
The Origins and Ideology of Militant Islamism
in Southeastern Europe
2
III.
The Infrastructure of Militant Islamism
18
IV.
Iran in the Balkans
30
V.
A Micro-Case Study of Terrorist Networks:
The Bosnian Connections to the WTC Attacks
35
VI.
Policy Recommendations
40
Appendix 1: Balkan Jihadi/Extremist Threat Matrix
47
Appendix 2: Balkan Jihadi Fatalities in Iraq and Syria
51
Appendix 3: Estimating the Size of the Militant Islamist Movement
53
Appendix 4: Balkan Militant Islamist Websites/Electronic Media
60
Bibliography & Sources
90
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From the Balkans to ISIS
Acknowledgments
This report is an updated, expanded and revised version of work that has previously appeared in
a number of publications. For their kind permission to use these materials, I thank Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld of the American Center for Democracy (ACD), and Mr. James Denton, publisher of World
Affairs Journal (Washington, DC.)
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Abbreviations
AID—Agencija za Istraživanje i Dokumentaciju (“Agency for Research and Documentation”),
a secret intelligence service affiliated with Izetbegović’s Islamist party
AIO—Aktivna Islamska Omladina (“Active Islamic Youth), a Bosnia-based youth organization
composed of indigenous members of the Al Qaeda unit in the Bosnian jihad.
BIF—Bosanska Idealna Futura, incorporated in the US as the Benevolence International Foundation
BIK—Bashkesia Islame e Kosoves (Islamic Community of Kosovo)
ISIS—“Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”
IZBiH—Islamska Zajednica Bosne i Hercegovine (Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina)
LISBA—Levizja Islamike Bashkohu (Islamic Movement Unite)
OHR—Office of the High Representative
RS—Republika Srpska (Republic of Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia & Herzegovina)
SDA—Stranka Demokratske Akcije (“Party of Democratic Action”), Alija Izetbegovic’s
Islamist political party.
SHC—Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina
SJCRKC—Saudi Joint Committee for the Relief of Kosova and Chechnya
TWRA—“Third World Relief Agency,” an Austro-Bosnian Al Qaeda front group
VEVAK—“Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar,” the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence
and National Security, also known as MOIS.
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Executive Summary
•
Militant Islamism in southeastern Europe remains a distinctly minority-phenomenon. The
available empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests only 5-10 percent of the Balkan Muslim
populations adhere to it in some form. The majority of Balkan Muslims reject the views, attituders and actions described in this report.
•
Nevertheless, over the past several years the Balkans has emerged as a new front for militant
Islamism. In June 2010, Islamist extremists bombed a police station in the central Bosnian
town of Bugojno, killing one police officer and wounding six others. In February 2011, a
Kosovo radical killed two US servicemen at Frankfurt Airport. In October 2011, a Sandžak
Wahhabi attacked the US Embassy in Sarajevo. In April 2012, suspected Islamist extremists
murdered five Macedonian citizens outside Skopje. In the first six months of 2012 alone, some
200 Iranian “businessmen” entered Bosnia, including an individual Israeli intelligence has
tracked in Georgia, India and Thailand (all countries in which terrorist attacks have targeted
Israeli officials over the past two years). In July 2012, Hezbollah operatives bombed a bus full
of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria. In March 2013, a Hezbollah operative was discovered
monitoring Israeli citizens in Cyprus. In November 2013, a terrorist group composed of former
Syrian jihad volunteers was uncovered in Kosovo. Two Balkan jihadis also carried out
suicide-bombings in 2014.
•
The ideology of these groups and individuals is explicitly misogynistic, homophobic, anti-democratic, anti-American and anti-Semitic. Glorifications of violence, celebrations of jihad,
endorsements of suicide-terrorism, and the rejection of secular authorities and institutions are
frequent tropes of Balkan militant Islamists.
•
The growth of militant Islamism in southeastern Europe over the past two decades is not an
accidental byproduct of the wars of the 1990s; it is the result of a long-term, planned effort of
indigenous, clandestine Islamist circles operating in the Balkans since the 1930s.
•
Militant Islamist groups in the Balkans tend to be extra-systemic, created and operating in opposition to existing Islamic religious institutions, which throughout the region tend to be more
conservative and moderate.
•
The militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe is neither unified nor monolithic. Several
different factions exist, some more radical, others less so, some closer to the Iranians, some closer
to the Saudis. Considerable infighting and feuding exists between different factions and leaders.
•
Strongholds of Balkan Islamist militants provide the international jihadi movement with places
to hide, recruit and train new adherents, and plan operations against local and international
targets. Islamic “charities” and “NGO’s” provide jihadis with cover identities allowing them to
circulate between the Middle-East, Europe, and North America, and the ability to launder and
funnel monies to support terrorist actions and jihad around the globe.
•
Considerable variation can be observed in the attitudes and relationships of elites in Albania,
Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Kosovo towards militant Islamism. In Albania and Kosovo, the
predominantly Muslim-elites in power on the whole do not have an explicitly religious/Muslim
political or social agenda. In Bosnia & Herzegovina, militant Islamism is supported by small,
conspiratorial groups of militant Islamists that came to power in the 1990s, with hard-core elements of this group continuing to provide material support to the militant Islamist movement.
Secularly-oriented Muslims in Bosnia & Herzegovina disapprove of the movement.
•
Competition between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey for ideological/spiritual influence and
control over the Balkan Muslim populations has increased since the 1990s.
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•
A number of developments over the past two decades threaten to change the historically more
moderate nature of Islam in the Balkans. These include the infiltration of thousands of jihadis
from Afghanistan and the Middle-East into the region, the billions of dollars states such as Iran
and Saudi Arabia have been spending in southeastern Europe to spread their influence, and
the new generation of Balkan Islamic clerics educated in the Middle-East and indoctrinated in
more puritanical and extreme versions of Islam.
•
Two distinct types of individuals compose the militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe: 1) leaders tend to be clerics educated in the Middle-East; 2) lower-level adherents and
followers tend to be alienated, disoriented young people, often estranged from their families
and with a criminal background.
•
Analysts throughout the region report a consistent and successful effort by militant Islamists
to infiltrate local political, social, educational and security institutions. Security sector reform
in the region should thus focus on improving vertical coordination of existing security and
intelligence services with international bodies such as NATO and Interpol to compartmentalize
and limit the potential for security breaches. Horizontal integration of existing agencies and
services would only serve to expand the access militant Islamists and their sympathizers and
allies have to intelligence about their networks and activities.
•
International policy towards the spread of militant Islamism has been inconsistent, ranging
from denial of the problem outright to occasionally hysterical over-reactions. Efforts to deal
with the threat have been sacrificed for the sake of placating the movement’s Middle-Eastern
patrons. More resources need to be devoted to intelligence-gathering on Balkan militant Islamist groups to enhance their identification, isolation, and removal, and more coordination is
needed between regional and international authorities in combating the problem.
•
The danger confronting southeastern Europe and international policy in the region is not the establishment of radical Muslim states; it is that relatively small, clandestine groups of Islamist militants can use the area to provide material and logistical support for the global jihad movement.
•
There is an inverse relationship between the strength of militant Islamist movements in southeastern Europe and international efforts to create stable multiethnic democracies in the region:
the stronger militant Islamism becomes, the lesser the chances international and local actors
have to stabilize inter-religious and inter-ethnic relations in the Balkans, or to create stable,
tolerant, democratic states and societies.
•
The Balkan Blowback (i.e., the impact of Balkan volunteers to the Iraqi and Syrian jihads
returning to southeastern Europe) is already being felt and portends an upsurge in militant Islamist activity in the region over the coming 1-2 years.
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I.
Introduction
Since the fall of communism two and a half decades ago, militant Islamism has been planting
seeds and spreading roots in various parts of southeastern Europe, particularly the former Yugoslavia. 1 With the help of local allies, militant Islamists have established training bases, recruiting
stations, and safe-havens for would-be terrorists and terrorists on the run. Indeed, almost every
major terrorist action of the recent past has roots or connections to the Balkans,2 including the 9/11
attacks, the August 1998 U.S. African embassy bombings, the December 1999 Millenium Bomb
Plot targeting Los Angeles’ LAX Airport, the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden Harbor, the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, the November 2003 Istanbul bombings, the March
2004 Madrid Train bombings, the 7/7 London Underground bombing, the May 2007 Fort Dix
bomb plot, the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, the July 2009 Raleigh Group conspiracy, and the
January 2010 conspiracy to attack the New York subway system. The late Richard Holbrooke made
clear the dangerous extent to which militant Islamism has infiltrated southeastern Europe when he
noted that had it not been for the Dayton Peace Accords, “al-Qaeda would probably have planned
the Sept. 11 attacks from Bosnia, not Afghanistan,”3 and a recent analysis by Radio Free Europe
has noted that Bosnia has gone from being an importer of terrorists to and exporter.4
Thus, understanding the ideology, beliefs, and capacity of the various groups comprising the
militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe has become important for western security interests, and for the ramifications they may have on plans to integrate the region into Euro-Atlantic
political and economic structures. Unfortunately, a thorough review of the ideology and activities
of these groups is cause for considerable concern. What has been developing in southeastern Europe is a movement based on extreme forms of religious and ethnic intolerance, opposed to modern
conceptions of democracy, human rights and civil liberties, and virulently anti-American, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and homophobic.
Understanding the organization and infrastructure of militant Islamism in the Balkans is of
course a crucial matter in dealing with the phenomenon and in determining its capacity to threaten
U.S. and European security interests. Since the 1980s, militant Islamism in southeastern Europe has
evolved from a relatively small, marginal, and conspiratorial effort of a few hundred people into a
complex, multifaceted movement, comprising numerous bases in both urban and rural areas, extensive networks of organizations that can funnel monies and operational funds around the region and
throughout the world, and fully modern and contemporary propaganda machinery using the latest
social media to disseminate their ideology and facilitate communication amongst the movement’s
members and adherents.
While at present these individuals and groups account for only ±10 percent of the Muslim
populations in southeastern Europe, the extreme nature of their ideology, their organization, and
the aggressive way in which they promote their agenda is already complicating western efforts to
establish the tolerant, democratic, multiethnic states and societies Washington and Brussels claim
as their goal in the Balkans. Moreover, they are providing a dangerous stepping stone for the global
jihadis’ efforts to launch attacks in Europe and beyond.
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II. The Origins and Ideology of Militant Islamism in
Southeastern Europe
The origins of militant Islamism in southeastern Europe can most directly be traced to the life
and work of Bosnia’s late Islamist president, Alija Izetbegović.5 In the late 1930s, Izetbegović and
a conspiratorial group of like-minded Islamist extremists formed an organization called the Mladi
Muslimani (“Young Muslims”) whose goal, as Izetbegović personally noted, was the creation of a
“great Muslim state,”6 or as one author has described it, an “Islamistan” throughout the Balkans,
northern Africa, and the Middle-East,7 what today Abu el Baghdadi would call a caliphate. Towards
this goal, the Mladi Muslimani swore an oath asking Allah to grant them perseverance on their
“path of jihad” and their “uncompromising struggle against everything non-Islamic.”8 Tellingly, the
name of their underground journal was Mudžahid (“Holy Warrior”). Ideologically, the Mladi Muslimani were influenced by the emergence of the contemporaneous Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
and the members’ early writings suggest that they were a group of Balkan Islamic puritans opposed
to such things as Muslims associating with non-Muslims, the theater, the ballet, opera, circuses,
dancing, men shaking hands with women, and mixed-gender beaches or mixed-gender evening
promenades.9 The founders of the Mladi Muslimani claimed their goal was to produce Islamic “fanatics,”10 and looked to Islam in its purged, salafist form to provide an authentic Muslim alternative
to communism or fascism as a way of organizing society.11
During World War II, the Mladi Muslimani supported the idea of
Bosnia & Herzegovina becoming an autonomous unit within the Third
Reich, and ultimately a part of a global Islamic federation. The Germans, to their satisfaction, found “militant support” amongst the Mladi
Muslimani,12 and many members of the organization served as recruiters for the Bosnian SS “Handžar” division formed by the pro-German
Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Huseini. Izetbegović was allegedly a
member of the faction within the Mladi Muslimani who supported the
Handžar Division, and some Mladi Muslimani joined the unit outright.13
The goals of this pro-Nazi faction in Bosnian politics were laid out in
A Memorandum of the ‘National Committee’ of 1 November 1942 to
“Our goal was the creHis Excellency Adolf Hitler, the Fűhrer of the German People, which
ation
of a great Muslim
called on the Fűhrer to lead the “300-million Islamic nation of the East .
state.”
Alija Izetbegović
. . in the struggle against English imperialism, Jewry, Freemasonry and
on
the
Mladi
Muslimani
14
Bolshevism,” and went on to ask Hitler to make Bosnia a separate unit
within the Third Reich under the direct control of his personally appointed
administration.15 In a letter to Heinrich Himmler, the Al Azhar-educated chief imam of the Handžar
Division, Husein ef. Đoso (whom one scholar has called “the most influential Islamic thinker in
Bosnia until his death in 1982” 16) saluted the Reichsfűhrer with the following words: “I consider
it my duty to express my gratitude on behalf of the
imams of the division and hundreds and thousands
of the poor in Bosnia. We are prepared to lay down
our lives in the struggle for the great leader Adolf
Hitler and the New Europe.”17
The Mladi Muslimani “. . . with the help of Allah are embarking on jihad.”
With the end of World War II, the Mladi Muslimani’s surviving members were rounded up and imprisoned as fascist collaborators. Izetbegović himself
was in prison between 1946-1949. Nevertheless, Izetbegović’s political goals would remain faithful to those
of the Mladi Muslimani throughout the rest of his political career. In his most famous political manifesto,
the Islamic Declaration (written in 1970, the same
year the Ayatollah Khomeini published his Towards an
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Islamic Government) and showing the influence that one
of Al Qaeda’s ideological antecedents, Sayyid Qutb, had
had on his thinking,18 Izetbegović anticipated by some two
decades Osama bin Laden’s concept of perpetual jihad, or
the belief that “jihad will continue until the day of judgement,”19 when he warned,
“We are prepared to lay down our lives in the
struggle for the great leader Adolf Hitler and
the New Europe.” Husein ef. Đoso (second
from left), “the most important Islamic thinker in Bosnia” with the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj
Amin al-Husseini, and members of the Waffen
SS Handžar Division, Bosnia, 1943
There is no peace or co-existence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and political
institutions . . . Our means are personal example, the book, and the word. When will force be
added to these means? The choice of this moment is always a concrete question and depends
on a variety of factors. However, one general
rule can be postulated: the Islamic movement
can and may move to take power once it is morally and numerically strong enough, not only to
destroy the existing non-Islamic government,
but to build a new Islamic government.20
The fact that Izetbegović devotes a section in the tract to Pakistan (which Izetbegović called
“our great hope”)—a religiously “clean” country formed by its violent secession from a larger
multi-religious and multi-ethnic entity—had clear implications for Izetbegović’s views regarding
multi-religious, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia. This is in contrast to the very critical view Izetbegović
exhibited in the Islamic Declaration towards reformers in the Muslim world such as Kemal Ataturk; thus, as one scholar has observed, “The [Islamic] Declaration designated Pakistan as a model
country to be emulated by Muslim revolutionaries worldwide. The Pakistan parallel also revealed
Izetbegović’s vision of Yugoslavia’s fate as analogous to that of India after 1948.”21 Another interpretation of Izetbegović’s agenda and goals concluded that
Mi smo vojska Allahova
Za Islam se borimo
Ako treba život dati
Za šehadet poginuti
“We are the Army of Allah,
Fighting for Islam.
If we have to give our lives,
For martyrdom we will die”
-----marching song of Izetbegović’s El Mudžahedin battalion
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Left: Heinrich Himmler inspecting the Bosnian SS Handžar Division, Neuhammer Waffen
SS training camp, Silesia, 1943; right, Jihad in Europe, Izetbegović’s “Seventh Muslim Brigade,” Zenica, 1996
In [Izetbegović’s] discourse with Westerners, in contrast to the Islamic Declaration, he used the language of multiculturalism. It is clear, at least in retrospect, that
he hoped to establish an Islamic state in Bosnia but not necessarily an Islamist
one. His ideal seems to have been the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic state in which
non-Muslim dhimmis were tolerated.22
Indeed, many people who worked closely with Izetbegović were convinced that his primary
goal was the creation of an ethnically- and religiously-homogenous Islamic state,23 and numerous
outside observers and international officials who dealt with Izetbegović also came to believe that
his professed desire for a multiethnic state was more a public relations ploy for western audiences
rather than a sincere ideal.24
In subsequent years the political philosophy of the Mladi Muslimani and Izetbegović’s Islamic
Declaration remained the policy guidebook for the Islamists he led to power in Bosnia. Eight of the
forty original members of the political party Izetbegović founded in 1990, the Stranka Demokratske
Akcije (the “Party of Democratic Action,” Bosnian acronym, SDA) were Mladi Muslimani, and
several others were younger Islamists who had gone to prison with Izetbegović in 1983.25 Much
like its Middle-Eastern sister movements such as Hamas or Hezbollah, throughout the 1990s Izetbegović’s SDA straddled the line between legitimate politics and terror.
“Miracles of the Bosnian Jihad”: Title frame from a 2014 documentary hosted and narrated
by Izetbegović wartime commander and current imam of the King Fahd mosque in Sarajevo
Nezim Halilović-Muderis
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In terms of Izetbegović’s vision for Bosnia, one of his SDA
associates described it in the following terms:
The territory controlled by the Bosnian Army after the war
will be a Muslim state . . . This is a desire of the Muslim people and, after all, our leaders: secular leader Alija
Izetbegović and religious leader Mustafa Cerić (the latter
one in a private conversation with me confirmed that the
old dream of Alija Izetbegović, member of the organization
Young Muslims, has been and remains the establishment of
the Muslim state in Bosnia-Herzegovina; finally, his dream
is close to realization and “he is not terribly upset because
“There is no peace or co-exof that”) . . . The Muslim state will have a Muslim ideolistence between Islamic faith
ogy, based on Islam, Islamic religious, legal, ethical and
and non-Islamic social and
social principles, but also on the contents of Western origin
political institutions.” Alija
which do not contradict Islamic principles . . . The Muslim
Izetbegović
ideology will be the basis for the complete state and legal
system of the future Muslim state, from the state and national symbols, over the ruling national policy, to educational system, social and
economic institutions, and of course, the Muslim family as the unit on which the
whole state is based . . . the level of personal prosperity, besides personal initiative,
will especially depend on the degree to which the individual accepts and applies
the principles and spirit of the Muslim ideology.26
Indeed, the above-mentioned Mustafa Cerić, one of the founders of Izetbegović’s Islamist party
and his handpicked choice to head Bosnia’s Islamic Community, would in September 1992 call
on Muslims around the world to support what he called the Bosnian jihad against the Croat and
Serb “crusade.”27 Izetbegović’s war effort took on other rhetorical trappings of jihad as well, with
soldiers who died in Izetbegović’s army being designated “šehids” (martyrs for Islam), 28 and individuals who led the war effort, such as Izetbegović’s vice-president, Ejup Ganić, being officially
proclaimed “gazis” (i.e., Islamic warriors against the infidels).29
The view that Bosnia and other Balkan regions are “Muslim” has become a frequent refrain of
the militant Islamists. According to a recent statement by the Syrian radical Omar Bakri Muhammed,
“When Islam enters a territory, it becomes
Islamic, therefore Islam is under obligation to eventually liberate it . . . Spain, for
instance, is a Muslim territory. Eastern Europe, as well. Romania, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia ... due to its
decision to send troops to Afghanistan and
Iraq and its military co-operation with Israel, Bulgaria is also a legitimate target.”30
Other Islamists frequently express
the same views. Elfatih Hassanein, a Sudanese national and longtime friend of
Izetbegović’s, once noted that “Bosnia, at
the end, must be Muslim Bosnia.”31 More
recently, Mustafa Cerić has begun a campaign for Bosnia to be transformed into a
“Bosniac” (i.e., Muslim state), claiming
that all other peoples in Europe have their
own national states, so Bosnia should be
recognized as the Muslim national state
“this is only the first round . . . further help will be necessary, and remain necessary, until Islam is victorious in
this world.”
Izetbegović wartime military commander Rasim Delić addressing the El Mudžahedin battalion, Zenica, late 1995
(source: YouTube screenshot)
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(Independently of this, in April 2014 UK prime minister David Cameron ordered MI5 and MI6 to investigate Cerić’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood along with
those of another controversial Muslim activist because
of their affiliation with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The British government was at the time investigating the Muslim Brotherhood’s links to terrorism in the
UK.).32 Another Muslim politician, Sejfudin Tokić, has
picked up this theme, arguing (with respect to Bosnia’s
October 2013 census), “If there are more than 50% of
“Our Path is Jihad”: still clip from a prous [Muslims], Bosnia will be a national state of Bosmotional video for the Al Qaeda unit in
niaks and we will dominate the other two peoples.”33
Izetbegović’s army
In a recent sermon, the Bosnian Wahhabi leader Bilal
Bosnić has claimed that everything “from Prijedor to
the Sandžak” belongs to Muslims,34 and that non-Muslims in Bosnia should be required to pay the
jizya, a poll tax imposed on non-Muslims in “Islamic” countries.35 On his deathbed, Alija Izetbegović went so far as to “bequeath” Bosnia to then-Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.36
‫ءايلوأ ىراصنلاو دوهيلا اوذختت ال اونمآ نيذلا اهيأ اي‬
”O vi koji vjerujete nemojte jevreje i kršćane uzimati za prijatelje ”
From the Put Vjernika website. The quote from the Quran (5:51) reads,
“O Believers, do not take Jews and Christians as your friends.”49
The belief that the Balkans are “Muslim lands” of course presupposes the understanding that
sharia should ultimately be imposed throughout the region. As Izetbegović once told an interlocutor, “what is wrong with the sharia? Is it less humane to cut off a man’s hand than to take several
years from his life in prison? You cut off the hand, it is done.”37 Similarly, according to Mustafa
Cerić, “Sharia is the basis of faith for every Muslim, about which there is no discussion. Sharia is
like the Ten Commandments for Christians.”38 On another occasion Cerić added,
As far as Islam is concerned, all countries belong to one of the following categories: Dar al-Islam, Dar al-Harb, or Dar as-Sulh . . . in the third category, Sulh, the
situation is such that Islam or the shariah cannot be implemented fully, but the
government should endeavour to put it into practice as much as possible [Bosnia
is in] the third category. Therefore, we are obliged to try our best to put Islamic
legislation into practice, but it is [not] realistic to implement shariah completely.
That’s what I want, of course, but it will not happen just like that.39
Left: “Spiritually and emotionally, I feel closer to a Muslim in the Philippines than to a Croat in Sarajevo.” Izetbegović ideologue and 1983 co-conspirator Džemaludin Latić; right: “We have to hate infidels, even if they are
our neighbors or live in our homes” Bosnian Wahhabi leader Bilal Bosnić
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Left: Women can jihad too: Bosnian ISIS volunteer Elvira Karalić; right: “Here we have unmarried brothers who
want wives, and brothers who want more wives . . . Come
and give birth and raise mudžahedins . . . “ Still-clip from a
YouTube video of a Bosnian jihadi calling on women to join
the Syrian jihad
Recent public opinion surveys suggest
a not-insignificant number of people in
the region agree with such views. A 2013
Pew Research survey, for instance, found
that 36 percent of Muslims in southeastern
Europe believed in severe corporal punishment for criminals, and 13 percent favored executing people who leave Islam.
The same poll also found that 20 percent
of Muslims in Kosovo and 15 percent in
Bosnia favor making sharia the law of the
land.40 In Bosnia, the campaign to make
public life sharia-compatible has become
more and more visible. Wahhabi leaders
Nusret Imamović and Bilal Bosnić, for
instance, in early 2013 went on a a public
lecture campaign speaking on the theme
“The Perfection of Sharia, the Danger of
Democracy.”41
A constant and central tenet in the ideology of Balkan militant Islamists has been a virulent
form of ethnoreligious intolerance based on extreme interpretations of Islamic texts. Thus, an early
essay by one of the Mladi Muslimani’s founding members exhorted Muslims to heed the Koranic
injunction “O believers! Do not take infidels for friends in place of believers,”42 a sentiment frequently repeated in Islamist circles today.43 In the 1940s, the Mladi Muslimani issued a “Proclamation” in which their views on interethnic and inter-religious relations were evident:
We have to gather and form into battle lines everything that is good, and embark on
the path of jihad with the Tekbir on our mouths, and decisively and mujahedin-like
persevere until the final victory . . . Depending on friendship with Serbs or Croats, as
has today become evident to every one of our people who has had any relations with
them, is the biggest stupidity and self-deception of oneself and one’s community.
Both have sufficiently shown us their goals and intentions and we will never again
believe them, regardless of their attempting to convince us and prove to us their good
intentions. We are forced to adopt this position all the more because the Quran, as our
only guide, warns us when it says “Will you take the infidels as friends?” or “Neither
the Christians nor the Jews will be your friends until you accept that which they
represent” . . . [the Mladi Muslimani] conscious of the correctness of their intentions,
with the help of Allah are embarking on jihad . . . the goal and task of the organization is not resolving some narrow and local problem, but a great and momentous idea
which should solely guide every one of us, and that is the establishment of an Islamic
order and implementing Islam in the lives of people . . . These are days of survival,
that is, days of jihad, and our organization is faithfully following that path.44
Good men must be hard to find: left: two Austro-Bosnian volunteer jihadi wives in Syria; center: Croatian-born Muslim-convert Irena Horak, wife of Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar Al-Awlaki (on right) killed
in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September 2011 (source: Long War Journal)
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Various manifestations of Islamist supremacist doctrine come out on the websites and in the publications Islamist groups
maintain and publish. One Wahhabi website
urges readers to reject international law because it grants non-Muslims the same rights
as Muslims, and counsels readers that they
should not drink coffee with non-Muslim
co-workers—unless they are trying to convert them to Islam. Wahhabis in Bosnia also
decry freedom of religion, because then “we
Muslims would not be allowed to destroy
statues . . . . which are worshipped in spite of
Allah.”45 Grade school textbooks for Islam- “Women can be killed if they show their bodies or use
ic religious classes in Bosnia now include nudism in the struggle against Islam.” From the Bosnian
extremist website Ensarija Šerijata. Pictured: July 2010
the following: “Today Islamic countries are Sarajevo protest in support of wearing burqas in public
confronted with a form of blackmail: thus,
if they want to join the United Nations, they
have to tacitly renounce jihad as an organized form of Muslim interest.”46 Extremists such as Nezim
Halilović-Muderis and Fatmir Alispahić call for the abrogation of international agreements such as
the Dayton Peace Accords and the elimination of Bosnia’s entities and cantons.47 The International
Crisis Group has similarly reported that Muderis and the Kosovo-born imam of the Vratnik White
Mosque in Sarajevo, Sulejman Bugari, use their sermons “to preach hatred against Serbs and Jews
and to advocate separation from Serbs.”48 Sometimes the militant Islamists’ rejection of secular
authorities and institutions takes on tragicomic dimensions; for instance, a noted Bosnian Islamist
radical, Jusuf Barčić, was killed in an automobile accident in March 2007 when the vehicle he was
in refused to stop at a traffic signal.
Indicative of the ethnic distance Islamists try to impose between Muslims and non-Muslims
are the views of Izetbegović’s inner circle. Džemaludin Latić, at one time the leading ideologist of
Izetbegović’s SDA once announced that “spiritually and emotionally, I feel closer to a Muslim in
the Philippines than I do to a Croat in Sarajevo,”50 and Latić has reportedly similarly endorsed the
Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence against “the apostate Salman Rushdie,” saying “the Imam
Khomeini’s fatwa is a must for every Muslim to carry out.”51 More recently, the aforementioned
Wahhabi leader from Buzim, Bilal Bosnić, gave a sermon in which he claimed “We have to love
the one who loves Allah, and hate the one who hates Allah. We have to hate infidels, even if they
Left: “Our goal is to make sure that even the Vatican will be Muslim.” Bosnian Wahhabi leader Bilal Bosnić;
center: ISIS publication “Dabiq” showing the black flag of jihad flying over Vatican City; right: “Know this,
oh infidels: By Allah, we shall cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of you, you filth. We shall conquer Jerusalem
from you, oh Jews! We shall conquer Rome and Andalusia, Allah willing. Say: Allah Akbar!” YouTube clip
of a Kosovo jihadi in Iraq, May 2014 (source: MEMRI TV)
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are our neighbors or live in our homes.”52 Pointing to the
effect that the promotion of such views is having, in a recent
public opinion poll 93% of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo
said that all or most of their close friends were Muslims.53
Another frequent trope of Balkan militant Islamists is the
view that non-Muslims cannot “understand” Muslims. Mustafa Cerić, for instance, on one occasion criticized a Bosnian
Muslim family for hiring a Christian lawyer, because Christians “cannot understand Muslims.”54
Predictably, individuals with such worldviews emphasize racial and religious purity, and a consistent trope of the
militant Islamists has been that they are not even ethnically
related to their Slav neighbors.55 The aforementioned Latić
has vehemently argued against mixed marriages, claiming
that “Mixed marriages, a symbol of misunderstood mutual
life, are mostly ruined marriages in which big conflicts exist and children are frustrated by their origin.”56 Mirsad Ćeman, a former secretary-general of Izetbegović’s Islamist party noted that under
a Bosnian Islamist regime, “a normal Muslim will marry a Muslim woman
and others will be the exception,” and Mustafa Cerić once claimed that mixed
marriages “are just another form of genocide.”57 Unfortunately, such views
were widespread; contrary to the myth about high rates of interethnic marriage
in Bosnia spread by journalists and pop historians, even before the wars of the
1990s on average less than seven percent of Bosnian Muslims married individuals from a different ethnic or religious group, and amongst Croats and Serbs,
the intermarriage rate was only about fifteen percent.58
“Mother Theresa belongs in the middle of Hell because she did not believe
in Allah, the Prophet, and the Quran.” Kosovo Imam Shefqet Krasniqi
Misogyny is a central feature of the militant Islamists’ belief system. Islamist
extremists advise their followers that “lazy wives” should be beaten,59 and remind
adherents that the proper Islamic punishment for unmarried adulterers is 100 lashThree
plots
es, and for married adulterers death by stoning.60 To the militant Islamists, celeagainst the late
61
brating International Women’s Day is considered “un-Islamic.” In Kosovo, the Pope John Paul
mufti of Prizren, Irfan Salihu, publicly claimed in a recent sermon “Any woman II originated in
who has intimate acts without being married according to provisions of the Islam is Bosnia
a slut and a bitch . . . Leave the garbage out so everyone will know which of them
was used.”62 In Bosnian Wahhabi circles, girls are considered ready to be married at the age of 14, and
women who argue with their husbands are deemed to be possessed by demons, the therapy for which is
to have their backs cut with razor blades.63 In the Sandžak there have been a number of reports of Wahhabis engaging in female genital mutilation, and in Bosnia Arab “humanitarian
organizations” allegedly tried to spread
the practice during the war in the 1990s.
(It should be stressed that officials of
the Islamic Community in the Sandžak
condemned the practice.)64 In the spring
of 1999, Wahhabi’s violently broke up a
conference in Sarajevo devoted to a discussion of women’s rights in Afghanistan.65 Polygamy is an accepted practice
in Balkan Wahhabi communities; for
instance, Bilal Bosnić has acknowledged having four wives. Reporting on
new religious textbooks in Bosnia that
Anti-gay jihad: the headline reads “Pederasts are the New Al
describe
the practice of women leading
Qaeda” (source: saff.ba)
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The anti-Santa Claus campaign in Bosnia: on left: Alija Izetbegović claims “Grandfather Frost is a communist fabrication”; center: graphic accompanying a hutba (sermon) by Sarajevo imam Nezim Halilović-Muderis (source: bosnjaci.net); right: an obituary announcing the death of Grandfather Frost, distributed in Zenica, Central Bosnia, in 2008
prayers in mosques, a Saff editor claimed “We cannot allow sick feminist minds to teach our children in
its ugly way.”66
Catholics in central Bosnia have been particular targets of the militant Islamists. As Vatican
Radio recently reported, “Christians are massively leaving post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina amid
mounting discrimination and Islamization.”67 On Christmas Eve 2004, Wahhabi convert Muamer
Topalović murdered three members of a Bosnian Croat family as they were preparing to go to Midnight Mass. Vinko Cardinal Puljić, the Catholic archbishop of Bosnia, claims that although seventy
new mosques have been built in Sarajevo alone, building approvals for churches “take years,”68 and
he decried the fact that he had been denied permission to build a new church in Sarajevo for over
a decade. Catholic nuns in Sarajevo now only go out in pairs for fear of being attacked by Islamist
extremists, and report that Wahhabi bakers refuse to sell them bread, even when it is in plain sight.69
Similarly, the bishop of Banja Luka, Franjo Komarica, has recently warned that “we musn’t ignore
the dark clouds arising to the southeast. Destructive, radical forces from the Arab world can very
easily settle and flourish here.”70 Even Mother Theresa is the object of the Islamists’ intolerance
and hatred. In a recent sermon in Skopje, an imam from Kosovo, Shefket Krasniqi claimed that
the Macedonian-born Albanian nun, “belongs in the middle of Hell because she did not believe in
Allah, the prophet and the Koran ...”71
Indicative of the extent of anti-Catholic animosity Islamist extremists in the region promote is the fact that at least
three plots against the late Pope John Paul II were linked to
Bosnia. The first occurred during his pastoral visit to Sarajevo
in April 1997, when a bomb was discovered under a bridge
over which the Pope’s motorcade was supposed to pass only
hours before his arrival. The perpetrators were never discovered.72 (Controversy about the Pope’s visit to Sarajevo had
already erupted after Mustafa Cerić criticized local media for
referring to John Paul II as “the Holy Father.” 73)
“ Jews . . . through the media industry of the Holocaust, especially film, are deceiving the world
about their suffering, so that they
can deny Zionist imperialism and
crimes.” Bosnian polemicist Fatmir Alispahić
Another attempt to kill the Pontiff took place later in the
year, when Italian police discovered an assassination plot targeting John Paul II during a pastoral visit to Bologna. All
fourteen men arrested were travelling on Bosnian passports.74
One of the individuals suspected of involvement in the attempt was Bosnian jihad veteran Karray Kamel bin Ali, a.k.a.,
Abu Hamza, a Tunisian who had fought in the El Mudžahedin
battalion (the Al Qaeda unit in Izetbegović’s army) during
the war. In 2001, Italians authorities requested Abu Hamza’s
extradition but Bosnian officials refused because Hamza had
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“The Koran on Jews: Jews currently create world policy, they hold in their hands money and the media
. . . Jews are prepared, for the sake of interests of this world, to trample every rule and every law . . . [the
Jews’] desire for gold and material goods of this world has shown itself throughout history . . . I pray to
Allah to destroy the Zionists and their helpers.” A hutba (sermon), by Nezim Halilović-Muderis, imam of the
Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo (source: official website of the Islamic Community of Bosnia
& Herzegovina); on right, CIA double agent Abdulrahman Khadr, attempted to infiltrate Al Qaeda cells in
the King Fahd mosque in 2003
“Bosnian citizenship.”75 Subsequently arrested in 2007, he was released from Zenica prison and allowed to take a short “holiday” during which he promptly escaped.76 News reports alleged that Bosnian security officials, including Tarik Sadović, a former security minister dismissed because of his
refusal to expel foreign Islamist militants from Bosnia, had foreknowledge of Abu Hamza’s plans.
(Interestingly, while in Zenica prison Abu Hamza was allowed to have phone and internet access.77)
Bosnian-based extremists even plotted to attack John Paul II’s funeral. In 2005, Italian
police uncovered a Gornja Maoča-based plan to attack the world leaders gathering in Vatican
City to attend the Pontiff’s burial services.78
The gay community is a predictable target of Islamist extremists. In September 2008, Wahhabis attacked participants in the Sarajevo Gay and Lesbian Festival, after which the chairman of
the Bosnian Helsinki Human Rights Commission said that the incident was reminiscent of “the
pogroms that happened in the times of Adolf Hitler.”79 The Sarajevo magazine Saff, a mouthpiece
for Islamist extremists founded by local members of the El Mudžahedin battalion has been leading the anti-gay jihad in Bosnia. Recent Saff editorials, for
instance, claim that “Fascism = Pederasty,”80 “Pederasty =
Terrorism,”81 and “Pederasts are the Fathers of Pedophiles.”82
Typical of the views and argumentation one finds in Saff is
the following:
“And every tree and every rock
will say, “Oh, Muslim, Servant of
God, here is a Jew, he has hidden
behind me, come and kill him.”
Muharem Štulanović, Dean of the
Faculty of Islamic Pedagogy in Bihać, Bosnia
For Americans, pederasts are important, not Muslims, because no one is allowed to beat pederasts, but
America itself beats Muslims . . . the Nazis, the Zionists, and the pederasts are genuine masters at making
themselves out to be victims [even when] no one is
bothering them. That is how Hitler burned the Reichstag and blamed the Jews. That is how the Jews
prepared 9/11 and blamed the Muslims. That is how
pederasts often beat themselves and then blame others . . . Let us not forget that pederasty is a totalitarian
ideology, ready to engage in manipulations, corruption, lies and violence, and thus prepared to engage in
terrorism as a form of struggle to impose its view on
the world.83
Even Santa Claus has not been spared attacks from Balkan Islamists. In 1996, Alija Izetbegović initiated the anti-Santa campaign, announcing that “Santa Claus had no
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business appearing on state television” and criticizing local Muslims for celebrating New Year’s Eve.
He was joined in this effort by Mustafa Cerić, who
argued that Santa Claus was “not an appropriate
symbol for Muslims.”84 In 2008, Sarajevo’s daycare centers banned the Bosnian equivalent of Santa
(“Grandfather Frost”) because he was “not part of
the Muslim tradition.”85
Other Muslims (and Muslim historical sites) can
be the target of such extremists as well. In November
2010, Macedonian Wahhabis set fire to a famous Sufi
shrine in Tetovo, the Harabata Baba Bektashi complex, after years of trying to take possession of the
“The goal for all of us is death, especially in
site.86 In February 2012, the Sarajevo cantonal eduthe battle against the Jews. Syria is not at
cation minister resigned due to fears of being assasall important to us. Our goal is Jerusalem.”
Bosnian terrorist/Syrian jihad volunteer
sinated by Islamist extremists. What had earned the
Bajro Ikanović
minister the wrath of the official Islamic establishment and other extremists was a proposal that primary students’ grades in religion classes not be factored into their overall grade point averages. A letter
sent to the minister’s home stated “Abandon Allah and his religion and the hand of the faithful will
get you.” Enclosed was a 7.32 caliber bullet.87 In August 2013, a Sunni extremist offered $20,000
for the murder of a professor at the Faculty of Islamic Sciences in Sarajevo who specializes in Shia
Islam (an even greater amount was offered if he was killed “with a sword”).88 In November 2013,
an NGO activist from Novi Pazar critical of the way young women were being manipulated into
wearing the hijab was threatened by local Wahhabis and had to be given police protection,89 and in
Kosovo, Alma Lama, a prominent female politician, was forced to seek police protection after criticizing Islamist extremists.90 Other individuals in Kosovo who have criticized the militant Islamist
movement have been beaten up or had their cars bombed.91
Predictably, the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism are a favorite theme of Balkan Islamist
militants. Izetbegović set the tone in his Islamic Declaration when he declared,
the Zionists . . . have in Palestine extended a challenge to the entire Muslim world.
Jerusalem is not just a question for the Palestinians, nor a question just for the Arabs. It is a question for all Muslim peoples To hold on to Jerusalem, the Jews must
defeat Islam and the Muslims, which—thank God—is beyond their power . . . for
the Islamic movement and all Muslims in the world there is only one solution: to
continue the struggle, to extend it and prolong it, from day to day and year to year,
without consideration for the victims or for how long the conflict might last, until
[the Jews] are forced to return every piece of stolen land.92
In January 2009, after Mustafa Cerić appeared on a Sarajevo television station calling Israeli
actions in Gaza “genocide,” graffiti and posters equating the Star of David with a swastika appeared
in various parts of Bosnia.93 The supposedly liberal Cerić has claimed that his critics are “judeocentric,”94 and dismisses criticism as “Islamophobia”; as a U.S. embassy cable from Sarajevo put
it, “When addressing issues of Wahhabi influence
in Bosnia or charges of pedophilia by imams, Ceric has consistently offered a knee-jerk reaction of
labeling critics “Islamophobes,” whether Christian
or Muslim, suggesting that such criticism is itself
part of a continuing ‘genocide,’ . . .“95 Likewise,
Tuzla Stadium, August 2014: local fans with a
editors at Saff frequently refer to the “terrorist state
“modified” Israeli flag (source: Saff.ba)
of Israel” 96 and promote numerous forms of Holo-
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“With explosives on our chests we pave the way to paradise.” Left: Bosnian Wahhabi leader Bilal Bosnić;
center: Kosovo suicide bomber Blerim Heta, killed several dozen people in Baghdad in March 2014; right:
Bosnian suicide-bomber Emrah Fojnica, killed 24 people in Baghdad in August 2014
caust denial. Thus, one of Saff’s most prominent writers, Fatmir Alispahić, has decried the fact that
one cannot find “Western studies” in Bosnia in which readers could learn that in postwar Europe
no significant amounts of ashes were found, whereas “six million Jews would have produced at
least one hill of dross,” and further points out that these studies claim that at most 300,000 Jews died
during World War II, mostly of typhus. Alispahić goes on to argue that “Jews . . . through the media
industry of the Holocaust, especially film, are deceiving the world about their suffering, so that they
can deny Zionist imperialism and crimes.”97 Similarly, Bilal Bosnić has claimed that Jews are those
who “create disorder on earth” and believe that “all are slaves, while they are the holy people.”98
At the Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo, a focal point for Islamist extremists considered “a beehive of Al Qaeda activity,”99 a German journalist reported on a sermon preached by
one of Izetbegović’s wartime commanders, Nezim Halilović-Muderis:
The obliteration of Israel is heralded in a torrent of words. “Zionist terrorists,” the
imam thunders from the glass-enclosed pulpit at the end of the mosque. “Animals
in human form” have transformed the Gaza Strip into a “concentration camp,”
and this marks “the beginning of the end” for the Jewish pseudo-state. Over 4,000
faithful are listening to the religious service in the King Fahd Mosque, named after
the late Saudi Arabian monarch King Fahd Bin Abd al-Asis Al Saud. The women
sit separately, screened off in the left wing of the building. It is the day of the Khutbah, the great Friday sermon, and the city where the imam has predicted Israel’s
demise lies some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) northwest of Gaza. It is a city in
the heart of Europe: Sarajevo.100
Another radical Bosnian cleric, Muharem Štulanović, the
dean of the Faculty of Islamic Pedagogy in Bihać, has offered
the following views:
Endorsing suicide terrorism: Gornja Maoča Wahhabi leader Nusret Imamović
There are three foreign-political factors that play a role
in creating BiH—America, the Jews, and the Shiites. As
far as the Americans are concerned, everything is known.
It is one of the main enemies of Muslims and Islam in
the world. Furthermore, the Jews are the enemies of Islam, and enemy number one at that. And Judgment Day
will not come, that is faithfully in the Hadis and it is
true, without the Muslims completely winning. Judgment
Day will not come, the conclusion of this world, until the
Muslims begin a total battle against the Jews, and in that
battle the Jews will be so defeated that they will hide be-
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Two thumbs down: protests against the film “Innocence of Muslims” in Sarajevo (left), Novi Pazar (center),
and Skopje (right), September 2012. The sign on the left reads:
Death to the Film “Innocence of Muslims”
Sam Bacile = Salman Rushdie = DEATH
Israel = USA
The Cause of the Death of the US Ambassador in Libya
hind every tree and behind every rock. And every tree and every rock will say,
“Oh, Muslim, Servant of God, here is a Jew, he has hidden behind me, come
and kill him.”
In Macedonia, another radical cleric, Bekir Halimi, who leads an “NGO” named Bamiresia, has
given verbal support for attacks on synagogues.101 The jihads in Iraq and Syria have given Balkan
militant Islamists an opportunity to try to realize their ambitions; thus, as the Bosnian terrorist/Syrian jihad volunteer Bajro Ikanović explained in a recent interview, “The goal for all of us is death,
especially in the battle against the Jews. Syria is not at all important to us. Our goal is Jerusalem.”102
Support for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is frequently on evidence. In September 2012, a
video surfaced of a group of Albanians in Macedonia gathered in a field singing
Oh Osama, annihilate the American army.
Oh Osama, raise the Muslims’ honor.
In September 2001 you conquered a power.
We all pray for you.103
U.S. military raids on Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in October-November 2001 turned up
evidence that Balkan extremists had made it to Central Asia, as evident in a letter written by Damir
Bajrami, a Kosovo native who suggested new targets of opportunity in western countries:
I am interested in suicide operations. I have Kosovo Liberation Army combat experience against Serb and American forces. I need no further training. I recommend (suicide) operations against (amusement) parks like Disney.104
In a similar vein, the Bosnian Wahhabi Bilal Bosnić has posted a song on YouTube in which he sings
The beautiful jihad has risen over Bosnia
And the Bosnian started calling ‘Allah Akbar” and praying
America had better know I am performing da’wa
God willing, it will be destroyed to its foundations
If you try to harm the mujahideen once more, oh infidels,
Our Taliban brothers will come from all over,
And they will sentence you with their swords.
America and all the other tyrants had better know
that all the Muslims are now like the Taliban,
Jihad, Jihad, oh Allah, will be the redemption of the believers.
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Allah Akbar. Allah is my Lord.
Listen, all my brothers, believers from all the world,
With explosives on our chests we pave the way to Paradise.105
The Next Generation?
“Say: “Allah Akbar”
My Greetings to Al-Baghdadi and his lions
Sunna and the Quran, our state is victorious
Send a message to the Crusaders in America,
Your grave will be in Syria, our state is victorious
The Islamic State is here to stay”
----from the video clip “Bosnian Children
with ISIS in Syria” (Source: MEMRI TV)
The effects of such propaganda are already apparent. As early as 2005, security officials had discovered a European-wide network of Islamist extremists recruiting young Scandinavian Muslims as
suicide-bombers and sending them to Bosnia, which
would then be used “as a staging ground for attacks
elsewhere in Europe.”106 In March 2014, a Kosovo
Islamist/Iraqi jihadi named Blerim Heta became “the
Balkans’ first suicide bomber,” killing several dozen
people in an attack in Baghdad. Heta’s family claimed
his radicalization process started in April 2012 when
he began attending sermons by the Kosovo imam
Shefqet Krasniqi and the aforementioned Macedonian
imam Bekir Halimi.107 In August 2014, a Bosnian suicide-terrorist, Emrah Fojnica, killed 24 people in another Baghdad attack.108 Fojnica had previously been
arrested for accompanying Mevlid Jašarević on the
day he attacked the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo.109
Unfortunately, a number of factors suggest that
the ideology of militant Islamism in southeastern Europe has the potential for further growth. First, radical
Islamist states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia continue to invest significant sums in the region,
building mosques and madrasas in which more extreme interpretations of Islamic doctrine are
taught, and expanding their influence through a variety of “NGOs” and “charities” (this latter topic
will be discussed in more detail in subsequent sections). Middle-Eastern funders have established
some 25 madrasas (Islamic religious schools) in Bosnia through which some 2000 students have
already passed,110 and the Islamic faculties in Bihać and Zenica, built with generous donations from
Saudi Arabia, promote the more extreme Salafi/Wahhabi interpretations of Islam.111 In Kosovo,
the Saudi Joint Committee for the Relief of Kosova and Chechnya (SJCRKC) has built a network
of some 98 primary and secondary schools in Kosovo’s rural areas, which then feed students into
thirty specialized Koranic schools built throughout the state.112 Similarly, over the past twenty years
dozens of new mosques and Wahhabi “teaching centers” funded by Middle-Eastern donors have
been opened in Bulgaria, and number of which the government shut down in 2003 because of their
ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups.113 Bulgarian security analysts have
estimated that some 3000 youths have passed through these Wahhabi-funded educational centers in
the past two decades.114 Middle-Eastern donors have also been active in Montenegro; in April 2014,
for instance, a Kuwaiti foundation, Rahma al-Alamiya, opened an all-female madrasa for 200 girls
in the village of Miljes, near the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica. Another all-female madrasa,
opened in 2001, operates in Rožaje.115 This influx of Iranian, Saudi, and Turkish organizations in
the region is promoting a view of state-society relations that are incompatible with the requirements
of modern European democracies.
The combination of this large new cohort of the indigenous population being educated in local
institutions organized and funded by Middle-Eastern organizations, together with the large number
of locally-born Islamic clerics who have studied in the Middle-East (including individuals such as
Nedžad Balkan, Jusuf Barčić, Bilal Bosnić, Mustafa Cerić, Nezim Halilović-Muderis and Nusret
Imamović) carries with it the danger of transforming what has usually been considered a “moderate Balkan Islam” into something more radical. Esad Hećimović, a leading expert on the Bosnian
jihadi movement, has noted that “There is now a new generation of Islamic preachers in Bosnia
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who were educated after the war at Islamic universities in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and other
countries . . . Thus, it is no longer possible to distinguish between ‘imported’ and ‘local’ versions
of Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina anymore.”116 In 2012, some seventy percent of the officials
in the official Islamic Community in Bosnia were due either to retire or for their mandates to expire, to be replaced by “new people, many of them educated abroad, notably in Saudi Arabia.”117
A majority of the muftis in Bosnia have now been educated at Cairo’s Al Azhar Islamic university
or other Islamic educational institutions in the Middle-East, where they were “exposed to Salafi
teachings, schools of jurisprudence and lifestyles . . . Some of these imams [have] returned home
with a hardened spirit and a politicized theocratic world-view, which they then tried to instill in
their communities.”118 Similarly, in Montenegro, observers have suggested that Middle-Eastern
educated extremists were able to make inroads into some sections of the Montenegrin Muslim
population because “Montenegro’s ‘poorly educated’ mainstream imams were at a disadvantage
against aggressive and self-assured newcomers claiming to practice ‘true Islam’.”119 The fact that a
majority of Balkan Islamic clerics and scholars are now being educated in the Middle-East—where
they are not only trained in more extreme forms of Islamic doctrine, but also developing various
unsavory relationships and networks—is an exceptionally negative development which requires
considerably more attention. Militant Islamism is also beginning to create explicitly political movements; for instance, in Kosovo in February 2013, a group of religious extremists formed a political
party named the “Islamic Movement to Unite” (Albanian acronym: LISBA), which one observer
called “the first Muslim fundamentalist party in the Balkans,” although as yet it gains negligible
electoral support.120
Islamist roadside advertising: Bosnian-Australian extremist Adnan Karabegović’s banner over the Monash Freeway
As noted above, a distinct minority of the Muslim populations in southeastern Europe can be
said to be members of the militant Islamist movement in the region, or to subscribe to the beliefs it
represents. A survey conducted in Bosnia in 2007 found that three percent of the population adhered
to Wahhabism (perhaps some 50-60,000 people), out of an estimated Muslim population of approximately two million, while another ten percent identified with it in some form.121 Current and former
Bosnian Wahhabis, however, claim that the movement has many secret adherents. According to one
former member, some forty percent of those adhering to the Wahhabi doctrine do not have the outward appearance of being Wahhabis.122 Other former Bosnian Wahhabis have claimed that Wahhabi
sympathizers have “infiltrated schools, universities, and the media.”123 In Kosovo, security experts
suggest about 50,000 people adhere to the more extreme Middle-Eastern forms of Islam, and are
active in some thirty mosques around Kosovo.124 One specialist on Balkan Islam has warned that “Exponents of Saudi-financed Wahhabism and of the Muslim Brotherhood have penetrated the highest
levels of the official Kosovo Islamic apparatus,”125 and one local expert has estimated that “the number of believers that follow a more extreme and fundamentalist interpretation of the Quran is growing
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in Kosovo.”126 In Macedonia, the mufti of Skopje, Ibrahim Šabani, has estimated that there are some
500-600 Wahhabis in the country (and possibly more),127 while other security specialists believe up to
3000 Wahhabis are active in Macedonia, mainly concentrated in areas around Skopje, Tetovo, Struga,
and Kumanovo.128 In Montenegro it is believed that there are “several hundred Wahhabis,” primarily
located near the towns of Rožaje, Plav and Gusinje.129 In the Sandžak, the International Crisis Group
has estimated there are some 300 Wahhabis who control several mosques in the region,130 and some
local analysts have claimed that the leader of the Islamic Community in Sandžak, Muamer Zukorlić,
has close ties to the movement and receives funds from Wahhabi sources in Rome and Vienna.131 (In
September 2014, the mufti of Montenegro, Reis Rifat Fejzić, similarly accused the Sandžak Islamic
organization of supporting the Wahhabi movement.132) The growth of indigenous Balkan Islamist
extremists is thus completing a circle in which natives are now taking the place of the foreign wave
of extremists that moved into southeastern Europe in the 1990s; as one specialist on Al Qaeda in the
Balkans has noted, in recent years there has been a substitution of foreign Islamist terrorists for “second generation” European Muslim converts and “Bosnian reverts.”133
As the preceding discussion suggests, there is some potential for militant Islamism to increase
its influence in southeastern Europe over the coming years. Although it is highly unlikely that a
majority of southeastern Europe’s Muslim populations would ever embrace the extreme forms
of Islam found in the Middle-East and Central Asia, even relatively small-scale increases in the
percentage of the population that adopts such views can do substantial damage to efforts to build
stable multiethnic democracies in the region, and to western security interests in southeastern Europe. Moreover, as the Bosnian case shows, when historical circumstances have allowed militant
Islamists to come to power and infiltrate various political and social institutions, the consequences
are severe. As one long-time Izetbegović observer, Zlatko Dizdarević (the former head of Bosnia’s
Helsinki Human Rights Committee) noted in 1999,
there is an infinite amount of proof for the claim that in the case of Izetbegović we
are talking about a consistent concept of life and politics which he has realized,
from which he has not stepped back, and which he, in the end, has realized . . . today we are the victims of a consistent view of the world which has shown itself to
be fundamentally conservative, anachronistic, and fundamentally unacceptable for
modern politics and the modern way of life . . . when you today read that same text
and know that behind it in these ten years has existed the possibility of realizing
that platform with the support of something which is called the state, which are
called institutions of that state, such as the army, the police, etc., that those things,
which 10 or 30 years ago one could proclaim a citizen’s right to their own opinion,
grows into something which has a different dimension . . . the Islamic Declaration
has been realized.134
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III. The Infrastructure of Militant Islamism in Southeastern Europe
Over the past several years, the Balkans has emerged as a new
battleground for militant Islamism. In June 2010, Islamist extremists
bombed a police station in the central Bosnian town of Bugojno,
killing one police officer and wounding six others. In February 2011,
a Kosovo radical killed two US servicemen at Frankfurt Airport. In
October 2011, a Sandžak Wahhabi attacked the US Embassy in Sarajevo. In April 2012, suspected Islamist extremists murdered five
Macedonian citizens outside Skopje. In July 2012, Hezbollah operatives bombed a bus full of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria.
In March 2013, a Hezbollah operative was discovered monitoring
Israeli citizens in Cyprus.135 (Hezbollah operatives are also known to
have trained units of Izetbegović’s army).136 In Kosovo in November
2013, a terrorist cell composed of Syrian jihad volunteers was uncovered, and in September 2014, Albanian foreign minister Ditmir
Bushati acknowledged that terrorist training camps for individuals
joining the jihads in Iraq and Syria had emerged in Albania.137
“ Although Western intelligence agencies never
labeled [the mujahedin
activities] in Bosnia an
al Qaeda jihad, it is now
clear that is exactly what
it was.”
-----Former National Coordinator for Security,
Infrastructure Protection,
and Counter-Terrorism
Richard A. Clarke
As concerns grow about foreign jihad volunteers and the security
threats they pose to their home countries if and when they return,138
one of the largest contingents of such foreign fighters come from the
Balkans. According to one estimate, Bosnia has provided more Syrian jihad volunteers (per capita) than any other country in Europe,139
with several hundred citizens of Bosnia & Herzegovina now reported to be fighting in Syria,140 along with a large number of Bosnian
émigrés.141According to one report, thirty Bosnian veterans of the
Syrian jihad have already returned to Bosnia,142 and the Sarajevo
newsmagazine Slobodna Bosna has reported there are thirty women
alone from Bosnia who have joined the Iraqi and Syrian jihads.143 Up to thirty individuals from the
Sandžak have also joined the Iraqi and Syrian jihads,144 and four Croatian women have become
wives of ISIS jihadis.145 Bosnia and Romania are also sources of weapons for the Iraqi and Syrian
jihads, as the arrest of a Swedish imam-turned arms-procurer, Haythan Rahmeh, revealed.146
Joining this Bosnian, Croatian and Sandžak/Serbian volunteer jihad contingent is another large
group of individuals from the southern Balkans. Up to 140 ethnic Albanians have been reported to be fighting alongside Islamist factions in Iraq and Syria,147 with the Kosovo “Skenderaj”
group alone reportedly providing some forty Syrian jihad volunteers.148 A March 2014 study by
the International Center for the Study of Radicalization estimates that some 300 individuals from
Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia have joined the Iraqi and Syrian jihads.149 Priština media have
reported that some 30 individuals from Kosovo went to Syria in January 2014 alone, and that six
Albanians have already died in the fighting there.150 Several dozen individuals from Montenegro
are also believed to have joined the Syrian jihad,151 although Aida Skorupan, who has closely followed the Wahhabi movement in Montenegro, believes the number of Montenegrin volunteers is
significantly higher than the estimate of thirty or so individuals usually used.152 In September 2014,
the CIA estimated that some 600-700 individuals from the Balkans had joined the jihads in Iraq
and Syria.153 Albanian security specialist Ilir Kulla has claimed that the number of jihad volunteers
from the region could be “in the thousands” if one includes individuals from the Balkan diaspora.154
Bosnian-based extremists also recruit volunteers for the Iraqi and Syrian jihads in other countries as
well; Bilal Bosnić, for instance, is reported to have recruited five Slovenian nationals to join ISIS,155
and Italian media have claimed Bosnić is the “headhunter for ISIS in Italy.” 156
18
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Estimated Number of Balkan Jihadi Volunteers in Iraq and Syria
(by country)
Albania
Bosnia
Kosovo
Macedonia
Montenegro
Serbia
(Source: Central Intelligence Agency, September 2014)
140
350
150
20
30
3
This cohort of Balkan jihad volunteers is largely drawn from pre-existing indigenous extremist
groups already operating in southeastern Europe. In 2010, a Bosnian security official estimated that
there are 3000 potential terrorists in Bosnia,157 and a former Al Qaeda operative, the Bahraini-born
Ali Hamad, claimed there are some 800 individuals in Bosnia of local origin making up a “white Al
Qaeda”: i.e., people who can pass through security checks avoiding racial profiling.158 In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, NATO officials suggested there was a “hardcore group” of some
thirty individuals in Bosnia with direct links to international terrorism.159 Bosnia has also become
an important base of activity for security and intelligence services of various Islamist states; for
instance, an estimate released in late 2014 suggested that Iran, Pakistan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
had some 1000 intelligence agents operating in Bosnia alone.160
In an interesting example of comparative rates of radicalization, one observer has noted
that more individuals from the Balkans have joined the Iraqi and Syrian jihads than from
Central Asia or the Caucasus.161 By January 2014, the seriousness of the problem merited
the dispatch of a large, multiagency U.S. government delegation (including individuals from
the FBI, the NSA, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice) on a fact-finding
mission to the region.162
The Balkan blowback from the Iraqi and Syrian jihads is already being felt. In November 2013,
six suspected terrorists (two of whom are believed to have fought in Syria) were arrested in Kosovo
on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks using cell-phone activated explosive devices. The group
was also believed to have been involved in an attack on two American Mormon missionaries in
Priština on November 3rd.163 A group called “Xhemati i Xhehadit” subsequently warned police of
“painful attacks” if their comrades were not released, claiming that “without doubt, we have people
who love death more than you life in this world.”164 The continuing threat from militant Islamist
groups in the region was further on evidence in November 2013 when the largest illegal arms cache
discovered in postwar Bosnia was found near the central Bosnian town of Tešanj, in the heart of
territory where foreign mujahedin and their local allies operate. The weapons, which arrived in the
area about 1999, included over five-hundred 84mm grenades for rocket-propelled grenade launchers, which local authorities claimed could be used for terrorist attacks or provided for use on other
jihad fronts.165 And the question intelligence agencies and security services now have to deal with
is what happens when these people return home, as was the case, for instance when in December
2013 German police arrested Kreshnik Berisha, an Islamic State fighter born in Germany from a
Kosovo émigré family, at Frankfurt Airport.166
These have not been unexpected attacks and developments. Already in May 2007, a leading
American observer of Balkan Islam had noted that “a visitor to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania,
Kosovo, and Macedonia encountered unmistakable evidence that extremist intruders are opening
a Balkan front in the global jihad,”167 and in January 2010 Israeli officials warned that the Balkan
region “is global jihad’s next destination for creating an infrastructure and recruiting activists.”168
19
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Indeed, over the past three
decades militant Islamists in
the the Balkans have created a
sophisticated infrastructure consisting of four main componenets: 1) local allies in political,
security, and religious establishments; 2) safe havens consisting
of radical-controlled mosques
and remote villages which provide militant Islamists places to
recruit, organize, train and hide;
3) NGO’s and financial instituLeft: Bosnia, “an excellent tactical base for espionage, fundraising,
tions providing terrorists with
and terrorist activities . . . a major center for terrorist recruitment
cover identities and the ability
and fundraising. . . a place where recruits could train, coalesce into
to clandestinely transfer opercells, and seek shelter from prosecution by foreign law enforcement.”
ational funds; and 4) various
right: the “fundamentalist triangle” in the Balkans (source: Repubelectronic and print media problica (Rome).
moting their extremist ideology. Such complex, multi-faceted organization allows militant Islamist groups to sustain the occasional crackdown or arrest
without substantial damage to their networks or infrastructure as a whole.169
Local Allies
The existence of an indigenous cadre Balkan militant Islamists made it relatively easy for Al
Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to implant themselves in Bosnia and extend their operations throughout Europe in the 1990s. Estimates of the number of non-indigenous mujahedin who
moved to Bosnia during this period range from several hundred to six thousand.170 After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Bosnia, according to one study, became “[a] new refuge,
close to both the heart of Europe and the Middle East . . . an excellent tactical base for espionage,
fundraising, and terrorist activities . . . a major center for terrorist recruitment and fundraising. . . a
place where recruits could train, coalesce into cells, and seek shelter from prosecution by foreign
law enforcement.”171 Along similar lines, as Douglas Farah has noted,
It is often forgotten
that Bosnia played an
extremely significant
role in the formation of
al Qaeda, and that the
infrastructure established during that war
was never eradicated.
Al Qaeda and other
Salafist groups used
Bosnia as a training
ground, a financial center, a weapons storage
site and a money laundering center.172
Map depicting the origin and approximate numbers of foreign mudžahedin moving into Bosnia between 1992-1995 (source: Oluic, 2008)
20
Other analyses provide similar conclusions; thus, by 2004
one report noted that “Bosnia
is well-known in intelligence
circles as a major center of Al
SEERECON
Jihad is a family affair: from left: Bosnian jihad veteran (and Osama bin Laden son-in-law) Sulaiman abuGhaith (source: Al Jazeera); Bosnian jihad veteran (and Osama bin Laden cousin) Abu Zubair al-Madani;
Bosnian jihad veteran (and Osama bin Laden bodyguard) Nasser Ahmed Al-Bahri, a.k.a., “the Father of
Death”; Bosnian jihad veteran (and Osama bin Laden bodyguard) Khalid al-Juhani, involved in the May
2003 Riyadh bombings
Qaeda activity. The Americans believe that Bosnia had become the pipeline for Al Qaeda volunteers who wanted to join up with the resistance in Iraq,”173 and the former NATO commander in
Bosnia, U.S. Army Major General Virgil Packett, claimed that “Bosnia [had] moved from being
a sanctuary for terrorism to a gateway for terrorism.”174 Other concurrent studies suggested that
Bosnia had become a command and control center for various groups of regional militants due to
the existence of an extensive network of individuals sympathetic to the militant Islamist cause.175
Increasing the threat and capacity of Balkan militant Islamists is the support and cooperation
they receive from local authorities sympathetic to their cause. In February 1996, NATO forces
raided an Iranian-operated terrorist training camp in Bosnia where they found plans to NATO installations, booby-trapped children’s toys, and essays on how to assassinate political opponents and
critical journalists. The camp’s director was the personal intelligence advisor to Alija Izetbegović
(this event is described in more detail in section IV).176 Alija Izetbegović’s son Bakir (currently a
member of the Bosnian state presidency) has admitted to personally being in touch with leading
mujahedin figures in Bosnia such as Imad al-Husin, a.k.a Abu Hamza.177 The younger Izetbegović was also reportedly caught trying to sell surface-to-air missiles to Al Qaeda in Iraq, for which
American officials threatened him with a trip to Guantanamo.178 A Saudi terrorist named Ahmed
Zuhair, a.k.a. Abu Hanzala, wanted in connection with the September 1997 Mostar Car bombing
and the November 1995 murder of U.S. citizen William Jefferson near Tuzla, was revealed to
have been hiding at one point in the apartment of the Travnik chief of police (American intelligence ultimately captured Zuhair in Pakistan and transferred him to Guantanamo).179 Ali Hamad, a
Bahraini-born Al Qaeda operative, has claimed that “from the political and military leadership in
Sarajevo at the time we received the highest privileges and immunity from the police,”180 and that
Al Qaeda figures would visit Bosnia with “state protection.”181
Local allies also provide
international jihadis with new
identities allowing them to
travel and conduct operations
around the world. A secret report prepared for the Clinton
Administration in late 2000
“shocked everyone” when the
scale on which the Izetbegović regime had provided travel documents to international
extremists was revealed.182 By
one count some 12,000 Bosnian passports were distributed
to international jihadis,183 and
both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia
Al Qaeda co-founder and U.S. African Embassy attacks plotter
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, visited Bosnia three months prior to the
bombings on a “business trip”
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March 2004 Madrid Train Bombing conspiracy: on left: bombing ringleader Serhane bin Abdulmajid
Fakhet; middle: Amer Azizi, received explosives training in Zenica (Bosnia); on right, Fakhet’s Bosnian
roommate Sanel Sjekirica. Although Sjekirica had previously been under suspicion by Spanish authorities
of involvement in Islamic extremist activities, he was ultimately cleared of personal involvement in the attacks. Sources: El Pais (Madrid), El Mundo (Madrid)
accused the Izetbegović regime of giving Bosnian passports to known terrorists.184 The distribution
of new identities to international terrorists proved a useful way for the Izetbegović regime to evade
provisions in the Dayton Peace Accords which required foreign fighters to be expelled from the
country; thus, as security expert Evan Kohlmanm has noted,
The Dayton Accords had specifically mandated that the Bosnian government expel
soldiers who were not of ‘local origin.’ In order to evade this provision, Izetbegović’s regime simply issued thousands of BiH passports, birth certificates, and other
official paperwork to various members of the foreign [mujahedin] battalion . . .
. many of the most dangerous ones . . . were protected by religious and political
hardliners at the most senior levels of the Bosnian government, and thus were able
to easily ‘melt into’ mainstream Bosnian society.185
Osama bin Laden himself was the owner of a Bosnian passport,186 and Western reporters even saw
him Izetbegović’s office during the war.187 According to Abdel Bari Atwan, bin Laden visited mujahedin camps in Bosnia three times between 1994-96, and Ayman al-Zawahiri took personal charge Al
Qaeda’s efforts in Bosnia.188 bin Laden bodyguard Nasser Abdel al-Bahri, a.k.a. “the Father of Death”
was also a Bosnian jihad veteran, as was bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman abu Ghaith.189 In the
1990s, Al Qaeda operative Safet Abid Catovic was given cover as a diplomat at Bosnia’s UN Mission
in New York.190 In 1998, three months before the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam
and Nairobi, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the
mastermind of the attacks, visited Bosnia on a
“business trip” on a visa issued to him by the
Bosnian consulate in Ankara.191 In September
1999, Turkish police arrested Mahrez Auduni
(at the time considered one of bin Laden’s top
aides) traveling on a Bosnian passport.192 As
late as March 2014, the chairman of the security committee in Izetbegović’s Islamist party
was a man on the U.S. government’s Specially
Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons
List, and otherwise widely considered to be a
leading Iranian agent in Bosnia.193
Balkan Bases
In remote, isolated villages around the
Balkans militant Islamists have developed a
Bosnian jihad veteran Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri, operational commander and mastermind of the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole. The two actual
suicide-bombers themselves, Ibrahim al-Thawar and
Hassan al-Khamiri, also spent time in Bosnia
22
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Facsimile of a Central Bosnia Canton Interior
Ministry police directive to end all investigations of “individuals, groups and organizations
which could be connected with the so-called
‘Wahhabi movement’.” Issued after a wave
of violence against Croat returnees in Central
Bosnia (source: Bosnian Federation TV)
network of extra-territorial, sharia-run enclaves that
serve as recruiting stations for local converts and safe
havens for jihadis from around the world. Bulgaria’s
former chief mufti, Nedim Gendzhev, claims that
extremists are trying to create a “fundamentalist triangle” formed by Bosnia, Macedonia and Bulgaria’s
Western Rhodope mountain range.194 Adding to concerns about the threat militant Islamist groups in the
region pose is their often strategic choice in establishing outposts and bases. According to a 2014 Austrian
intelligence report, for instance, the milieu in which
militant Islamism in southeastern Europe flourishes,
the Wahhabi movement, continues to grow and build
new communities,195 one example of which can be
seen in the northwestern Bosnian village of Bosanska
Bojna (near Velika Kladuša), where Wahhabis have
begun establishing a new settlement only a few dozen
meters from the Croatian border, making it an ideal
base for smuggling individuals and other contraband
into and out of the EU.196
In remote Bosnian villages such as Bočinja Donja, inhabited by some 600 people, extremists live
“separate lives untroubled by local police, tax-collectors or any other authorities. Outsiders never set
foot in the small community.”197 Bočinja Donja has been associated with numerous international terrorists, including Karim Said Atmani, the document forger for the Millenium Bomb plot. After wouldbe LAX bomber Ahmed Ressam was arrested on the U.S.-Canadian border in December 1999, U.S.
officials tried to track down his former roommate, Atmani, who was known to be traveling between
Sarajevo and Istanbul. Bosnian officials denied that Atmani had ever been there; however, investigators later learned that Atmani had been issued a Bosnian passport six months earlier198); Khalil Deek,
arrested in December 1999 for his involvement in a plot to blow up Jordanian tourist sites; and Omar
Saeed Sheikh, involved in the murder/beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl,199 were
there as well, and Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri, also is known to have visited
the village in 1997200 and spent much of the 1990s in nearby Bulgaria.
Left: Bosnian-Swedish extremist Mirsad Bektašević, arrested in 2005 for plotting
suicide-bombing attacks against Western embassies in Sarajevo. Bektašević reportedly served as an internet recruiter for Iraqi insurgency leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi (center). Right: Abu Amas al-Shami, Zarqawi’s second-in-command,
killed in a U.S. missile strike in Iraq in 2004. al-Shami spent considerable time
in Bosnia in the 1990s. U.S. officials believed Bosnia served “as a pipeline for Al
Qaeda volunteers who want to join the Iraqi resistance.”
23
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Left: Bočinja Donja (Bosnia) resident Karim Said Atmani, document forger for the
LAX Millenium Bomb Plot conspirators; center: would-be shoe-bomber Saajid Badat, trained in terrorist camps in Bosnia in 1998; right: Bosnian jihad veteran and
Al Qaeda explosives expert Tarik Mahmud Ahmad, spent 1992-1999 in Bosnia. The
Egyptian-born Ahmad, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood who also had
Bosnian citizenship, specialized in developing IED’s intended for use against U.S. forces and commercial airliners. Ahmad also created a prototype shoe-bomb for Al Qaeda.
Ahmad provided U.S. interrogators substantial intelligence on the ARBiH 3rd Corps’
activities and ties to terrorist groups. After leaving Bosnia he ran an explosives curriculum at the Abu Ubaydah Camp in Afghanistan
Another Bosnian village, Gornja Maoča, was formerly the headquarters of Bosnia’s main Wahhabi leader, Nusret Imamović, whom the U.S. State Department in September 2014 designated one
of ten “global terrorists.” According to a former resident of Gornja Maoča, members of the community who know Arabic regularly inform members about news and information from Al Qaeda
websites, and some residents claim to personally know the editor of Inspire (Al Qaeda’s online
publication). Large weapons caches have been discovered in forests surrounding the village,201 and
the village has frequently been used as a way station for extremists joining jihads in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Yemen. In October 2011, the Sandžak Wahhabi Mevlid Jašarević left the village on
the day he attacked the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. One of his companions that day, Emrah Fojnica,
died in a suicide-bombing in Iraq in August 2014.202 Another visitor to Gornja Maoča was Edis
Bosnić, a Bosnian émigré living in Jacksonville, Florida, who was arrested in the village in February 2010.
Bosnić had maintained contact with Adis Medunjanin,
another Bosnian émigré living in New York City who
was arrested for his involvement in the plot to blow up
the New York City subway system.203 Another Wahhabi
outpost in Bosnia is Bužim (near Bihać) in northwestern
Bosnia, home to Bilal Bosnić, known for his YouTube
spots supporting suicide bombings, glorifying the Taliban, and various anti-Semitic rants.
In these remote Islamist-controlled areas, under the
guise of “youth camps,” former mujahedin take young
people into the local hills and forests where they are given military training and give the new cadres the chance to
build relationships needed to sustain extremist networks.
The camps are intentionally non-permanent, making it
more difficult for security officials to track them.204 The
training regimens typically last 6-7 weeks, and involve intensive religious indoctrination and other activities, such
24
October 2011: Sandžak Wahhabi
Mevlid Jašarević attacking the U.S.
Embassy in Sarajevo. The attack merited mention in paragraph 88 (out of 98)
in the OHR’s semi-annual report to the
UN Secretary-General
SEERECON
as watching videos of jihads in Afghanistan and
Iraq.205 Between 1992 and 1995 alone, some
2000 people are believed to have undergone
“religious training” at just one such camp, run
by Egyptian-born Imad al-Misri.206 In March
2007, Serbian police raided one such camp in
the mountainous Sandžak region straddling the
border between Serbia and Montenegro, arresting a number of individuals and seizing weapons, explosives, and food stocks.207 The group
was allegedly planning to attack western embassies in Belgrade. In March 2008, several remote
mountain cottages were discovered in central
Bosnia where military equipment was stored
and evidence suggested military-style exercises
Enjoy visa-free travel throughout Europe: jihad
had been held. The cottages were discovered afvolunteer showing off his Bosnian passport and
ter a map was found in the Sarajevo apartment of
“Islamic State” identity card (Source: VijestiUmmeta.com)
Rijad Rustempašić, called by police “one of the
most notorious and most violent radical Bosnian
Muslims.”208 Would be shoe-bomber Saajid Badat trained in just such a Bosnian terrorist training camp
in 1998.209 Similarly, in July 2013 a raid near the village of Kalošević, close to the central Bosnian town
of Tešanj, uncovered the largest stash of undeclared weaponry and explosives found since the end of the
Bosnian war, including over 500 rocket-propelled grenades. Local inhabitants of the village claimed the
arms and ammunition were hidden there on the order of a high-ranking member of Izetbegović’s party
Bosnian media cite as one of the main local liaisons with Al Qaeda operatives in the country.210
Throughout the western and southern Balkans, extremist-led mosques also serve as bases for militant Islamists. The Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque and Cultural Center in Sarajevo has been called
“the epicenter of the spreading of radical ideas” in Bosnia,211 which for a number of years functioned
autonomously under the direct supervision of the Saudi embassy in Bosnia. In 2003, the CIA attempted
to infiltrate the King Fahd mosque’s Al Qaeda cells with a Pakistani double agent, Abdulrahman Khadr,
the son of a prominent Al Qaeda official. The success of the effort remains unclear.212 The White Mosque
in Sarajevo is the headquarters of Sulejman Bugari, a Kosovo Albanian-born imam whom some reports
have described as a go-between and point-of-contact for Albanian and Bosnian extremists.213 In Kosovo,
the Makowitz mosque on the outskirts of Priština and the Mitrovica mosque are reportedly recruiting
militants to fight alongside Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria.214 In Macedonia,
Wahhabi extremists have taken control of four mosques in Skopje, and are active in western parts of the country as well.215
Some of the most violent elements in the Balkan Islamist movement are
headquartered outside the region. For instance, the Sandžak extremist Nedžad
Balkan, considered a leader in the Takfiri movement in both Bosnia and Serbia, has established himself in the Sahaba Mosque in Vienna’s 7th Bezirk,216
while another prominent Bosnian militant Islamist, Muhamed Porča, is based
in Vienna’s al-Tawhid mosque, frequented by Asim Cejvanović, the Bosnian
émigré who attacked the US embassy in Vienna in October 2002.
Throughout the Balkans, prisons also serve as recruiting grounds for
militant Islamists; in Zenica prison in Bosnia, for instance, militant Islamists such as Abu Hamza have established cells that recruit and indoctrinate
inmates, as a result of which, as one security expert noted, “they come out
of prison as professionals, ready to do terrorist acts.”217 Militant Islamists
have also taken advantage of young people afflicted by drug addiction; in
one example, the International Crisis Group has reported how the imam of
25
An excerpt from Al
Qaeda’s donor’s
list, the “Golden
Chain,”
discovered in Sarajevo,
March 2002
SEERECON
Bosnian jihad veterans Azad Ekinci (left) and Habib Aktaş (middle), involved in the November 2003 Istanbul bombings
Sarajevo’s Vratnik White Mosque runs a program which brings drug-addicted young people from
Sandžak to a “rehabilitation center” in Sarajevo, whereupon “when the former addicts return, almost all sport Wahhabi beards and dress and appear to adhere to a fundamentalist form of Islam.”218
NGOs and Financial Institutions
Militant Islamists support their efforts in southeastern Europe through a network of “NGO’s,”
“charities” and “humanitarian aid” organizations, often funded by known Al Qaeda financial donors. The CIA has estimated that one third of the Bosnian NGO’s operating worldwide have terrorist connections or employ people with terrorist links.219 During the Bosnian jihad, various NGO’s
with known ties to Al Qaeda funneled several hundreds of millions of dollars to Izetbegović’s war
effort,220 and U.S.-based “charities” with close ties to Osama bin Laden, such as Care International,
Inc., received checks with memo lines reading “Bosnia mujahedin,” “for jihad only,” and “Chechen
Muslim fighters.”221 Of the estimated $800 million the Saudis alone gave to Bosnia after Dayton,
some $100 million is untraceable, lost in a maze of Al Qaeda front organizations funding terror
activities worldwide.222 In the aftermath of 9/11, a raid in Sarajevo on just such a “charity,” the
Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, netted “maps of Washington, material for making false
State Department identity cards and anti-American manuals designed for children.”223 (The Saudi
High Commission for Aid to Bosnia has been named as a defendant in the lawsuit brought by 9/11
victims and families in U.S. federal court.) Also found in Sarajevo in March 2002 was Al Qaeda’s
donor’s list, the so-called “Golden Chain.”
Among the Al Qaeda-linked organizations working in the Balkans have been the Benevolence
International Foundation (which had offices and personnel in Chicago), the “Taibah Foundation,”
Osama bin Laden bodyguard recruiter and Bosnian jihad veteran Abdu Ali Sharqawi; right: Bosnian jihad veteran
Zuri-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, ‘mastermind’ of the November 2008 Mumbai bombings
26
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Left: Bosnian terrorist Adis Medunjanin, involved in the January 2010 plot to blow up the NYC subway
system, described by US Attorney General Eric Holder as “the most serious threat against the US homeland
since 9/11” Medunjanin earned a spot on CNN’s Top Terror Takedowns of 2012; center: Medunjanin’s co-indictee Adnan Shukrijumah, considered Al Qaeda’s head of external operations, killed in a raid in Pakistan’s
south Waziristan tribal areas in December 2014; right: Kosovo extremist Arid Uka, murdered two US servicemen at Frankfurt Airport in February 2011
the “Global Relief Foundation,” which operated in Bosnia and Kosovo, and al Haramain, which
was active in Albania.224 The Turkish-based IHH (the “Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms
and Humanitarian Relief,” or Insani Yardim Vakfi in Turkish) which was involved in the Mavi
Marmara incident off the Israeli coast in May 2010, began its activities in Bosnia in the 1990s.
In June 2010, Turkish authorities began an investigation of the group’s founder, Bűlent Yildirim,
for funding Al Qaeda.225 Although impossible to verify independently, the Iranian news agency
Farsnews has claimed that IHH had recruited 769 Albanians (as of August 2013) to join the “Free
Syrian Army.” Of those, Farsnews claimed that 450 had defected and gone on to join the Al Nusra
front.226 In Kosovo, a leading political analyst, Ilir Deda, has claimed that Middle-Eastern “charities” invested some $800 million there between 1999-2010.227
The lack of transparency in many Middle-Eastern-based banking institutions makes it extremely difficult to track the flow of monies to militant groups in the region.228 Monies donated
for legitimate charitable purposes often get siphoned off and
used to support weapons purchases or to provide support for
families of imprisoned or killed jihadis. Members of the Al
Qaeda cell in Albania, for instance, working under the cover of various Middle-East based charities (such as the Islamic
Revival Foundation, an organization with alleged ties to Bin
Laden), were required to contribute 26 percent of their salaries
to support the global jihad; one such individual claimed that
he diverted $800 per month (from funds intended for Albanian
orphans) for such purposes. Monies provided from such sources have also financed political asylum applications in western
countries, helping militants establish terrorist cells in Europe
and the U.S. The Islamic Revival Foundation ran an “educational institute” in the Albanian town of Elbasan, consisting of
Bosnian citizen/Bosnian passfour buildings, surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed
port holder Abu Zubaydah, one
wire.229 By 2010, the Albanian government had seized and conof bin Laden’s top lieutenants, in
fiscated some $7.5 million (USD) in assets from two individcharge of maintaining contacts
uals and thirteen foundations believed implicated in terrorist
with other terrorist organizafinance.230 In Macedonia, U.S. officials have alleged that the
tions and admissions to terrorist
NGO “Bamiresia,” run by radical cleric Bekir Halimi, was
training camps in Afghanistan
involved in a variety of schemes laundering Middle-Eastern
27
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money in the region. Among other things, Halimi’s students received funds from Al-Waqf
Al-Islamiya, an organization known for providing funds for individuals who want to go on
jihad.231 As usual, money buys influence; thus, in Kosovo Stephen Schwartz has claimed that
“a Saudi-based Wahhabi group operating in Western Europe exercises alarming financial influence over the highest Kosovo Islamic leadership.”232 Islamist NGO’s and humanitarian groups
also finance sending school-age children to study in countries such as Egypt, Libya, Saudi
Arabia and Syria where they are indoctrinated in extreme forms of Islam.233
Militant Media and Propaganda
Militant Islamists in the Balkans have developed an extensive array and network of print periodicals, bookstores, websites, and YouTube spots spreading religious intolerance, glorifications
of violence, and anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-democratic messages. Islamic bookstores from
Belgrade to Novi Pazar distribute tracts by Islamist extremists such as Yussuf Qaradawi and Sayyib
Qutb. Websites such as the “Way of the Believer” (putvjernika.com), “Way of Islam” (stazomislama.com), Ensarije Serijata (“Partisans of Sharia” http://www.geocities.ws/ensarije_seriata/index-2.html), “Saved Community” (spasenaskupina.com, affiliated with Bilal Bosnić), “News of the
Community“ (vijestiummeta.com), and the Sandžak Wahhabi website kelimetul-haqq.org promote
jihad, suicide bombings, and the killing of non-Muslims.234 These websites also relay news from
other jihadi fronts, sermons by extremist preachers from the Middle-East, and messages from Al
Qaeda leaders; for instance, the PutVjernika website recently carried “A New Order from Zawahiri:
Focus on Attacks on American Interests.”235 Militant Islamist extremist networks also use videos of
snipers killing American soldiers in Iraq to recruit new volunteers for the Iraq jihad.236 According to
Fahrudin Kladicanin, the co-author of a recent study on Balkan extremists’ use of the internet and
social media, “The number of those who are ‘liking,’ making comments and sharing the content
of these pages, especially when it comes to religious leaders, extreme Islamists and Wahhabists,
is rising on a daily basis.” The Facebook profiles of almost all such extremist leaders have over
5,000 “friends” and even more “likes.”237 In October 2014, the Islamist extremist website Vijesti
Ummeta claimed that in one 24-hour period 110,905 unique readers visited their website,238 and the
aforementioned radical imam from Kosovo Shefqet Krasniqi reportedly gets more YouTube hits
than any Kosovo politician.239 The Facebook page Krenaria Islame (Albanian for “Islamic Pride”),
which posts pictures and stories of Albanians fighting in Syria, has 2,500 followers. According to
“A New Order from Zawahiri: Focus Your Attacks on American Interests.” From the PutVjernika website (posted on 12 October 2013). maintained by Bosnian extremists in Gornja
Maoča. Note that southeastern Europe is claimed as part of Al Qaeda’s proposed Caliphate
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From the Bosnian-extremist website Put hilafeta (“Way of the Caliphate”); the title reads “A
Message to Obama: We Will Attack You in Your Country!” (posted on 30 September 2014)
the Tirana-based security expert Arjan Dyrmishi, “If all the followers of this page were identified as
terrorists, they would make a small army and pose a major problem. Such a large number of followers would pose a concern, even if these people were to be identified only as supporters of political
Islam.”240 As of mid-October 2014, Vijesti Ummeta had 13,551 Facebook fans, and Saff had 12,352.
The Albanian-language website ligjerataislame.com, which posts sermons by the extremist imam
Bekir Halimi, had 20,763 likes. An October 2014 YouTube search of the “SalafiMedia Balkan”
channel returned 943 results.
Evidence of the increasing technological sophistication of Balkan militant Islamists have been
recent episodes in which they have engaged in low-level cyber-warfare. An extremist from the central Bosnian town of Bugojno, Haris Čaušević (suspected of involvement in the June 2010 bombing
of a police station in Bugojno in which one police officer was killed) was accused of hacking several government websites,241 and in Kosovo in August 2009, the website of the newspaper Express,
which had run articles critical of militant Islamists in Kosovo, was hacked, with the culprits imposing an Al Qaeda flag on the website and various threats in Albanian and English.242
The Sarajevo-based extremist publication Saff was originally founded by indigenous Bosnian
members of the Al Qaeda unit in the Bosnian jihad (the El Mujahedin brigade), who formed an organization called Aktivna Islamska Omladina (“Active Islamic Youth,” local acronym, AIO). According
to the U.S. State Department, the AIO spreads extremist views and has links with radical groups in
Western Europe and the U.S.243 Saff is available in both print and an online electronic version which
the State Department has described as anti-American and tending towards extremism. AIO has also
established itself in various cities and towns in Macedonia.244 A Wahhabi TV channel in Kosovo,
ironically called “Peace TV,” established by the radical preacher Zahir Naik, “insults . . . in aggressive terms, spiritual Sufis, Shia Muslims, non-fundamentalist Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and Hindus,
among others.” In his sermons Naik has praised Osama bin Laden and supported terrorism.245
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IV. Iran in the Balkans
A major concern amongst Western security officials over the past two decades has been containing Iranian influence in southeastern Europe, particularly in Bosnia. This concern has increased in
recent years as the possibility of military conflict over Iran’s nuclear program has grown, raising fears
Iran or its allies such as Hezbollah could retaliate to such an attack by launching counter-strikes outside the Middle-East. When a suspected Hezbollah suicide-bomber attacked a bus in Burgas, Bulgaria
in July 2012, killing six Israeli tourists, it confirmed to many observers that southeastern Europe was
indeed a potential front for Iran or its proxies in any future conflict.
Western concern over the possibility that pro-Iranian Islamist factions in southeastern Europe
could cause serious problems for Western interests in the event of military conflict with Tehran has
increased in recent years. In the first six months of 2012 alone, 200 Iranian “businessmen” were
granted visas to enter Bosnia. More ominously, an Iranian diplomat known to have been in Georgia, Thailand and India (all countries in which there have been terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens)
has now been stationed in Bosnia.246 In August 2012, the American and British ambassadors to
Sarajevo privately warned Bosnian officials to cut their ties to Iran,247 and a former international
high representative in Bosnia publicly told the Bosnians that their future lay with the EU, not with
Iran.248 More ominously, in September 2012 a Sarajevo newspaper claimed that pro-Iranian factions in the Bosnian government were re-activating para-intelligence cells leftover from the time
Alija Izetbegovic.249
In 2014 Tehran again began intensifying its espionage efforts in Bosnia. Iranian agents were reported to be making contacts with Bosnian “NGO’s” with known extremists ties, and meeting with
individuals from the Wahhabi village of Gornja Maoća. A high-ranking MOIS official, Abolghazem
Parhizkar, made two trips to Bosnia in 2014, and other Iranian agents have been observed shuttling
between Istanbul, Sarajevo, and Vienna on a frequent basis. By this time, it was believed that Iran,
Pakistan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had some 1000 intelligence agents operating in Bosnia.250
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Izetbegović and his colleagues had been inspired and encouraged by the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in Iran. Several of Izetbegović’s closest
collaborators at the time secretly went to Iran in January 1982 to attend anniversary celebrations
marking the establishment of the Islamic Republic, and to attend a congress aimed at the reunification of Sunni and Shia’ Islam.251 These activities, together with the views promoted in the Islamic
Declaration, earned Izetbegović a second prison term in 1983 in a trial in which a dozen other
Bosnian Islamists were also sentenced. The indictees of the 1983 trials would in 1990 form the
core of Izetbegović’s newly-formed political party, the SDA. One of those tried with Izetbegović at
this time, Omer Behmen, was in 1992 entrusted with the job of becoming the Izetbegović regime’s
ambassador to Tehran.252 Another 1983 trial indictee, Hasan Čengić, would in the 1990s be widely
seen as the leading Iranian agent in Bosnia. (According to the former chief of the CIA’s unit for
tracking Osama bin Laden, Michael Scheuer, Čengić was one of the agency’s top surveillance targets in Europe in the 1990s.)253 Iranian influence in the former Yugoslavia was also spread at this
time by educational exchanges in which several hundred Yugoslav Muslim students were sent to study in
Iranian institutions. By 1989, there were a reported
606 Iranian nationals in Yugoslavia.254
The Bosnian war in 1992 opened the doors for
Iran to exponentially increase its influence in Bosnia.
Iran was one of the first Islamic countries to provide
support to the Izetbegović regime, and within a few
weeks of the outbreak of fighting UN peacekeepers
were already reporting the arrival of Iranian forces
in Bosnia.255 Moreover, with the tacit approval of the
Clinton Administration the Iranians provided Izet-
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Bakir Izetbegović with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cairo, February 2013
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begovic’s war effort with considerable military, intelligence, and logistical support. Throughout this period, the Iranians developed an extensive
intelligence network throughout the territory and in the various institutions controlled by Izetbegović’s forces, running a well-developed ring
of “charities” in cities such as Sarajevo, Mostar, Zenica, Bihac, and Visoko.256 The Iranians also initiated an intensive training program for Bosnian intelligence and security officials during this time.257 The importance
of Bosnia in Iranian plans was evident in the sheer number of Iranians visiting the country; for instance, in June 2000 alone, 1,298 Iranian passport
holders entered Bosnia on one- and two-week visas. Only 116 “officially”
departed. Although many of these “visitors” might have been involved in
human trafficking operations, the ease with which Iranian agents could
enter Bosnia and then disappear was obvious.258
Hasan Čengić, in-
dicted co-conspirator
Importantly, during the war the Izetbegović regime’s preference for
with Alija Izetbegović
Iran as a sponsor and model was very apparent. According to Cees Wiebes,
in 1983, key Bosnian
throughout the conflict “Turkey and Saudi Arabia were very willing to
liaison with Iran.
deliver weapons and to lure Izetbegović away from Iran, but the orienta259
tion of the Bosnian government was far more towards Iran.” American
intelligence operatives in Bosnia came to the same conclusion. Robert Baer, a CIA agent stationed
in Sarajevo during the war, claimed that “In Sarajevo, the Bosnian Muslim government is a client
of the Iranians . . . If it’s a choice between the CIA and the Iranians, they’ll take the Iranians any
day.”260 Along similar lines, John Sray (former G-2 for UNPROFOR during the Bosnian war) noted,
The Bosnian Muslim government certainly does not reflect the image of a liberal
western-style democracy as the press misleadingly portrays it. This group remains
Islamist-dominated and desperately attempts to hide its true sentiments. It is more
likely to be influenced by Iran and the Mujahedin than by anyone in the West.
These radical groups may remain underground or depart during NATO’s deployment, but they will return later to ensure that the Bosniac population becomes
properly politicized and obedient to fundamentalist doctrine.261
This was also the conventional wisdom within the State Department. Should Croats and
Serbs secede from Bosnia, according to one former US diplomat, the result would be “a non-viable rump Islamic state that would be a platform for Iranian terrorism.”262 Similarly, amongst
scholars there was a belief that a Muslim mini-state in Bosnia “could hardly be [a] secular
pro-Western entity . . . It could very well seek its sources
of ideology, inspiration and arms from the East.”263 By
the war’s end public opinion polls showed some 86%
of the Bosnian Muslim population expressed a positive
attitude towards Iran.264
Alija Izetbegović’s personal intelligence advisor, Bakir Alispahić, believed to be a leading Iranian agent in
BiH, on the USG’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List
Indeed, Washington would soon have dangerous evidence
of the degree to which the Izetbegović regime had become Iranian clients. When a new CIA station chief was sent to Sarajevo in 1995, he was immediately betrayed by his local Bosnian
colleagues to Iranian agents who quickly began preparing his
assassination.266 Iranian support was also what the Izetbegović
regime counted on in its efforts to lift the arms embargo; as Silajdžić admitted in one conversation with Carl Bildt, lifting the
arms embargo would allow “ten thousand Iranian soldiers” to
come to Bosnia.267 Izetbegović also used his frequent visits to
Iran to give more credibility to the threats he issued against his
opponents; for instance, in October 1992, standing at the tomb
of the Ayatollah Khomeini, Izetbegović threatened to launch
poisonous gas attacks against the Serbs.268
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“No one can escape the obvious, there is terrorist training activity going on in this building
and it has direct association with people in the government.” NATO commander Admiral
Leighton Smith inspecting the Iranian-run Pogorelići terrorist training camp in February
1996.265 (source: Associated Press)
With the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in December 1995, one of the main goals of
U.S. policy became reducing the influence of Iran and the various mujahedin forces in Bosnia.
This proved a difficult task, for pro-Iranian factions had by this time become deeply embedded in
numerous Bosnian institutions. According to a leaked CIA report Izetbegović himself was “literally on the [Iranian] payroll,” receiving on just one occasion $500,000 (US) in cash from Iranian
agents.269 Tellingly, the Iranian ambassador to Bosnia was the only foreign diplomat accompanying
Izetbegović on his electoral campaign in 1996,270 and on one of Haris Silajdžić’s trips to London,
Margaret Thatcher herself observed that he was escorted by Iranian guards and transported in Iranian vehicles.271
By 1997, it was estimated that Iran had approximately 200 agents in various Bosnian institutions. A particular Iranian target was the American-sponsored “arm and train” program for the
Muslim-Croat Federation Army. Thanks to the support of key allies within the Izetbegović regime,
Iranian intelligence services were able to infiltrate drivers, translators, and clerical personnel into
the program, all of whom had been picked by the pro-Iranian faction in Izetbegović’s security service. For instance, the chief liaison with the US Defense Department for coordinating the “arm and
train” program, General Dzemal Merdan, was also Izetbegović’s officer in charge of relations with
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and one of the founders of the “7th Muslim Brigade” which had
incorporated the mujahedin forces in Bosnia.272 The Iranians were also running a network of 5-7
training camps in central Bosnia for an intelligence service that Izetbegović had set up in January
1996 in contravention of the Dayton Accords,273 and during this period the Bosnian government
was training military personnel in Iran as well.274 Iran also extended its influence in Bosnia by infiltrating agents into various charities, news agencies, and even a hamburger chain in Sarajevo.275
The most concerted U.S. effort to purge pro-Iranian officials from positions of influence in Bosnia was the removal of Hasan Cengić, one of Izetbegović’s closest collaborators. As noted earlier,
Čengić had gone to prison with Izetbegović in the 1980s and during the war was the SDA’s primary
fundraiser abroad, using this position to establish strong contacts in many Islamic countries. In the
summer of 1996, under strong American pressure (including a threat to halt the “arm and train”
program), Izetbegović was forced to dismiss Čengić as deputy defense minister in the Federation,
along with the first director of Izetbegović’s secret intelligence service, the Agencija za istraživanje
i dokumentaciju (“Agency for Research and Documentation,” or AID), Bakir Alispahić.276 Despite
American objections, however, both Čengić and Alispahić continued to play very important roles within Izetbegović’s movement. Čengić himself was reputedly one of the wealthiest people in Bosnia and
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remained the leader of the pro-Iranian wing of the SDA. By one account, Čengić was even supposed
to succeed Izetbegović as SDA leader until American officials made it clear to the latter that in such
a case the SDA would join Hezbollah and Hamas on the U.S.’ list of terrorist organizations.277 For his
part, Alispahić used his ties with Iran and his connections within the Bosnian intelligence community
to allegedly amass a small fortune of his own; according to one report, Alispahić controlled an Iranian
funded Muslim drug-smuggling network stretching to Europe and North America.278
Both during and after the war, Iran’s intelligence service, VEVAK, took particular interest in operating terrorist training camps in Bosnia. On 14 February 1996, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher travelled to Sarajevo where, in a meeting with Izetbegović, he insisted that such camps be closed.
Izetbegović personally assured Christopher that no such terrorist facilities existed in Bosnia. Less than
twenty-four hours later, NATO forces raided just such a camp near the Bosnian town of Pogorelici run
by Iranian and Bosnian intelligence agents. After inspecting the camp, the NATO commander in Bosnia, Admiral Leighton Smith, told reporters that “No one can escape the obvious, there is terrorist training activity going on in this building and it has direct association with people in the government.”279
Among the objects found at the Pogorelići camp were plans to NATO installations in Bosnia,
essays on how to assassinate regime opponents, and booby-trapped childrens’ toys. Individuals who
attended courses at the camp were trained to commit various forms of terror, such as assassinating
political opposition figures of the Izetbegović regime, manufacturing car bombs and booby-trapped
children’s toys, and various forms of ecological terrorism. Among the “student essays” confiscated
at the camp was one by an Adnan Dugonjić, who wrote “Our job is assassinating important figures,
blackmail, kidnapping, forgery of money, and the creation of ecological catastrophes in certain areas.”
Another student planned an assassination of Muslim opposition leader Muhammed Filipović, suggesting “The liquidation can be carried out by us, or by a hired person who is not a member of intelligence
… I suggest liquidation by poisonous chemical placed in water or food or transferred by skin.”280
In the predictable coverup that followed NATO’s raid on Pogorelići, Izetbegović’s intelligence
service would subsequently change the identities of the Bosnians NATO arrested at the camp.281 Other
individuals connected to Pogorelići were not so lucky. A few months after the raid, Nedžad Ugljen, a
highly-ranked member of AID considered to be a leader of the pro-Iranian faction within Izetbegović’s security service, was suspected by his colleagues of preparing to approach the Americans and the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia with information about Bosnian ties to Iran
and various war crimes. Before he could talk, Ugljen was assassinated in Sarajevo in September 1996.
His killers have never been found.
The Iranian factor remains an important variable in the current Bosnian security calculus. To take
but one example—Alija Izetbegović’s son, Bakir Izetbegović, currently a member of the three-man
Bosnian presidency, is widely seen as the leader of the pro-Iranian faction in Bosnian Muslim political
circles. One of the younger Izetbegović’s main advisors is Fikret Muslimović, the head of the Association of Iranian-Bosnian Friendship.282 Meanwhile, the former commandant of the Pogorelići camp, the
aforementioned Bakir Alispahić, as late as March 2014 remained the head of the security committee
of Izetbegović’s SDA—despite being on the black list of individuals prohibited from visiting the U.S.
because of terrorist ties.283 Sarajevo is now home to the largest Iranian embassy in Europe, and several
hundred Iranians are active in Bosnia whether as diplomats, journalists, “charitable workers,” or attached to the Iranian Cultural Center in Sarajevo. There is also believed to be a pro-Iranian, pro-Shiite
faction within the Bosnian religious establishment (despite the fact that Bosnian Islam itself is Sunni).
Since the end of the war, Iran has invested considerable sums and energy into various forms of
“public diplomacy,” promoting academic and cultural ties with elite circles in Bosnia. One example
of such efforts was the establishment of a Persian-Bosnian College outside Sarajevo which offers
graduating students trips to Iran.284 By some accounts, the Iranian government and Iranian security
services are promoting Shia’ proselytizing and missionary work in Bosnia, and a small Shia community has been formed in the village of Lješeva (on the outskirts of Sarajevo), part of an overall Shia
community in BiH estimated to have some 250-300 members.285 Other organizations that promote
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closer Bosnian-Iranian ties are the Fondacija Mulla Sadra (website: http://www.mullasadra.ba/), and
the Ibn Sina Naučno-istraživački institut (website: http://www.ibn-sina.net/) which promotes academic
and intellectual dialogue between Bosnian and Iranian scholars. Some members of the official Islamic
Community in Bosnia are claimed to be secret adherents of Shiism, and plans are reportedly underway
to build a Shia university in Bosnia.286
Along with these more public aspects of the Iranian presence in Bosnia, Tehran’s more surreptitious efforts in Bosnia continue. In May 2013, it was discovered that the second and third secretaries at the Iranian embassy in Sarajevo, Hamzeh Doolab Ahmad and Jadidi Sohrab, had been
establishing ties with Nusret Imamović and his Wahhabi community in Gornja Maoča, reportedly
bringing “cash and best wishes.” Under western pressure the two Iranian diplomats were ultimately
expelled from the country.287
Despite this history, however, the concerted Iranian effort to establish a Balkan or Bosnian beachhead in Europe has had only limited success. The limits to Iranian influence in Bosnia were evident
when Bosnia voted in June 2010 in favor of tightening sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, revealing the utility of having Croat and Serb members of the Bosnian presidency exert their influence on Bosnian foreign policy. Iran’s room for maneuver in Bosnia is also limited by the substantial
autonomy of Bosnia’s Croat-populated cantons and the Serb entity in Bosnia, the Republika Srpska,
where the Iranians enjoy no sympathy. Moreover, a three-way struggle is taking place now within the
Bosnian Muslim political and religious establishment as well which pits Iranian sympathizers against
one group that is in favor of closer ties with Saudi Arabia, and another that sees Turkey as the appropriate role model for Bosnia.
Iran has also been active in other Balkan states, albeit not so prominently. In Albania, for instance,
Iran has also attempted to create what Reza Shafa has called “a foothold in the European continent.” As
in Bosnia, the attempted Iranian infiltration of Albania followed the pattern of setting up “charities” and
“cultural organizations” that serve as front organizations for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) and VEVAK.
Despite such efforts, however, Iran draws little popular sympathy in Albania. President Sali Berisha, for instance, was an outspoken critic of the Ahmadinejad regime; in August 2012 Berisha claimed
that “Ahmadinjead proves that he and his ideology are a growing threat to peace and stability in the
Middle East . . . Ahmadinejad’s Nazi declarations should be a wake-up call that Iran’s nuclear program
should be stopped by any means, as the greatest threat to peace and stability in the world.”288 Another
sore point in Albanian-Iranian relations is the fact that several dozen members of an anti-Islamic Republic resistance group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) are with U.S. support being resettled from
Iraq to Albania. MEK is a controversial group that had earlier been listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. government, but in recent years has been seen as useful in the effort to
contain Tehran.289
It remains unclear how influential Iran can remain or become in southeastern Europe. As with
the militant Islamist threat in the region in general, there is little danger of an Iranian-style Islamic
republic being established in Bosnia or anywhere else in the Balkans. What is a very real and present
danger, however, is that Iranian cells or pro-Iranian factions in the region could provide the logistical
infrastructure for an Iranian counter-strike in the Balkans should conflict erupt between Tehran and
the West. Iran’s infiltration of official institutions in Bosnia should also give NATO pause for concern
regarding Bosnia’s eventual admission into the alliance. As a NATO member, Bosnia would be privy to
much of the intelligence shared amongst alliance members. With Iranian agents still in many positions
of power in Bosnian institutions, this essentially means that they would have access to NATO intelligence, planning and operations.
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V. A Micro-Case Study of Terrorist Networks:
The Bosnian Connections to the World Trade Center Attacks
In April 2008, the late Richard Holbrooke claimed “If it had not been for the Dayton Peace
Accords, 9/11 would probably have been planned in Bosnia, not in Afghanistan.”290 The numerous
Bosnian connections to both World Trade Center attacks suggest that the situation was probably
even more serious than Holbrooke realized. Although it is unlikely that Izetbegović or his associates had prior knowledge of or approved of the two World Trade Center attacks, what is known is
that Bosnia served as the common stomping ground for many of the individuals involved in the
attacks.
This of course follows a well-established, predictable pattern
of what ensues when militant Islamist movements take control of
territory and institutions and ideological affinities impel them toward alliances with the most extreme elements along the militant
Islamist spectrum. Whether observing Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran under the Ayatollah Khomeini and Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Lebanon under Hezbollah, the Gaza Strip under Hamas, Sudan
under Hasan al-Turabi and his National Islamic Front, or Bosnia
under the Izetbegović regime, such movements consistently provide the permissive environments and safe havens Islamist terrorists need to set up the organizations and infrastructure required to
plan operations, train and recruit new adherents, and hide from
Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
The first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 was
financed in part by monies provided by the Third World Relief
Agency (TWRA), a Vienna-based “Islamic charity” founded by
a long-time Izetbegović associate, the Sudanese national Elfatih
Hassanein. Former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler has called TWRA “Bosnia’s unique gift to radical Islam and Al
Qa’ida . . . the Bosnian ‘model’ of how to use NGOs and aid money
to pay for jihad and terrorism.”291 Along similar lines, J.M. Berger has claimed that in large part
through TWRA “Bosnia raised more money for extremism than virtually any other event you can
point to in history.”292 According to Thomas Joscelyn,
“If it had not been for the
Dayton
Peace
Accords,
9/11 would probably have
been planned in Bosnia, not in Afghanistan.”
Richard Holbrooke
TWRA was run by senior Bosnian government officials, and sponsored the relocation of hundreds, if not thousands, of jihadists to Bosnia to fight in the 1990s.
While carrying out some legitimate humanitarian functions as a cover, TWRA was
really a front for global terrorist operations.293
A number of Alija Izetbegović’s closest associates were on the board of TWRA. At a meeting
in Vienna on 14 September 1992 attended by Izetbegović, Ejup Ganić, Haris Siljadžić and Hassanein, Izetbegović intimates Irfan Ljevaković, Husein Živalj and Derviš Djudjević were elected to
TWRA’s board.294 (Živalj, and Djudjević had gone to prison with Izetbegović in 1983. Ljevaković
was charged with running a terrorist training camp in Central Bosnia in April 2002). Other sources
have claimed that Hassanein, Mustafa Cerić, Hasan Čengić (widely considered to be the leading
Iranian agent in Bosnia), and Bakir Izetbegović (currently a member of Bosnia’s joint state presidency) also controlled the Vienna TWRA account.295
By some accounts, TWRA alone collected $400 million (US) for Izetbegović’s war effort,296
while other reports claim as much as $2.5 billion passed through TWRA on its way to Bosnia.297
TWRA also ran a covert program attempting to use US military personnel serving in Bosnia to convert to Islam and join Al Qaeda. At least a dozen US soldiers reportedly participated in this effort.298
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Left: Bosnian jihad veteran Sulaiman abu-Ghaith with Bosnian passport-holder Osama bin Laden and
Ayman al-Zawahiri, director of Al Qaeda’s Bosnian operations, Afghanistan, circa November 2001; center:
Osama bin Laden with Bosnian jihad veteran Khaled al-Harbi, Afghanistan, November 2001; right: Al Qaeda logistical expert and Bosnian passport holder Muhammed al-Zawahiri (Ayman’s brother)
Clement Rodney Hampton-el, an American who had trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan,
admitted in federal court that he had obtained TWRA funds to operate military-style training camps
in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania for individuals who would go on to be involved in the
1993 World Trade Center attack.299 In addition to obtaining TWRA funds from Vienna, Hampton-el
is also reported to have gone to Bosnia circa 1992-93.300 Another TWRA employee, John Fawzan,
was discovered to have been the suicide bomber involved in the October 1995 attack on the police
headquarters in Rijeka, Croatia.301 In December 1995, an individual wanted in connection with the
first World Trade Center bombing was killed by Bosnian Croat forces near Zepce in central Bosnia.302
Another individual involved with TWRA was Omar Abdel-Rahman, a.k.a. “the blind sheik,”
convicted in U.S. federal court for seditious conspiracy in the Landmarks Bombing Plot in 1993,
which had targeted the United Nations Building, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George
Washington Bridge, and FBI headquarters in Manhattan. After the first World Trade Center bombing, the FBI succeeded in turning Rahman’s former Sudanese-born driver into an informant, who
began telling American officials about a terrorist organization named “Al Qaeda.” In 1993-94 the
driver travelled to Sudan and met with bin Laden. In 1994, he began working for the CIA and was
sent by the agency to infiltrate Bosnian Al Qaeda cells. Unfortunately, his identity was betrayed,
and he was killed by Al Qaeda operatives in Bosnia at some point in 1994-95.303
The Bosnian connections to the greatest mass murder in American history are just as direct.
Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, fought in the Bosnian jihad and
was given Bosnian citizenship. Two other 9/11 bombers, Khalid al Mindhar and Nawaf al Hazmi,
also fought in Izetbegović’s army.304 The British journalist Eve-Anne Prentice of The Guardian
Bosnian jihad veteran Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks; Bosnian jihad veteran
and Mohammed Atta recruiter Mohamed Haydar Zammar, “surrogate father to the pilots surrounding
Mohammed Atta”; Bosnian “tourist” Ramzi Bin al-Shihb, “coordinator” of the 9/11 attacks
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Bosnian jihad veterans Khalid al Mindhar and Nawaf
al Hazmi, hijackers of AA Flight 77 on 9/11
and German journalist Renate Flottau of Der
Spiegel reported meeting Osama bin Laden
in Izetbegović’s office during the war,305 and
bin Laden was even given a Bosnian passport
by Izetbegović’s foreign ministry.306 When
asked to respond to allegations that he had
met bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Izetbegović evasively replied “During and after
the war I met with thousands of people coming from the Islamic world but I can remember the faces and names of only a few.”307
The Bosnian politician Sejfudin Tokić has
claimed that Council of Europe officials had
told him of the existence of a photograph
showing Izetbegović with bin Laden.308
The core group behind the 9/11 attacks was Al Qaeda’s so-called “Hamburg cell,” led by Bosnian jihad veteran Mohammed Haydar Zammar, reportedly the man who recruited Mohammed
Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks.309 Zammar has been variously described as the “patron” of
the Hamburg Cell, the man “under whose tutelage” it operated,310 and “a sort of surrogate father to
the pilots surrounding Mohammed Atta.”311 Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, “coordinator” of the 9/11 attacks,
was seen in Bosnia in the summer of 1996.312 Other 9/11 participants have been reported to have
had Bosnian connections as well.313
Sarajevo rental-car agent Reda Seyam, named by a Spanish court as “Osama Bin Laden’s financier in Europe,” deposited $250,000 into an account controlled by Mamoun Darkanzli, an Hamburg
businessman of Syrian origin with known ties to the 9/11 bombers.314 Seyam himself was subsequently implicated in the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.315
Darkanzli attracted the attention of the Bundesnachtrichtdienst (the German intelligence service, or BND) when they noticed he had power-of-attorney over a German bank account opened
by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. According to U.S. government lawyers, Salim “was present for the
founding of al Qaeda, served on its shurah (consultation) council, issued fatwahs authorizing violence against America and authorized efforts to obtain uranium for nuclear weapons for al Qaeda
. . . [Salim] described Bosnia as the base for al Qaeda operations in Europe.”316 Salim, who was
subsequently convicted in U.S. federal court for being the organizer of the August 1998 U.S. African embassy bombings, travelled to Bosnia on a “business trip” three months before the bombings
at the invitation of the Bosnian-based “Ljiljan Commerce Group” on a visa issued to him by the
Bosnian consulate in Turkey.317
The Ljiljan Commerce Group was owned by Enaam
Arnout, who was also the director of a Chicago-based
“Islamic charity” named the Benevolence International
Foundation, with a Sarajevo-based subsidiary organization
called “Bosanska Idealna Futura” (BIF). Although Arnout
denied knowing bin Laden, federal prosecutors found photographs of the two together at the Al Masada mudžahedin
camp in Afghanistan dating back to 1988.
Sarajevo rental-car agent Reda
Seyam (pictured with his son Jihad),
“Osama bin Laden’s financier in Europe” (source: deutschlandwoche.de)
Raids on the Sarajevo BIF office in March 2002 turned
up Al Qaeda’s donor’s list, the so-called “Golden Chain,”
documents relating to Al Qaeda’s founding, and scans of
handwritten correspondence between bin Laden and Arnout. Raids on the Sarajevo residences of BIF employees
turned up loaded submachine guns, ski masks, and instruc-
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tion manuals for improvised explosive devices (IED’s), missiles and mortars, and falsified identity
documents.318 Between June 2000 and September 2001, the BIF transferred $1,414,404 from a
Swiss bank to its checking account in Chicago. These monies were then redistributed to BIF offices
abroad.319 In March 2002, the US Embassy in Sarajevo was shut down after it was learned that Al
Qaeda operatives had met in Sofia where they decided that “in Sarajevo something will happen to
Americans similar to New York last September.” Subsequently, Munib Zahiragić, a BIF director
in Sarajevo and former member of Izetbegović’s secret police was arrested in connection with the
plot, and charged with leaking classified documents which allowed a member of Al Qaeda in Bosnia to escape capture.320
Another organization used to support the Bosnian jihad was the Saudi High Commission for
Relief of Bosnia (SHC), which a U.S. federal court ruled was “a fully integrated component of
al Qa[e]da’s logistical and financial support infrastructure.” Raids on SHC offices in Sarajevo in
October 2001 found “computer hard drives containing photos of the World Trade Center, the U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the U.S.S. Cole (all targets of terrorist attacks); documents
about pesticides and crop dusters; photos and maps of Washington, D.C. (with prominent government buildings marked); and instructions for fabricating U.S. State Department badges.”321
Left: “It was not a significant matter. It was not a big threat. It didn’t
become a big threat.” Former U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith on the Islamist terrorist threat emanating from Bosnia; right:
“the terrorists involved in the 9/11 atrocity had connections in several
European countries—BiH not among them” (?) former High Representative Paddy Ashdown
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An indication of how secure Al Qaeda leaders must have felt in Bosnia at this time is the fact
that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, security officials claimed that some seventy Al Qaeda members
were planning to flee from Afghanistan for Bosnia in anticipation of expected U.S. attacks on the
Taliban. 322
*****
One month after the 9/11 attacks, Alija Izetbegović resigned from the last of his public positions. As one analyst noted,
Despite desperate attempts to conceal his duplicity in his dealings with Muslim
militants, Izetbegović’s days as a respected political leader were permanently
over. A month after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he officially
stepped down as head of Bosnia’s most powerful Muslim nationalist party, citing
health reasons.323
Upon Izetbegović’s death in October 2003 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced that he had been under investigation for war crimes.
In 1996, the Third World Relief Agency was awarded a gold medal by the Izetbegović government for its “services to Bosnia.” In the same year, the Central Intelligence Agency named TWRA
an NGO that “employ[s] members or otherwise facilitate[s] the activities of terrorist groups operating in Bosnia.”324
After the war, European investigators discovered financial documents showing that Hasan
Čengić, one of Alija Izetbegović’s closest political allies, had provided TWRA funds to Wa’el
Hamza Julaidan, one of Al Qaeda’s co-founders.325 In May 2008, Bosnian Federation TV reported
that Čengić “personally signed a money transfer intended for the Al-Qai’dah 9/11 terrorist attacks
on New York and Washington.”326
In December 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District restored a lawsuit brought
by 9/11 families and victims that named the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a defendant in a case they have brought in U.S. federal court.
In March 2014, Bosnian jihad veteran Sulaiman abu-Ghaith was convicted in US Federal Court
for conspiring to kill Americans during the 9/11 attacks.
“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” President George W. Bush,
September 20th, 2001. Pictured: Alija Izetbegović with Abu el-Maali, aka, “the little
Osama bin Laden,” central Bosnia, circa 1995. el-Maali, considered to be under
Izetbegović’s “personal protection,” was in direct personal contact with Osama bin
Laden.
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VI. Policy Recommendations
A long-overdue effort to dismantle the militant Islamist infrastructure in southeastern Europe finally began in late 2014. In March, seven individuals were arrested in Albania for recruiting volunteers to join Al Qaeda forces in Syria. The individuals involved, including the imams of two Tirana
mosques, Genci Balla and Bujar Hysi, were charged with ‘recruiting of individuals in order to carry
terrorist acts, incitement and propaganda.”327 In August 2014, forty suspected Islamist militants
with ties to the Syrian and Iraqi jihads were arrested in Kosovo. Raids at sixty different locations,
including private homes and makeshift mosques, resulted in the discovery of several weapons
stockpiles, including AK 47’s, small-calibre weapons, and electronic communications equipment.
Among the individuals arrested were a number who were believed to have either returned to Kosovo after fighting with Al Nusra or ISIS, or were involved in their recruitment. Fourteen “NGO’s”
suspected of involvement with Islamist extremists also had their accounts blocked.328 Subsequent
raids in September in Priština, Mitrovica and a dozen other locations around Kosovo rounded up
individuals such as Fuad Ramiqi, the leader of the Muslim religious party LISBA, and Shefqet
Krasniqi, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Priština.329
On 3 September 2014, Bosnian police
began an operation code-named “Operation
Damascus” conducted over seventeen locations and resulting in the arrest of sixteen
individuals, including Bilal Bosnić. The
apprehended individuals were accused of
financing and publicly supporting terrorist
activities, organizing terrorist groups, and recruiting individuals to fight in Iraq and Syria.
Adding to the urgency of arresting Bosnić
was undoubtedly the fact that he had recently
voiced his support for Abu Bakr al-BaghdaThe proposed Caliphate of the “Islamic State of Iraq
di’s proclamation of the “Islamic State.” Arand the Levant,” with southeastern Europe included.
rest warrants were also submitted for a number of Bosnian citizens already believed to be
abroad.330 On September 24th, the U.S. State Department named two of the most prominent Balkan
militant Islamists, Bosnian Wahhabi leader Nusret Imamović and Kosovo extremist Lavdrim Muhaxheri, specially-designated global terrorists.331 Imamović had already left Bosnia in late 2013 and
joined the Al Nusra front in Syria; in the aftermath of his being blacklisted by the State Department,
his website, PutVjernika, was apparently shutdown. In October, Serbia charged five men from Novi
Please don’t come home: Albanian ISIS volunteers with “global terrorist” Lavdrim Muhaxheri
(second from left) (source: Gazeta Dita); on right, Kosovo ISIS volunteer Besnik Fanaj executing
prisoners in Iraq, September 2014 (source: Koha.net)
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Balkan militant Islamists on the march: left: protest organized by Bosnian-Australian extremist Harun Mehičević, Melbourne, September 2012; center: Skopje, July 2014; right: Novi Pazar, September 2014
(source: SandžakPress)
Pazar and Belgrade with recruiting volunteers to join ISIS and arranging for their travel to Iraq and
Syria. Among those arrested was Abid Podbičanin, a Sandžak native who had studied in Medina
and was the leader of the Furkan center of the Islamic Youth of the Sandžak in Novi Pazar.332 A
frequent visitor of Podbičanin’s Furkan center had been Mevlid Jašarević, who carried out the October 2011 attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. Also in September, Slovenian police arrested
a number of suspected Islamist extremists, including two individuals who had recently returned to
Slovenia after participating in the Iraqi and Syrian jihads.333
It is still too early to tell how serious these blows have been to the militant Islamist movement
in southeastern Europe. As noted above, the movement’s infrastructure is designed in such a way
as to absorb such occasional crackdowns without causing serious overall damage. Moreover, some
of these actions inevitably were geared more towards mollifying international demands for action
or settling scores with domestic political opponents. In Kosovo, a number of those arrested (such
as Shefqet Krasniqi) have already been released.334
Nevertheless, the recent surge of attention devoted to the problem of militant Islamism in southeastern Europe should make it difficult to continue ignoring the problem. For the past two decades,
the focus of the international effort in the Balkans has been on things that are only of secondary or
tertiary importance to vital western interests, while the growth and spread of a movement completely antithetical to U.S. and European values and beliefs has been
largely ignored. Paradoxically, international policy in southeastern Europe has been guided by the belief that militant Islamists
are not a threat to stability in the Balkans, but if they go to Iraq
or Syria the very same individuals suddenly become global terror threats. A corollary to this paradox is the frequently-posited
argument that it is of only tangential interest or importance that
so many individuals involved in various terrorist actions around
the world have travelled through the Balkans—an argument that
conveniently elides the fact that during their time spent in the
region these individuals have developed numerous connections
with like-minded indigenous extremists, sowing the seeds for
new generations of radicals that threaten Balkan stability, and
indeed U.S. and western security interests around the globe.
Happy honeymoon: Bosnian jihadi Enes Iriškić with his wife
in Syria
The challenge now confronting local and international policymakers in dealing with southeastern Europe’s militant Islamist movement is calibrating a response which neither exaggerates nor ignores the threat. Unfortunately, over the past two
decades the tendency has been much more towards the former.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, a former High Representative in
Bosnia, Wolfgang Petritsch, somewhat incredibly claimed that
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Left: “. . . no evidence has been produced [that Bosnia] has served as a base for Al Qaeda”-former International High Representative in BiH Wolfgang Petritsch; right: “The Wahhabis in Bosnia are not a danger to Europe”—current High Representative Valentin Inzko
“no evidence has been provided [that Bosnia] has served as a base for Al Qaeda.”335 Similarly, even
after the October 2011 attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, the current High Representative in
Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, would claim that the Wahhabis in Bosnia “pose no danger to Europe.”336
Indicative of the way in which international officials have tried to bury the story about the militant
Islamist movement in southeastern Europe is the fact that Mevlid Jašarević’s attack on the U.S. embassy only merited mention in paragraph 88 (out of 98) in the High Representative’s semi-annual
report to the UN Secretary-General.337
Sometimes international officials have even sabotaged efforts to deal with the militant Islamists. Former international High Representative Paddy Ashdown in October 2002 removed from
office the only Bosnian official who had shown a desire to confront the militant Islamist infrastructure in the country.338 Ashdown also parroted the line that Bosnia had no terrorist connections, on
one occasion claiming that “the terrorists involved in the 9/11 atrocity had connections in several
European countries -- BiH not among them . . . I am confident that BiH is not and will not become
a base for any kind of terrorism.”339 The unfortunate reality, however, as Evan Kohlmann has put it,
is that individuals who deny that such terrorist groups are operating in the Balkans “are either lying
or have no idea what they are talking about.”340 Either way, such attitudes are not serving U.S. or
European interests, or protecting the security of ordinary citizens in the Balkans and beyond.
In Kosovo, the international community has likewise often sabotaged efforts to confront militant Islamism. According to Kosovo’s former interior minister Bajram Rexhepi, when he was trying
to propose draft laws against religious extremism,
Left: “The Koran teaches us to terrorize tyrants. The Koran does not distinguish between civilians and
combatants . . . the United States’ arrogance is the root cause of all of this.” Bosnian jihad veteran and London Finsbury Mosque imam Abu Hamza al-Misri; right: “Selam Alejkum dear brother Bosnians. I pray to
Allah to treat you that one day you may terrorize Allah’s enemies the way we are about to”: two Bosnian
jihad volunteers on the Syrian front (from an ISIS recruitment video)
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U.S. State Department-designated global terrorists: left: Bosnian “sheik” Nusret Imamović; right: Lavdrim Muhaxheri from Kosovo
I was told by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg we could be sued for denial of
religious freedom. . . . I asked [the Europeans] ‘if your states were to consider their
national security at risk because of this problem, would you maintain such abstract
respect for human rights? Probably not. Then why experiment on us in Kosovo?341
To a significant extent this denial of the militant Islamist danger in southeastern Europe is due
to the fact that international efforts to deal with the problem have been driven more by political correctness and the desire to mollify the movement’s Middle-Eastern patrons than by a serious effort
to confront its root causes. Although as argued in this study the majority of the Muslim populations
in southeastern Europe remains relatively moderate and pro-western (in comparison to Muslim
populations in the Middle-East and Central Asia), significant empirical and anecdotal evidence
suggests that 5-10 percent of the Balkans’ Muslim populations have become radicalized. The threat
in Bosnia is more serious, however, because (as seen above) important segments of the political,
religious, and security establishments have close ties to the international jihadist movement.
Even such relatively small numbers, however, provide Islamist militants with numerous ideological,
logistical and human assets to seriously threaten regional stability and American, European and Israeli
interests. Given the above, crafting an effective counter-terrorism strategy aimed at eradicating the influence of Islamist militant groups in the Balkans requires the following:
------Create an effective organizational and bureaucratic framework for pooling intelligence
resources. Unfortunately, in this regard the situation in southeastern Europe poses particular problems. Although by their very nature intelligence and counter-intelligence efforts benefit from various agencies sharing information, the complex reality of the phenomenon in southeastern Europe
creates particular difficulties for implementing such policies where allies and sympathizers of militant Islamism have infiltrated government agencies and non-governmental organizations. Predictably, such people deny or attempt to cover up their connections with Islamist terrorists.342 But the
consequences of such infiltration are obvious; as one analysis in Bosnia concluded,
the results of the investigations conducted between 1993 and 2001 regarding relations between terrorists and humanitarian organizations in the country have been
ignored, marginalized or even covered up. The first independent investigation on
the relationship between terrorists and humanitarian organizations was conducted
in 2001, at the strong request of US officials. Basically, the results have not been
published, and major suspects would disappear when they came under investigation or police surveillance. 343
Thus, in situations such as those obtaining in places like Bosnia, security sector reform should
focus on improving vertical coordination of existing security and intelligence services with international bodies such as NATO and Interpol to compartmentalize and limit the potential for security
breaches. Horizontal integration of existing agencies and services would only serve to expand
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The militant Islamists’ way of war, from the Balkans to the Islamic State: top left: Bosnian
jihadi with the head of a decapitated Serb prisoner, circa 1993. The ARBiH’s 3rd Corps commander was reportedly within ten meters of the beheadings; top right: Kosovo jihadi Lavdrim
Muhaxheri beheading a captive in Iraq, July 2014; bottom left: Bosnian jihad veteran Omar
Saeed Sheik, participant in the murder/beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl;
bottom right: British humanitarian aid worker David Haines, spent five years in the Balkans
the access militant Islamists and their sympathizers have to intelligence about their activities and
networks. Unfortunately, as numerous experts have noted, existing institutions have refused to
confront the problem.344
-----Increase support for intelligence-gathering efforts against militant Islamist groups in
southeastern Europe. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq intelligence resources devoted to monitoring conditions in southeastern Europe were drastically cut, leading experts such as Douglas Farah
to bemoan the fact that although
there remains a small, dedicated group gathering intelligence on these types of operation . . . [t]heir work is given a low priority and the entire intelligence-gathering structure, providing what little reliable information available on radical Islamic movements
and leaders in Bosnia, is slated to disappear at the end of the year. This is an incredibly
short-sighted move by international donors who no longer want to pay relative pocket
change, only a few million dollars a year, to keep the operation going.345
A number of experts have suggested ways in which the intelligence effort against militant Islamists in southeastern Europe could be stepped up; for instance, by encouraging law-enforcement
and intelligence services to incorporate social-network analysis in their study of the relationships
between extremists and their potential activities, and more expanded use of various cyber-warfare
and surveillance techniques (such as cookie softwares, the creation of “honey pot” websites, and
keystroke reconstructions of hacked computers) to disrupt and destroy Islamist terrorist networks
in the region.346
-----Adopt more concerted and consistent efforts to isolate and remove Islamist militants
from positions of power and influence. Over the past two decades, the international community
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On their way to Paradise? Bosnian-Syrian “martyrs” Ebu Bilal from Zenica, Mevludin Cicvara from Vitez,
and Ebu Ismail from Teslic (source: PutVjernika.com)
has used various powers (including issuing war cimes indictments, the HR’s so-called Bonn Powers, and intense political pressure) to remove from positions of power and influence individuals
even suspected of “endangering the peace process.” Unfortunately (and inexplicably) these powers
have only on rare occasions been used against militant Islamists (a few rare examples have been the
U.S. push in 1997 to remove Izetbegović protégés Hasan Čengić and Bakir Alispahić from office,
or the 2009 case of former Bosnian defense minister Tarik Sadović who was obstructing the effort
to expel of Al Qaeda operatives from Bosnia).
-----Redouble efforts to dismantle the infrastructure supporting militant Islamist networks in
southeastern Europe. With the exception of a brief period after the 9/11 attacks, over the past two
decades both international and local officials have essentially ignored the expansion and growth
of the militant Islamist infrastructure in southeastern Europe. During this time, militant Islamists
recruiting new followers and raising funds for jihad have travelled around Europe unhindered, extra-territorial enclaves harboring international terrorists have been allowed to function, and media
propagating the most vile hate speech have continued to operate. Containing the militant Islamist
movement in southeastern Europe will require instituting international travel bans on extremist
activists, shutting down their media outlets, strangling their sources of finance, and returning constitutional order and the rule-of-law to militant Islamist outposts.
-----Change and update the legal framework to make it easier to conduct surveillance on and
prosecute militant Islamist groups. On the positive side, a number of countries in the region
have recently adopted more stringent legal prohibitions against citizens being involved in foreign
conflicts. 347 The Council of Europe’s Country Profiles on Counter-Terrorism Capacity provide
useful checklists for the legistation enacted in various member-states.348 In Serbia, a law presently
in parliament would criminalize recruiting for foreign conflicts. In April 2014, Bosnia introduced
jail terms of up to ten years for individuals either recruiting or volunteering to fight in foreign conflicts in an attempt to deter people from going to Syria.349 Similar legislation passed in Macedonia
in September 2014 envisions five year prison terms for individuals either participating in foreign
conflicts or otherwise found to be in indirect support of such actions.350
----Indigenous Islamic institutions should speak out more forcefully against individuals and
organizations recruiting individuals for jihad. Mainstream public opinion amongst the Muslim
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populations of southeastern Europe on the whole condemns the phenomenon of local young people
going to fight on foreign jihadi fronts, and the leaders of official Islamic institutions have as well.
Still, the perception amongst many observers is that this condemnation must be much more forceful
and explicit.351
The actual and potential return of hundreds of Balkan militant Islamists from the Iraqi and Syrian
jihads adds increased urgency to the need for international and local officials to concentrate and devote their efforts to this problem. As the EU’s Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2014 has noted,
the threat to the EU from extremists returning from the Syrian jihad is likely to “increase exponentially” in the near future.352 Given the infiltration of militant Islamists into so many political, social, and
religious institutions in southeastern Europe and the sophisticated infrastructure they have created,
this is a particularly pressing issue for southeastern Europe. As Esad Hećimović has warned in the
case of Bosnia, “Radical Islamic groups are waiting for a resurrection of the violent conflict . . . It is
still conceivable that Islamic leaders and groups are waiting for a new jihad.”353 The same could be
said for the situation throughout the western and southern Balkans.
Militant Balkan Islamists, for their part, are not hiding their long-term intentions. As a Bosnian
jihadi fighting in Syria recently noted, “I left Bosnia with the intention only to return with weapons
in my hand. I am a part of the revolution and this is the morning of Islam . . . [by allowing us to leave
Bosnia] your intelligence agencies made a mistake thinking that they would be rid of us, however, the
problem for them will be the return of individuals trained for war.”354
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Appendix 1
Balkan Jihadi/Extremist Threat Matrix 355
Action
Date
Balkan Jihadi/
Extremist Participants
World Trade Center Bombing
February 1993
Rijeka Police Headquarters
Car Bombing
October 1995
Third World Relief Agency
(TWRA)356
Clement Rodney
Hampton-el
Anwar Shaaban
John Fawzan (TWRA)
Saudi National Guard
Building Bombing, Riyadh
November 1995
Muslih Al Shamran357
Lille G7 Car bombing attempt/
Roubaix Gang
March 1996
Christophe Caze
Lionel Dumont358
Pope John Paul II
Assassination Plot, Sarajevo
April 1997
(Never discovered)359
Pope John Paul II
Assassination Plot, Bologna
September 1997
Algerian Group360
Mostar Car Bombing
September 1997
Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad
Ahmad Zayid al Zuhayri
Nabil Ali al-Hilai361
African U.S. Embassy Bombings
August 1998
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim362
Abdul Rashim al-Nashiri363
Millenium Bomb Plot
December 1999
Karim Said Atmani364
USS Cole Attack
October 2000
World Trade Center/Pentagon
September 2001
Daniel Pearl Murder
February 2002
Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri365
Hassan al-Khamiri
Ibrahim al-Thawer,
aka “Nibras”366
Khalid Sheikh
Muhammed367
Nawaf al-Hazmi
Khalid al-Mindhar
Ramzi Binalshihb
Omar Saeed Sheikh368
Bali Nightclub Bombings
October 2002
Reda Seyam369
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Action
Date
Balkan Jihadi/
Anđelić Family Murders,
Konjica
Christmas Eve 2002
Muamer Topalović
Riyadh Bombings
May 2003
Istanbul Bombings
November 2003
Khalid al-Juhani370
Abdel Karim Al-Tuhami
Al-Majatii371
Habib Aktaş372
Azad Ekinci373
Madrid Train Bombings
March 2004
Amer Azizi374
Abdelmajid Bouchar375
Al-Khobar Massacres
Murder/beheading
of U.S. citizen Paul Johnson
Theo van Gogh murder
May/June 2004
Abdel Aziz Al-Muqrin376
November 2004
(Murder weapon traced to Bosnia)377
Pope John Paul II Funeral
Bombing Plot
April 2005
Gornja Maoča Cell378
London Underground Bombing
July 2005
Abu Hamza al-Masri379
Sarajevo Western Embassies
Attack Conspiracy
October 2005
Salt Lake City Mall Massacre
February 2007
Mirsad Bektašević
Abdulkadir Cesur
Bajro Ikanović380
Sulejman Talović381
Fort Dix Bomb Plot
May 2007
Vienna U.S. Embassy Attack
October 2007
Catholic/International Targets Plot
March 2008
48
Dritan Duka
Shain Duka
Ejljvir Duka382
Agron Abdulahu
Asim Cejvanović383
Mehmed Dzudzić
Rijad Rustempašić384
Muhamed Meco
Abdulah Handžić
Edis Velić
Muhamed Ficer
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Action
Date
UK Bomb Plot/”PM Threat”
August 2008
Mumbai Bombings
November 2008
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi386
Raleigh Group
Conspiracy
July 2009
Enes Subašić387
Hysen Sherifi
NYC Metro Attack
Conspiracy
January 2010
Adis Medunjanin388
“Tahir”389
Mavi Marmara
May 2010
Bugojno Police Station
Bombing
June 2010
Sarajevo U.S. Embassy Attack
October 2011
Bulent Yildirim
Fuad Ramiq390
Osman Atalay391
Naser Palislamović392
Haris Čaušević
Et. Al.
Mevlid Jašarević393
Tampa Nightclub
Bombing Plot
January 2012
Sami Osmakac394
Frankfurt Airport
U.S. Servicemen Murder
February 2012
Arid Uka395
Skopje Murders
April 2012
Burgas Bus Bombing
July 2012
Alil Demiri396
Afrim Ismailovic
Fejzi Aziri
Haki Aziri
Sami Ljuta
Balkan Hezbollah Cell
Australia Terrorist Cell
September 2012
Adnan Karabegović
Harun Mehičević397
Kosovo Terrorist Cell
November 2013
Nigde, Turkey Terrorist Attack
March 2014
“Xhemati i Xhehadit”
Genc Selimi,
aka “Ebu Hafs al Albani”398
Albanian and Kosovar
Syrian jihad veterans399
49
Balkan Jihadi/
Krenar Lusha, et. Al.385
SEERECON
Action
Date
Baghdad Suicide Attack
March 2014
Baghdad Suicide Attack
August 2014
50
Balkan Jihadi/
Blerim Heta400
Emrah Fojnica401
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Appendix 2
Balkan Jihadi Casualties in Iraq and Syria
(Reported)
Name
origin
Place
Tirana, Albania
Date of
Death
Nov-12
Syria
Force /
Affiliation
n/a
Anri Maliqai
Naman Demolli
Pristina, Kosovo
Nov-12
Syria
n/a
Ermal Xhelo
Vlore, Albania
Dec-12
Syria
Al Nusra
Denis Jangulli
Debar, Macedonia
Jan-13
Syria
Al Nusra
Emrah Pilipovic
Velika Kladusa, BiH
Jan-13
Syria
n/a
Hamit Muslija
Laprake, Albania
Jan-13
Syria
n/a
Muaz Ahmeti
Presevo, Serbia
Feb-13
Syria
n/a
Diamant Rasha
Debar, Macedonia
Feb-13
Syria
Al Nusra
Muhamet Koprova
Mitrovica, Kosovo
Mar-13
Syria
n/a
Moussa Ahmadi
Serbia
Mar-13
Syria
n/a
Muaz Sabic
Zenica, BiH
Apr-13
Aleppo, Syria
n/a
Eldar Kundakovic
Novi Pazar, Sandzak
May-13
Aleppo, Syria
n/a
Adis Salihovic
Rozaje, Sandzak
May-13
Syria
n/a
Rasim Zeqiri
Gostivar, Macedonia
May-13
Damascus, Syria
n/a
Sami Abdullahu
Skopje, Macedonia
Jul-13
Syria
n/a
Nimetullah Imeri
Skopje, Macedonia
Aug-13
Syria
n/a
Elmedin Velic
Sarajevo, BiH
Sep-13
Syria
Al Nusra
Dervis Halilovic
Nemile, BiH
Sep-13
Damascus, Syria
n/a
“Abduldzafar” (Nom
de guerre)
Anri Maliqi
(unknown)
(unknown)
n/a
n/a
Tirana, Albania
(unknown)
Syria
Al Nusra
Dervis Osmanovic
Zenica, BiH
Sep-13
n/a
n/a
Pajtim Olluri
Lipljan, Kosovo
Sep-1
Syria
n/a
Senad Kobas
Travnik, BiH
Nov-13
Syria
n/a
Halit Maliqaj
Tirana, Albania
(unknown)
Syria
n/a
Ebu Bilal
Zenica, BiH
2013
Syria
n/a
Ebu Ismail
Teslic, BiH
2013
Syria
n/a
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Name
origin
Place
Zenica, BiH
Date of
Death
Dec-13
Syria
Force /
Affiliation
n/a
Vernes Vehabovic
Azmir Alisic
Sanski Most, BiH
Jan-14
Syria
n/a
Amir Kargic
Travnik, BiH
Jan-14
Syria
n/a
Mevludin Cicvara
Vitez, Bosnia
Jan-14
Syria
n/a
Mujo Hamidovic
Sjenica, Sandzak
Jan-14
Syria
n/a
Mirza Ganic
Novi Pazar, Sandzak
Jan-14
Aleppo, Syria
ISIS
Hasan Korvafaj
Vlora, Albania
Syria
Al Nusra
Ferid Tatarevic
Zenica, BiH
(before March
2014)
Mar-14
Syria
n/a
Blerim Heta
Ferizaj, Kosovo
Mar-14
Baghdad
ISIS
Anri Maliqi
Tirana, Albania
Mar-14
Syria
n/a
Munifer Karamelski
Bosnia, Italy
Mar-14
Syria
ISIS
Adnan Rexhepi
Kumanovo, Macedonia
May-14
Iraq
ISIS
Nusmir Pjanic
Kalesija, BiH
May-14
Syria
ISIS
Midhat Djono (aka
“Usama Bosni”)
Ismar Mesinovic
Hadzici, BiH
May-14
Syria
ISIS
Teslic, BiH
July 2014 (?)
Syria
ISIS
Patriot Matosi
Gnjilane, Kosovo
Aug-14
Syria
ISIS
Emhrah Fojnica
n/a
Aug-14
Baghdad, Iraq
ISIS
Idajet Balliu
Dragostunja, Albania
Aug-14
Aleppo, Syria
ISIS
Midjen Haljijl Ljatifi
Srbica, Kosovo
Aug-14
Syria
n/a
Sejdin Omerdzic
Zenica, BiH
Sep-14
Ajnul-Arab, Syria
ISIS
“Xhelal”
Skopje, Macedonia
Sep-14
n/a
ISIS
Ramo Pazarac
Teslic, BiH
Sep-14
Koban, Syria
ISIS
Fatima Mahmutovic
Srebrenik, BiH
Sep-14
Raqqa, Syria
ISIS
Melos Selami Kosumi
Gnjilane, Kosovo
Sep-14
Syria
ISIS
Jure Korelec
Medvod, Slovenia
Sep-14
Syria
ISIS
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Appendix 3
Estimating the Size
of the Militant Islamist Movement
Estimating the size of the militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe provides several difficulties. The first is providing a precise definition of the phenomenon itself. The approach
taken in this report, i.e., that militant Islamism is a doctrine which espouses an aggressive, if not
always violent, approach to imposing Islamic laws and precepts on the state and society at large,
is of course somewhat vague, and whether or not a specific individual or group should be included
or excluded will be open to debate. Although militant Islamism can be defined and understood in
various ways, as a general rule the Wahhabi movement in southeastern Europe approximates many
of the attributes of the phenomenon.
A second difficulty lies in finding adequate public opinion or survey data. The only data this author has seen dealing with the issue is a reported 2007 Bosnian study which found that three percent
of (the presumably Muslim) population claimed to adhere to Wahhabism, and a further ten percent
identified with it in some form.402 Current and former Bosnian Wahhabis, however, claim that the
movement has many secret adherents, and allegedly some forty percent of those supporting Wahhabi
doctrines do not have the outward appearance of being Wahhabis.403 Other former Bosnian Wahhabis
have claimed that Wahhabi sympathizers have “infiltrated schools, universities, and the media.”404
In Kosovo security experts estimate about 50,000 people adhere to the more extreme Middle-Eastern interpretations of Islam,405 and one expert on Balkan Islam has warned that “Exponents of Saudi-financed Wahhabism and of the Muslim Brotherhood have penetrated the highest levels of the official
Kosovo Islamic apparatus.”406 Another security specialist has claimed that “the number of believers that
follow a more extreme and fundamentalist interpretation of the Quran is growing in Kosovo.”407
In Macedonia, members of the official Islamic community have estimated that there are some
500-600 Wahhabis in the country (and possibly more),408 while other security specialists believe up
to 3000 Wahhabis are active in Macedonia, mainly concentrated in areas around Skopje, Tetovo,
Struga, and Kumanovo. 409
In Montenegro “several hundred Wahhabis” are reportedly active, primarily located near the
towns of Rožaje, Plav and Gusinje.410
In 2005, the International Crisis Group estimated there were some 300 Wahhabis active in the
Sandžak who control several mosques in the region.411
In the absence of more specific data on the size of the militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe, useful information can be gleaned from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 survey
of public opinion amongst various Islamic communities entitled The World’s Muslims: Religion,
Politics & Society.412 Most evident in the study is the fact that the Muslim populations in southeastern Europe are by far the most moderate in their views and attitudes of any Islamic population in
the world. Thus, overwhelming majorities (some 80-90%) of the Muslim populations consistently
show relatively tolerant and moderate positions on a variety of issues concerning the state, society,
and religious affairs.
Extrapolating from the survey data provided in the Pew report does, however, give an indication of the size of the militant Islamist phenomenon in the region. Although the survey does not ask
specific questions such as “Do you adhere to Wahhabism?”, aggregating responses to a cluster of
questions regarding issues typically associated with militant Islamism, such as suicide-terrorism,
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capital and corporal punishment, apostasy from Islam, polygamy, and the desirability of imposing
sharia law can serve as proxies for more direct questions about an individual’s particular loyalties
to extreme interpretations of Islamic doctrine.
The 2013 Pew report surveyed the Muslim populations in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and
Kosovo, with fieldwork for all three countries being carried out between October 2011—January
2012. Although the Pew report does not mention the size of the Muslim populations in each country, this exercise uses statistics provided by the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook as
a standard reference to estimate the overall numerical size of the Muslim population in each given
country. The World Factbook’s population estimates are then multiplied by the percentage’s reported in the 2013 Pew report to provide rough estimates of the size of the militant Islamist movement
in each country. Thus, the following equation is used to calculate the size of a militant Islamist
population in a given country:
N x PRP = Estimated size of militant Islamist population
Where N equals the CIA’s estimate for the size of the Muslim population for a particular country, and PRP equals the percentage response to specific Pew Research report questions.
For the three countries covered by the survey, the CIA estimates the Muslim populations thus:
Albania:1,775,882413
BiH:1,548,657
Kosovo:1,766,243414
With these numbers we can then begin to estimate the size of the militant Islamist movement in
each country. As noted above, the estimate is based on responses to a cluster of questions deemed
to reflect the attitudes and philosophies of Wahhabism/militant Islamism. The first concerns individual attitudes towards the imposition of sharia law. According to the Pew report, the positive
responses per country can be seen below:
Thus, 12 percent of Muslims in Albania favor making sharia the law of the land, 15 percent
of Muslims in BiH, and 20 percent of Muslims in Kosovo. Applying these numbers to the above
equation returns the following numbers:
Do you favor making sharia the law of the land?
20%
15%
12%
Albania
BiH
54
Kosovo
SEERECON
Albania (N = 1,775,882) x 0.12 = 213,106
BiH (N = 1,548,647) x 0.15 = 232,297
Kosovo (N = 1,766,243) x 0.20 = 353,249
Another question the Pew report posed to participants in its survey pertained to attitudes regarding suicide bombings; specifically, the question asked “Do you feel that suicide bombing and
other forms of violence against civilians are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies?”415
In the below, the positive responses “Often justified” and “Sometimes justified” are aggregated
together; thus,
Do you feel that suicide bombing and other forms of
violence are justified in order to defend Islam from
its enemies?
11%
6%
3%
Albania
BiH
Kosovo
From the above responses, the number of individuals who believe suicide bombings are “Often” and “Sometimes” justified to defend Islam is as follows:
Albania (N = 1,775,882) x 0.06 = 106,553
BiH (N = 1,548,647) x 0.03 = 46,459
Kosovo (N = 1,766,243) x 0.11 = 194,287
The Pew survey also asked respondents to provide their views on severe forms of corporal
punishment; specifically, question 92c asked “Do you favor or oppose punishments like whippings
and cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery?”416 The positive responses were as follows:
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Do you favor or oppose punishments like whipping and
cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery?
20%
15%
12%
Albania
BiH
Kosovo
In terms of actual numbers, the responses suggest the following:
Albania (N = 1,775,882) x 0.09 = 159,829
BiH (N = 1,548,647) x 0.13 = 201,324
Kosovo (N = 1,766,243) x 0.10 = 176,624
A follow-up question (Q92d) asked respondents “Do you favor or oppose stoning people who
commit adultery?”417 The positive responses were as follows:
Do you favor or oppose stoning people who
commit adultery?
20%
15%
12%
Albania
BiH
Albania (N = 1,775,882) x 0.06 = 106,552
BiH (N = 1,548,647) x 0.06 = 92,919
Kosovo (N = 1,766,243) x 0.09 = 158,962
56
Kosovo
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Q92d asked respondents “Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for people who leave the
Muslim religion?”, with the positive responses as below:418
Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for people
who leave the Muslim religion?
20%
15%
12%
Albania
BiH
Kosovo
Albania (N = 1,775,882) x 0.02 = 35,517
BiH (N = 1,548,647) x 0.04 = 61,946
Kosovo (N = 1,766,243) x 0.03 = 52,987
Finally, Q84b asked respondents about another issue often associated with Wahhabi/militant Islamist communities, i.e., attitudes towards polygamy. Thus, in response to a question as to whether
polygamy is morally acceptable or morally wrong (or whether it is a moral issue at all), the positive
responses were as follows:
Is polygamy morally acceptable?
20%
15%
12%
Albania
BiH
57
Kosovo
SEERECON
Albania (N = 1,775,882) x 0.10 = 177,588
BiH (N = 1,548,647) x 0.04 = 61,946
Kosovo (N = 1,766,243) x 0.21 = 370,911
Averaging out the responses to the above five questions which in this theoretical exercise represent the value or belief system of the “typical” militant Islamist hypothetically yields the potential
following sizes of the militant Islamist movement in each of the three countries:
Albania = 117,208
BiH = 92,919
Kosovo = 190,754
Although the figures for Albania and BiH seem plausible, the estimate for the size of the militant Islamist movement in Kosovo seems rather high in comparison to the other two countries. This
is probably due to the exceptionally large number of positive responses in Kosovo to the question
about polygamy. A number somewhere in the range of 125,000 —140,000 thus seems more plausible.
In analyzing the above data, the encouraging news is that substantial majorities of southeastern
Europe’s Muslim populations reject extreme interpretations of Islamic doctrines and texts.
On the other hand, a critical albeit-small mass of the population does appear to have internalized and now espouses the more extreme versions of Islam common in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan,
or Saudi Arabia. Within the three countries surveyed, the data suggests some 147,000 people believe apostates from Islam should be given the death penalty, 359,000 people believe adulterers
should be stoned to death, 530,000 people believe in cutting off hands and whippings for various
crimes, 300,000 people endorse suicide-bombings to defend Islam, and close to 800,000 people
believe sharia law should be adopted in their countries.
The Pew report unfortunately did not cover Muslim attitudes in other Balkan countries, but
were Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia to be included, the size of the militant
Islamist movement in southeastern Europe would most probably number over 500,000 people.
Other anecdotal and inferential evidence suggests the Wahhabi/militant Islamist movement in
the region is continuing to grow and attract new adherents, or is at least attracting more individuals
interested in learning about extreme-Islamist perspectives on current events. As noted above, the
aforementioned 2014 Austrian intelligence report claimed that the Wahhabi movement in Bosnia
continues to grow and build new communities.419 Similarly, interest in extremist websites is growing at a rapid pace. In the one month between mid-October 2014 and mid-November 2014, the
number of Facebook fans of the extremist website Vijesti Ummeta increased by over ten percent,
from 13,551 to 15,133 (as of 22 November 2014). In the same period the extremist website Saff
showed a similar increase in the number of Facebook fans, rising from 12,352 to 13,496 (as of 22
November 2014), another increase of some ten percent.
Potential increases in the size of the militant Islamist movement in southeastern Europe raise
important concerns for both domestic and international policymakers. Arguably, relatively normal
democratic politics can be sustained in these societies if the size of the militant Islamist movement
remains at current levels and remains a marginal phenomenon. What is unknown, however, is what
the impact on these states and societies would be if, for instance, the militant Islamist movement in
the region was to grow from 5-10 percent of the population to 15-20 percent.
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An implicit argument in this analysis is that the origins of any terrorist threat emanating from
southeastern Europe will most likely be found in the milieu which gives rise to such individuals—
the militant Islamist movement. Thus, knowledge of the number of individuals who espouse or
endorse the core values of this movement is crucial to determining the actual size of the movement
itself. For security and intelligence agencies, these numbers should provide an indication of the
magnitude of the challenge they are facing, and help them in deciding upon an adequate allocation
of resources to containing the threat.
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Appendix 4
Balkan Militant Islamist Websites/
Electronic Media
Website/Media
Address
Orientation/
Editorial
Policy
n/a
Associated
with
Facebook
Fans
Balkanski Emirat
http://balkanskiemirat.blogspot.com/
Nusret Imamović
n/a
Ensarija Šerijata
Islamist/Pro-Taliban
Kelimetul-Haqq
http://www.geocities.ws/ensarije_seriata/
onama.htm
http://www.kelimetul-haqq.org/
n/a
(unknown)
Abu Hamza
al-Misri
Nedžad Balkan
PutHilafeta
http://puthilafeta.blogspot.com/
Islamist/Pro-ISIS
(unknown)
n/a
PutVjernika
www.putvjernika.com
Pro-al Nusra Front
Nusret Imamović
n/a
PutVjernika
(Facebook portal)
SalafiMedia Balkan
https://www.facebook.com/putvjernika.
official
https://www.youtube.com/user/SalafiMediaBalkans
Pro-al Nusra Front
Nusret Imamović
5,495
Saff
www.saff.ba
Islamist/Anti-ISIS
14,757
Spašena Skupina
www.spasenaskupina.com
Islamist/Pro-ISIS
Fatmir Alispahić,
Ezhar Beganović
Bilal Bosnić
Stazom Islama
www.stazomislama.com
(non-political)
Idriz Bilbani
122
Vijesti Ummeta
www.vijestiummeta.com
Islamist/Pro-ISIS
(unknown)
16,370
60
n/a
Pro-ISIS
n/a
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Endnotes
1. “Islamism” is here defined as a doctrine calling for the imposition of Islamic laws and precepts on the state and
society at large. “Militant Islamists” refers to those individuals who reject secular institutions and advocate an
aggressive (if not completely violent) approach to imposing such a system. Although roughly equivalent to Gilles
Kepel’s definition of “salafi jihadism,” the term “militant Islamism” is more appropriate in the Balkan case since
Balkan Islam adheres to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, as opposed to the Hanbali school from which
Salafism derives. The most extreme and violent subset of the militant Islamists is usually considered the takfiri
movement who support using violence even against other Muslims if they are not devout. For a useful dissection
of the various factions and trends amongst militant Islamists, see Muhamed Jusić, “Islamistički pokreti u XX
stoljeću i njihovo prisustvo u Bosni i Hercegovini,” in Islamska scena u Bosni i Hercegovini (Sarajevo: Udruženje Ilmijje Islamske Zajednice BiH/Fondacija Konrad Adenauer, 2011), 29-41. Here it is imperative to stress that
Balkans Muslim populations generally have a more secular and moderate outlook than those in North Africa
or the Middle-East. Thus, relatively few Balkan Muslims can be considered Islamists, and only a subset of those
militant. The problem of Islamist terrorism in southeastern Europe is usually equated with the Wahhabi movement,
although, as one truism goes, “Not all Wahhabis are terrorists, but all terrorists are Wahhabis.”
2. For a listing of international terrorist actions that have Balkan roots or connections, see Appendix 1, “Balkan
Jihadi/Extremist Threat Matrix,” page 45.
3. See Holbrooke, “Lessons from Dayton for Iraq,” The Washington Post, 23 April 2008, A21.
4. See Dženna Halimović “BiH od uvoznika postala izvoznik terorista,” Radio Slobodna Evropa, 13 August 2014, at
http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/bih-od-uvoznika-postala-izvoznik-terorista/26529122.html, accessed on
24 August 2014 at 9:44am EST.
5. For useful, concise analyses of Izetbegović life, work, and legacy, see David Binder’s obituary, “Alija Izetbegovic,
Muslim Who Led Bosnia, Dies at 78,” The New York Times, 20 October 2003; and Damjan Krnjević de Miskevic,
“Obituary: Alija Izetbegovic, 1925-2003.” The National Interest, 22 October 2003.
6. See, for instance, Izetbegović’s interviews in Mladi Muslimani (Sarajevo: Muslimanska Biblioteka, 1991), 53-69,
and in Sead Trhulj, Mladi Muslimani (Zagreb: Globus, 1992), 59.
7. See Mehmedalija Bojić, Historija Bosne i Bošnjaka (Sarajevo: Šahinpašić, 2001), 237-240; and Kasim Suljević,
Nacionalnost Muslimana (Rijeka: Otokar Keršovani, 1981), 217-220.
8. The “Zakletva” (Oath) of the Mladi Muslimani dates from approximately 1947; see Trhulj, Mladi Muslimani, op.
cit., 121.
9. See the “Uputstvo za rad” (“Instructions for Work”) of the Mladi Muslimani, available in Trhulj, Mladi Muslimani,
op. cit., 131-138.
10. Thus, one of the Mladi Muslimani’s original members, Emin Granov, wrote a pamphlet in the organization’s early
years entitled “Kako ćemo se boriti” (“How we will struggle”) in which he explains the following: “Ideological
strength . . . gives us the necessary fanaticism with which we will feverishly and persistently defend Islam to the end.
We will fight with equal fanaticism in any discussion, polemics, war of nerves, whether in physical, political, military struggle! That’s how Mladi Muslimani should be! . . . The strength and effect of our reaction depends upon
our fanaticism and ideological development. The more fanatic and developed we are the stronger our reaction will
be . . . When a person loves and values something fanatically, in this concrete case Islam, then it hurts and insults
them when someone dismisses, laughs at, attacks or destroys it. In our ideological upbringing and development we
will choose people who are combative to the end, irreconcilable and fanatic advocates of Islamic thought, because
our entire movement depends upon such people! . . . How must Mladi Muslimani be! Muslims, and if possible all
of them, but Mladi Muslimani unconditionally, must be determined and irreconcilable fighters, hard and fanatic in
their Islamic convictions . . . and the bright future of Islam will be assured!” See Granov’s essay in Trhulj, Mladi
Muslimani, op. cit., 122-125. (Emphasis added).
11. See Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2002), 242.
12. See Enver Redžić, Muslimansko autonomaštvo i 13. SS divizija (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1987), 205. In recent years,
a neo-fascist fringe group has been formed in Bosnia named Bosanski Pokret Nacionalnog Ponsa (“the Bosnian
Movement of National Pride”) which explicitly claims to have a “national socialist” program. Although the party
maintains a website and appears to distribute leaflets in various cities around Bosnia, it remains a minuscule fringe
group. For more on Bosnia’s most explicitly fascist party, see the group’s website at http://www.bosanski-nacionalisti.org, and Marija Arnautović, “Osnovan Bosanski Pokret Nacionalnog Ponosa,” Radio Slobodna Evropa,
12 February 2014, at http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/neonacisti_bih/1956417.html, accessed on 30 April
2014 at 10:12am EST.
13. See Xavier Bougarel, “L’islam bosniaque, entre identité culturelle et idéologie politique,” in Xavier Bougarel and Nathalie
Clayer, Le Nouvel Islam balkanique: Les musulmans, acteurs du post-communisme, 1990-2000 (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2001), 82-83. The New York Times veteran Balkan correspondent, David Binder, has reported
that Izetbegović sided with the faction within the Mladi Muslimani that supported the SS Handžar division. See
Binder, “Alija Izetbegovic, Muslim Who Led Bosnia, Dies at 78,” op. cit. For more on the role of the Bosnian SS
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14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Handžar Division, see David G. Dalin and John F. Rothman, Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical
Islam (New York: Random House, 2008); George Lepre, Himmler’s Bosnian Division: The Waffen SS Handschar
Division, 1943-1945 (Schiffer Publishing, 1997); Jonathan Trigg, Hitler’s Jihadis: Muslim Volunteers of the
Waffen SS (Gloucestershire, UK: Spellmount Publishers, 2012); and Redžić, Muslimansko autonomaštvo i 13. SS
divizija, op. cit.
As cited by Vuk Baćanović, “SS oficir za bratstvo i jedinstvo,” BH Dani 855 (Sarajevo), 1 November 2013, 32—34.
For the full text of the “Memorandum,” see Redžić, Muslimansko autonomaštvo i 13. SS divizija, op. cit., 71-79.
See Armina Omerika, “The Role of Islam in the Academic Discourses on the National Identity of Muslims in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1950-1980,” Islam and Muslim Societies 2 (2006), 365.
See “Osnovna škola u Goraždu nosi ime po nacističkom SS oficiru,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 22 October 2013, at
http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/10985/dio_roditelja_ogorchen_osnovna_skola_u_gorazdu_nosi_ime_po_nacistichkom_ss_oficiru_photo.html, accessed on 23 October 2013 at 9:40am EST.
For more on these points, see Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, op. cit., 239; see also John R. Schindler,
Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida and the Rise of Global Jihad (St. Paul, MN.: Zenith Press, 2007), 37-46.
See the comments by Afghanistan and Bosnia jihad veteran Sheik al-Mujahideen Abu Abdel Aziz ‘Barbaros’ (Bosnia),” Al-Sirat al Mustaqeem (“The Right Path”), No. 33 (August 1994).
See Izetbegović, Islamska Deklaracija (Sarajevo: Bosna, 1990), 22-43. Izetbegovic’s view that “there is no peace
or co-existence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and political institutions,” anticipates of course the
views of Osama bin-Laden and other Islamist extremists some two decades later. As the Rand Corporation
terrorism expert Brian Jenkins notes, “for the jihadis, war is a condition, war is perpetual, war is infinite.” See
Jim Woolen, “Endless War is bin-Laden’s Whole Point,” available at: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=128353&page=1#.T7KCTFLy_IU, accessed on 15 May 2012 at: 12:26pm EST.
See Vjekoslav Perica, Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States (New York: Oxford, 2002), 77.
See Lyubov Grigorova Mincheva and Tedd Robert Gurr, Crime-Terror Alliances and the State: Ethnonationalist
and Islamist Challenges to Regional Security (New York: Routledge, 2013), 69. “Dhimmi” is an historical and
judicial term referring to a non-Muslim citizen of an Islamic state in which various political, social and economic
restrictions are imposed upon them. For an extensive examination of the concept of ‘dhimmitude,” see Bat Ye’or,
The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 1996).
For instance, Sefer Halilović, the first chief of staff of the Bosnian Muslim army, reported a conversation with
Izetbegović in which he said, “We need a piece of land which can hold some two million people. Some will come,
some will go, and it will be enough.”See Halilović, Lukava Strategija (Sarajevo: Marsal, 1997), 23. Along
similar lines, one Sarajevo commentator would note after the SDA’s Second Party Congress in September 1997,
“the SDA wants BosniaHerzegovina, but mainly as a (mono) religious and mono (ethnic) state, and on as big a
piece of territory as possible.” See Mirko Šagolj’s commentary in Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 23 September 1997, 2.
Izetbegović’s aim to create a Muslim mini-state in Bosnia remains a topic of considerable interest and debate in
Bosnia. For eyewitness accounts of the internal plans within the Izetbegović regime to create a Muslim mini-state
at this time, see, for instance, A. Dučić, “I Bakir Izetbegović 1993. godine učestovovao u podjeli BiH,” Dnevni
Avaz (Sarajevo), 20 March 2014, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/teme/i-bakir-izetbegovic-1993-ucestvovao-u-podjeli-bih, accessed on 20 March 2014 at 9:49am EST.
As General Sir Michael Rose, the commander of UN forces in Bosnia in 1994-95, later noted, “I came to believe
that his talk of creating a multi-religious, multi-cultural state in Bosnia was a disguise for the extension of his own
political power and the furtherance of Islam.”See Rose, Fighting for Peace (London: Harvill, 1998), 38. Similarly, as
one Western diplomat in Bosnia told The New York Times, “. . . ‘If you read President Izetbegović’s writings, as
I have, there is no doubt that he is an Islamic fundamentalist,’ said a senior Western diplomat with long experience
in the region. ‘He is a very nice fundamentalist, but he is still a fundamentalist. This has not changed. His goal is
to establish a Muslim state in Bosnia, and the Serbs and Croats understand this better than the rest of us’ . . . “ See
Chris Hedges, “Bosnian Leader Hails Islam at Election Rallies,” The New York Times, 2 September 1996.
According to Bougarel, “L’islam bosniaque, entre identité culturelle et idéologie politique,” op. cit., 87.
See Jahić, “A Virtuous Muslim State,” Front Slobode (Tuzla), 23 August 1996, available at: http://www.ex-yupress.com/
froslo/froslo4.html, accessed on 24 June 2012 at: 8:08pm EST.
As cited by Ina Merdjanova, Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalism and Transnationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 60.
On the debates in Bosnia over whether it was appropriate to proclaim soldiers killed in Izetbegović’s army “šehids,”
see Xavier Bougarel, “Death and the Nationalist: Martyrdom, War Memory and Veteran Identity among Bosnian
Muslims,” in Xavier Bougarel, Elissa Helms and Ger Duijzings, eds., The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 167-191.
Ganić was named a “gazi” in 2011 by the official Islamic Community of Bosnia. See Stephen Schwartz, “Defending Bosnia-Herzegovina from Radical Islam,” 11 June 2011, at http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1810/defending-bosnia-hercegovina-from-radical-islam, accessed on 3 January 2014 at 1:14pm EST.
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30. See Ivana Jovanovic, Muhamet Brajshori and Paul Ciocoiu, “Radical Islamist Threatens Balkans with Terror Attacks,”
The Southeast European Times, 8 October 2012, at http://setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2012/10/08/feature-02, accessed on 10 March 2013 at 10:35am EST.
31. See John Pomfret, “Bosnia’s Muslims Dodged Embargo,” The Washington Post, 22 September 1996, A01.
32. On Cerić’s calls for a “Bosniac state,” see, for instance, “Bošnjaci moraju napraviti svoju mapu puta,” at http://panbosnjak.com/2012/04/12/bosnjaci-moraju-napraviti-svoju-mapu-puta/, accessed on 21 January 2013 at 12:37pm EST, and
Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 24 April 2009, at http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/index.php?id=9948 accessed on 21 January
2013 at 12:26pm EST. See also “Tony Blair’s Charity under Investigation for Brotherhood Ties,” Al Arabiya, 13
April 2014, at http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2014/04/13/Tony-Blair-s-charity-under-investigation-over-Brotherhood-ties.html, accessed on 18 November 2014 at 7:03pm EST. The involvement of Cerić and
Al-Shatti in Blair’s foundation prompted U.K. prime minister David Cameron to order MI5 and MI6 to investigate the
two individuals’ ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. See Robert Verkaik and Robert Mendik, “Tony Blair’s advisers
and their ‘ties to extremist group’.” The Guardian (U.K.), 13 April 2014, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10762919/Tony-Blairs-advisers-and-their-ties-to-extremist-group.html, accessed on 18 November
2014 at 7:10pm EST.
33. As quoted by Katie Harris, “Bosnia’s First Ever Census Sparks Heated Debate About National Identity,” Time, 14
October 2013, at http://world.time.com/2013/10/14/bosnias-first-ever-census-sparks-heated-debate-over-national-identity/, accessed on 21 October 2013 at 10:09 am EST. Emphasis added.
34. See Dragan Sladojević, “Bosnić: Naše je od Prijedora do Sandžaka,” Nezavisne Novine (Banja Luka), 16 September 2013, at http://www.nezavisne.com/novosti/bih/Bosnic-Nase-je-od-Prijedora-do-Sandzaka-209475.html,
accessed on 17 September 2013 at 8:50am EST.
35. See “Srbi i Hrvati trebaju dati ‘harač’ da ih niko nebi dirao,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 18 February 2013, at http://
www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/srbi-i-hrvati-trebaju-dati-harac-da-ih-niko-ne-bi-dirao, accessed on 14
March 2013 at 10:33am EST.
36. See Hajrudin Somun, “Sarajevo as Seen by Erdoğan and Milorad Dodik,” Today’s Zaman (Ankara), 7 October
2012, at http://www.todayszaman.com/news-294484-sarajevo-as-seen-by-erdogan-and-milorad-dodik-by-hajrudin-somun*.html, accessed on 17 September 2013 at 11:15am EST.
37. See Brian Hall, The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia (New York: Penguin,
1995), 162.
38. See Zorica Ilić, “Dr. Mustafa Cerić: Od Pohvala do Osuda,” Deutsche Welle, 16 November 2012, at http://www.
dw.de/dr-mustafa-ceri%C4%87-od-pohvala-do-osuda/a-16384747, accessed on 16 October 2013 at 2:56pm EST.
On another occasion, Cerić similarly noted, “Of course if you look at the Sharia of the way it is presented as the
poenal (sic) law – cutting the head and cutting the hand on (sic) so on . . . Then of course your understanding of
Sharia is fearful and is appalling to you . . . [but] I cannot disavow myself from the Sharia.” See Cerić’s interview,
“Second Hour: Dr. Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia,” conducted on 18 March 2007, at http://www.abc.net.
au/sundaynights/stories/s1874731.htm, accessed on 10 October 2013 at 3:43pm EST.
39. See Nadeem Azan, “A Conversation with Dr. Mustafa Cerić,” at http://www.angelfire.com/hi/nazam/Aceric.html,
accessed on 16 July 2014 at 9:14am EST. Cerić is known for promoting himself as a “moderate” Islamic leader
before western audiences while within Bosnia “according to some Bosnian human rights activists, Cerić is nothing
less than a fundamentalist, hidden under a fake image of tolerance.” See Stefano Giantin, “Bosnian Grand Mufti
Ceric is No Peacemaker and Should Not Receive Ducci Foundation Peace Prize,” Il Piccolo (Trieste), 6 March
2012, at http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=72271, accessed on 16 July 2014 at 10:03am EST.
40. See The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics & Society (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2013), 46.
41. A video of the February 2013 lecture by Imamović and Bosnić in Tuzla is available at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=lgMzQiIlTDQ As of October 2014 it has received over 5,650 hits. Some five hundred people were in the
audience. For a report on the meeting, see Robert Coalson and Maja Nikolic, “Radical Islamists Seek to Exploit
Frustration in Bosnia,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1 March 2013, at http://www.rferl.org/content/bosnia-islamists/24916517.html, accessed on 27 October 2013.
42. See the aforementioned essay by Granov, Kako ćemo se boriti,” in Trhulj, Mladi Muslimani, op. cit., 122-125.
43. For just a sampling of such references, see “Srebrenica je Mekka u Bošnjaka,” Saff (Sarajevo), no. 320, 29 June
2012, 5; see also Dzenanna Karup’s interview with several members of Aktivna Islamska Omladina (AIO), a
group with close ties to the Wahhabi’s, where again readers are reminded that Muslims “should not take Jews and
Christians as friends,” See Karup, “Kur’an je naš ustav,” BH Dani 72 (Sarajevo), 30 March 1998, at http://www.
bhdani.com/arhiva/72/tekst172.htm, accessed on 25 November 2012 at 11:05am EST.
44. See the Proglas (“Proclamation”) of the Mladi Muslimani, available in Trhulj, Mladi Muslimani, op .cit., 126-128.
The Proglas was written at some point in the 1940s (no specific date provided), penned by organization members
in Mostar and accepted by the organization’s leadership in Sarajevo. “Tekbir” is the Arabic term for the phrase
“Allahu Akbar” (i.e., “God is Great”).
45. See “Odgovor na reagovanje Partije Pravog Puta povodom minulih izbora,” 10 January 2012, at http://www.putvjernika.com/Fetve-i-odgovori/odgovor-na-reagovanje-partije-pravog-puta-povodom-minulih-izbora.html, accessed
on 6 August 2012 at 8:06pm EST.
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46. See Maja Radević, “Budučnost obrazovanja u BiH je dobra—jer teško da može biti gora,” Slobodna Bosna 840
(Sarajevo), 13 December 2012, 56.
47. See, for instance, Halilović’s hutba (sermon), “Bosna i Hercegovina na udaru neprijatelja,” at http://www.medzlis-konjic.com/cms/index.php/hutbe-i-tekstovi/nezim-ef-halilovic/1731-bosna-i-hercegovina-na-udaru-neprijatelja,
accessed on 8 April 2014 at 12:29pm EST, and the article by Fatmir Alispahić, “Treba srušiti dejtonski poredak,
a ne ovu ili onu vlast,” Saff (Sarajevo), 9 February 2014, at http://www.Saff.ba/bih/1020-treba-srusiti-dejtonskiporedak-a-ne-ovu-ili-onu-vlast, accessed on 8 April 2014 at 12:33pm EST.
48. See Serbia’s Sandzak: Still Forgotten (Belgrade/Brussels: International Crisis Group Europe Report No. 162), 8
April 2005, 25.
49. As published on the PutVjernika website, http://www.putvjernika.com/Fetve-i-odgovori/ispijanje-kahve-sa-nevjernikom-i-propis-el-vela-vel-beraa-privrenost-i-odricanje.html, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 4:44pm EST.
Some Islamic scholars claim “friends” should be translated as “allies.”
50. Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 26 September 1997, 8.
51. As quoted by Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qaida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit., 142.
52. See Bosnić’s sermon, “Muslimani, Jedno Tijelo,” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyiDp5jeOPE, accessed on
19 November 2013 at 11:09am EST. As of October 2014 the sermon had received 8,360 hits.
53. See The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics & Society, op. cit., 123.
54. See Tihomir Loza, “Apartheid Redux,” at http://www.tol.org/client/article/21168-apartheid-redux.html The belief
that ethnoconfessional differences impose barriers between people has long been a trope of Islamists in the region.
In the late 1980s, for instance, the anthropologist Tone Bringa related the following discussion she had with a
Muslim cleric in the central Bosnian village she studied: “the local hodza (Islamic instructor) reminded me that
there was a limit to my friendship with and understanding of the Muslims. Ultimately I was not one of them, I was
not Muslim.” See Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), xvi.
55. The aforementioned “Memorandum” of 1942, for instance, claimed that “Even if we live in this land in which the
majority consists of Slavic peoples, even if we speak the Bosnian language which is similar to Serbo-Croatian, by
race and by blood we are not Slavs, but Goths in origin.” See Redžić, Muslimansko autonomaštvo i 13. SS divizija,
op. cit., 72. Mustafa Imamović, the author of a recent history entitled Historija Bošnjaka, suggests that throughout their history the Bosnian Muslims intermixed very little with neighboring Slav populations. According to
Imamović, “the Bosnian Slavs, later the Bošnjaks or Bosnian Muslims . . . mixed very little with other peoples . . .
Bošnjaks rarely mixed blood even with other non-Slavic Muslims, despite the strong spiritual ties with the Islamic
Orient.” See Imamović, Historija Bošnjaka (Sarajevo: Preporod, 1998), 23. This theme has been taken up by Muslim clerics in the Sandzak as well; for instance, the Mufti of the Islamic Community in Serbia, Muamer Zukorlić,
has urged his followers to claim that they are “Illyrs” rather than Slavs; see “Zukorlić: Mi Bošnjaci smo poreklom
Iliri,” Politika (Belgrade), 6 May 2010.
56. See Roger Cohen, “Bosnians Fear a Rising Tide of Islamic Authoritarianism,” The New York Times, 10 October
1994, at http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/10/world/bosnians-fear-a-rising-islamic-authoritarianism.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm, accessed on 13 May 2012 at: 10:59am EST.
57. Ibid. Today, the aforementioned Ćeman is a judge on Bosnia’s Constitutional Court.
58. See Sabrina Ramet, Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962-1991, 2nd Edition (Bloomington, In: Indiana
University Press, 1992), 21. A 1998 United States Information Agency (USIA) public opinion survey also found
little evidence of interethnic unions; for instance, 99% of Bosnian Muslim respondents said that their mother had
been Muslim, and 98% said their fathers had been Muslims. Among Bosnian Serbs, the respective figures were
95% and 98%, and among Bosnian Croats, the respective figures were 99% and 100%. Source: Public Opinion
in Bosnia-Hercegovina Volume V: Two Years After Dayton (Washington, DC: United States Information Agency,
April 1998), page 171, Tables 159-160.
59. See “Sufijski šejh iz Zenice preporučuje da lijene žene treba tući,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 19 August 2013, at
http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/sufijski-sejh-iz-zenice-preporucuje-da-lijene-zene-treba-tuci, accessed on 24 August 2013 at 8:14am EST.
60. See Hfz. Mersudin ef. Kasumović, “Kult golotinje,”at http://www.rijaset.ba/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14980:kult-golotinje&catid=201:aktuelnosti-kat&Itemid=633, accessed on 24 August 2013
at 8:55am EST.
61. See the hutba (sermon) given by Sarajevo imam Nezim Halilović-Muderis, “Dan žena je neislamski praznik,” 7
March 2014, at http://www.rijaset.ba/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18961:dan-zena-je-neislamski-praznik&catid=21:nezim-ef-haliloviuderris&Itemid=602, accessed on 2 April 2014 at 8:44am EST.
62. See Edona Peci, “Kosovo Muslims Probe Mufti’s Anti-Women Rant,” BalkanInsight, 7 June 2013, at http://www.
balkaninsight.com/en/article/insulting-kosovo-mufti-investigated-after-hatred-speech, accessed on 1 October 2013
at 8:43am EST.
63. See the recent expose of practices in the Bosnian Wahhabi community by Edina Đogo, “Edinin bijeg iz vehabijskog pakla,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 28 August 2013, at http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/10193/ekskluzivno_edinin_bijeg_iz_vehabijskog_pakla.html, accessed on 17 September 2013 at 12:15am EST.
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64. See, for instance, a field report by the NGO Women in Black, “Sandzak and Fundamentalist Tendencies” (no date given,
but it appears to be 2007 or later) at http://www.zeneucrnom.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=
363&Itemid=78&lang=en, accessed on 27 November 2013 at 2:47pm EST. and “Genital Mutilation of Women in
Sandzak,” 23 January 2007, at http://dalje.com/en-world/genital-mutilation-of-women-in-sandzak/17024, accessed
on 27 November 2013 at 2:50pm EST.
65. See Nidzara Ahmetasevic, “Emissaries of Militant Islam Make Headway in Bosnia,” BalkanInsight, 21 March 2007
at http://birn.eu.com/en/75/10/2490/, accessed on 17 July 2012 at 11:55am EST.
66. See the commentary by Ezher Beganović, “IZ u BiH mora spriječiti širenje bolesnih feminističkih tumačenja islama
u srednjim školama,” Saff (Sarajevo), 9 August 2014, at http://Saff.ba/iz-u-bih-mora-sprijeciti-sirenje-bolesnih-feministickih-tumacenja-islama-u-srednjim-skolama/#.U-oQ1KOBXuA, accessed on 12 August 2014 at 9:13am EST.
67. See “Catholics Leaving Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Vatican Radio, 13 October 2012, at http://www.news.va/en/news/
catholics-leaving-bosnia-herzegovina, accessed on 2 December 2012 at 12:16pm EST.
68. See “Fundamentalism Rising in Bosnia,” 19 January 2012, at http://www.churchinneed.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6909, accessed on 7 July 2012 at 10:42am EST; “Radical Islam on the Rise, Sarajevo Cardinal Warns,”
26 January 2012, at: http://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/radical-islam-on-the-rise-sarajevo-cardinal-warns/, accessed on 7 July 2012 at: 10:44am EST.
69. See “Bosnian Catholics Facing Increasing Islamic Fundamentalism,” 26 January 2012, at http://www.cinews.ie/
article.php?artid=9629, accessed on 7 July 2012 at 11:24 am EST.
70. See the interview published by Aid to the Church in Need, “Bishop in Bosnia-Herzegovina: instability plays into
the hands of the extremists,” at http://www.churchinneed.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8055&news_iv_
ctrl=1001, accessed on 6 November 2014 at 10:02am EST.
71. See James M. Dorsey, “Militant Islam Gains Ground in the Balkans,” Deutsche Welle, 12 October 2010, at http://
www.dw.de/militant-islam-gains-ground-in-the-balkans/a-6100488, accessed on 8 October 2013 at 10:17am EST.
72. See “Bosnian Bomb Plot Fails to Stop Pope” at http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/12/newsid_4022000/4022841.stm, accessed on 24 April 2013 at 10:23am EST; and Medina Delalić, “Loše plaćeni policijski amateri,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 5 October 2002, 5-7.
73. See Kemal Kurspahić, “Missed Opportunities in Post-War Bosnia,” in Media and Global Change: Rethinking
Communication for Development (Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales septiembre. 2005), Chapter 21,
at http://sala.clacso.edu.ar/gsdl252/cgi-bin/library?e=d-000-00---0edicion--00-0-0--0prompt-10---4------0-1l--1ru-Zz-1---20-preferences---00031-001-0-1gbk-00&cl=CL2.1&d=HASH014b1be2d97caf5ab80fba27.5.3&gc=1),
accessed on 26 June 2012 at 2:40pm EST.
74. See Anes Alic, “Wahhabism: From Vienna to Bosnia,” ISN Security Watch, 6 April 2007 at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/
isn/Security-Watch/Articles/Detail//?id=53104&lng=en, accessed on 15 September 2012 at 11:28am EST.
75. See Anes Alic, “The Ringleaders of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Wahhabi Movement,” at http://www.jamestown.org/
single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1048, accessed on 14 June 2012 at: 8:06pm EST).
76. See Srecko Latal, “Intrigue Over Islamic Fighter’s Escape,” at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/21424/,
accessed on 3 August 2009 at 10:30am EST.
77. See Jusuf Ramadanovic, “The Escape and Arrest of Abu Hamza,” The Southeast European Times, 10 September 2009, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2009/09/10/
feature-02, accessed on 10 October 2014 at 9:50am EST. The aforementioned Sadović has recently been named
Bosnian ambassador to Qatar.
78. See Rade Maroevic and Daniel Williams, “Terrorist Cells Find Foothold in the Balkans,” The Washington Post, 1
December 2005.
79. See Walter Mayr, “The Prophet’s Fifth Column: Islamists Gain Ground in Sarajevo,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 25
February 2009, at http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-prophet-s-fifth-column-islamists-gain-groundin-sarajevo-a-609660.html, accessed on 14 June 2012 at 7:29pm EST. Homophobia is in fact a common feature
of religious extremists throughout the region. Gay Pride parades have been attacked by Orthodox fundamentalist
thugs in Belgrade and Podgorica as well.
80. See Fatmir Alispahić, “The Spectre of Pederasty . . . “ Saff (Sarajevo), 16 June 2012, at http://www.Saff.ba/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2365:bauk-pederluka-krui&catid=49:kolumna&Itemid=82, accessed
on 26 June 2012 at 10:42am EST.
81. Fatmir Alispahić, “Sarajevski Pederistan,” Saff (Sarajevo), 15 February 2014, at http://saff.ba/sarajevski-pederistan/#.
VEkPNVeOqSo, accessed on 24 October 2014 at 10:24am EST.
82. Fatmir Alispahić, “Pederi su očevi pedofila,” in his collected volume, 40 izabranih kolumni iz Saffa 2003-2013 (Tuzla: Batva, 2013), 85-89.
83. Alispahić, “Sarajevski Pederistan,” op. cit.
84. See Tracy Wilkinson, “Muslim Regime Says Bosnia is No Place for Santa Claus,” The Los Angeles Times, 28
December 1996, at http://articles.latimes.com/1996-12-28/news/mn-13133_1_santa-claus-banishment, accessed
on 22 April 2013 at 8:57am EST.
85. See “Father Christmas Banned in Kindergartens in Bosnia,” The Telegragh (UK), 28 December 2008, at http://
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86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bosnia/4001031/Father-Christmas-banned-in-kindergartens-in-Bosnia.html, accessed on 22 April 2013 at 8:50am EST. See also Peter Beaumont, “Nationalists Triumph as ‘Grandfather Frost’ Banned in Sarajevo Infant Schools,” The Guardian (UK), 20 December 2013, at http://www.guardian.
co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/balkans-christmas-school, accessed on 22 April 2013 at 9:01am EST.
See Irfan Al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz, “From Sweden to Macedonia: Radical Islam Continues Probing Europe,”
The Weekly Standard, 14 December 2010, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sweden-macedonia-radical-islam-continues-probing-europe_523300.html, accessed on 27 November 2013 at 4:36pm EST.
See Elvira Jukic, “Islamist Death Threats Force Out Bosnia Minister,” BalkanInsight, 14 February 2012, at http://
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/dignity-rather-than-chair-sarajevo-slogans-say, accessed on 7 June 2012 at:
7:25pm EST.
See “Poziv na ubistvo: 20.000 dolara za ubistvo Rešida Hafizovića,” Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 17 August 2013,
at http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/poziv-na-ubistvo-20000-dolara-za-smrt-resida-hafizovica, accessed on
18 August 2013 at 8:45am EST, and Edina Kamenica, “Reakcije na prijetnje smrću prof. dr. Rešidu Hafizoviću:
Ljudi nestaju, a policija šuti,” Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 20 August 2013, at http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/
reakcije-na-prijetnje-smrcu-prof-dr-residu-hafizovicu-ljudi-nestaju-a-policija-suti, accessed on 24 August 2013 at
9:35am EST.
See S. Degirmendžić, “Vehabija poziva na likvidaciju Aide Ćorović,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 27 November 2013,
at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/vehabija-poziva-na-likvidaciju-aide-corovic, accessed on 27
November 2013 at 4:06pm EST.
See Stephen Schwartz, “Radical Islam’s Intimidation in Kosovo,” 5 March 2014, at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.
org/4202/alma-lama-kosovo-radical-islam, accessed on 29 March 2014 at 6:36pm EST.
See Arbana Xharra, “Kosovo: Radikaler Islam als ‘tickende bombe’,” Der Standard (Vienna), 28 January 2013 at
http://derstandard.at/1358304927258/Radikaler-Islam-als-tickende-Bombe-im-Kosovo, accessed on 25 April 2013
at 10:40am EST; Arbana Xharra, “Fissures in the Faith: Rise of Conservative Islamists Alarms Kosovans,” BalkanInsight, 24 December 2012, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/fissures-in-the-faith-rise-of-conservativeislamists-alarms-kosovans, accessed on 22 April 2013 at 2:41pm EST.
See Izetbegović, Islamska Deklaracija, op. cit., 53-54.
See the cable produced by the US Embassy in Sarajevo, “Bosnia: Gaza Reaction Reveals Ugly Side,” at http://www.
cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09SARAJEVO40, accessed on 2 May 2012 at: 4:59pm EST. Cerić’s colleague,
Ismet Spahić, has likewise claimed that the Americans are committing “genocide” in Iraq. See Yaroslav Trofimov,
Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam From Baghdad to Timbuktu (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 2005), 292.
An accusation he has made against Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, see Schwartz’ “Six
Questions for Mustafa Ceric,” 21 May 2007, at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1837158/posts, accessed
on 20 April 2013 at 12:37pm EST.
See “Bosnia: Reis’ing Toward Trouble,” Embassy Sarajevo, 24 February 2009, Cable #09SARAJEVO226_, at
https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09SARAJEVO226_a.html, accessed on 2 September 2014 at 3:59pm EST.
See, for instance, Abdusamed Nasuf Bušatlić, “Sveopći rat protiv Muslimana i Islama,” Saff (Sarajevo), 13 May
2013, at http://www.Saff.ba/kolumne/6-hoce-li-21-stoljece-biti-obiljezeno-stradanjem-ili-pobjedom-muslimana,
accessed on 27 October 2013 at 9:52am EST.
See Alispahić’s essay, “Marketing Tragedije,” in 40 izabranih kolumni iz Saffa 2003-2013, op. cit. 25-28. Along
similar lines, when Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia & Herzegovina,
sent a message of condolence to the Israeli people on the death of Ariel Sharon, Alispahić retorted by saying that
“Ariel Sharon is the Hitler of the second half of the twentieth century . . . the most prominent Zionist criminal.”
See Alispahić’s comments on his weekly program Defter Hefte which airs on Sarajevo’s TV Igman, broadcast on
19 January 2014 (10th episode). In contrast to the negative attitudes displayed towards Israel in the Federation, it
is interesting to note that under Dodik’s mandate the RS has been expressly pro-Israel. For instance, during the
celebration of the “Day of Israel” in Banja Luka, the Israeli ambassador to Bosnia, H.E. David Cohen, expressed
his thanks to President Dodik by saying “Mr. President, the State of Israel is grateful to you for your personal
contribution to ensuring that Bosnia never votes against Israel at the UN or any other international forum.“ See
“Cohen: Hvala Dodiku što BiH nikad nije glasala protiv Izraela,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 7 October 2013,
at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/cohen-hvala-dodiku-sto-bih-nikad-nije-glasala-protiv-izraela,
accessed on 28 January 2014 at 11:55pm EST. The Jerusalem Post has described the RS as “Israel’s Best Friend in
Europe.” See Michael Freund, “Israel’s Best Friend in Europe,” The Jerusalem Post, 3 May 2014, at http://www.
jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Fundamentally-Freund-Israels-best-friend-in-Europe-351233, accessed on
24 October 2014 at 10:10am EST.
As reported by Lorenzo Vidino, “Jihadist Radicalization in Switzerland” (Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich,
November 2013), at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?lng=en&id=172401, accessed
on 28 January 2014 at 12:26pm EST. A YouTube spot of the specific Bosnić sermon is available at http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=WIfCn5gR16E&list=UUDrQo1TGhnA6_8jt1ZgIvHA&index=39%20%28.
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99. As noted by the PBS Frontline documentary “Son of Al Qaeda,” at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
khadr/family/cron.html, accessed on 15 January 2015 at 10:02am EST.
100.See Mayr, “The Prophet’s Fifth Column: Islamists Gain Ground in Sarajevo,” op. cit. The reference to Jews
as “animals” is not the rant of an isolated extremist, it is relatively mainstream in Islamist religious and political
circles. Thus, in 2010, the recently deposed president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, urged Egyptians to “nurse our
children and our grandchildren on hatred for Jews and Zionists . . . the descendants of apes and pigs.” See David
D. Kirkpatrick, “Morsi’s Slurs Against Jews Stir Concern,” The New York Times, 14 January 2013, at http://www.
nytimes.com/2013/01/15/world/middleeast/egypts-leader-morsi-made-anti-jewish-slurs.html?_r=0, accessed on 14
March 2013 at 2:02pm EST.
101.According to the US State Department cable, “ Macedonia: A/s O’Brien Visit Highlights Terrorism Financing Issues,”
Embassy Skopje (Macedonia), 22 August 2007, at http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07SKOPJE695&q=macedonia, accessed on 28 January 2014 at 11:45pm EST.
102.See “Selefije u ‘svetom ratu’: ekslusivna ispovijest bh. džihad ratnika u Siriji,” 10 July 2013, at http://source.ba/
clanak/1400134/vijesti/Ekskluzivna%20ispovijest%20bh.%20d%C5%BEihad%20ratnika%20u%20Siriji/?ref=najcitaniji, accessed on 27 July 2013 at 10:05am EST.
103.See Veselin Toshkov, Sabina Niksic, Dusan Stojanovic, Llazar Semini, Nebi Qena and Elena Becatoros, “Radical
Islam on Rise in Balkans, Raising Fears of Security Threats to Europe,” Associated Press (dateline Skopje), 18
September 2010, at http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/18/radical-islam-rise-balkans-raising-fears-security-threat-europe/, accessed on 17 July 2013 at 1:17pm EST.
104.Jack Kelley, “Bin Laden’s training camps teach curriculum of carnage,” USA Today, 26 November 2001, 1A.
105.The video (with translation) is available at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3459.htm, accessed on 8 October 2013
at 10:38 EST. Similarly, Nusret Imamović has endorsed suicide bombings against non-believers as being consistent with Islamic tenets. See See Vlado Azinovic, “The True Aims of Bosnia’s ‘Operation Light’,” at http://www.
rferl.org/content/The_True_Aims_Of_Bosnias_Operation_Light/1954254.html, accessed on 25 April 2012 at:
7:40pm EST.
106.See Wood, “Police Raid Raises Fear of Bosnia as Haven for Terrorists,” The New York Times, 3 December 2005,
at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/international/europe/03bosnia.html?ei=5099&en=e0e1466f0bb188f3&ex=1134190800&adxnnl=1&partner=TOPIX&adxnnlx=1133586686-oKfynmL95HY2Roh6Wumt+w&_r=0, accessed
on 13 February 2014 at 9:22am EST.
107.See Visar Duriqi, “Rrëfimi i familjes së kamikazit nga Kosova që vrau 50 persona në Bagdad: E mashtruan, ndiqte
ligjëratat e Shefqet Krasniqit,” Gazeta Express (Priština), 1 April 2014, at http://www.gazetaexpress.com/lajme/
rrefimi-i-familjes-se-kamikazit-nga-kosova-qe-vrau-50-persona-ne-bagdad-e-mashtruan-ndiqte-ligjeratat-e-shefqetkrasniqit-6019/, accessed on 24 September 2014 at 9:47am EST.
108.See Hajrudin Somun, “Balkan Jihadists Part of a Global Menace,” Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 4 October 2014, at
http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_balkan-jihadists-part-of-a-global-menace_360616.html, accessed on 6 October 2014 at 1:18pm EST.
109.See “Emrah Fojnica šehidio danas u Iraku,” Vijestiummeta, 12 August 2014, at http://vijestiummeta.com/emrah-fojnica-sehidio-danas-u-iraku/, accessed on 12 August 2014 at 9:23am EST; “U Iraku danas poginuo Emrah Fojnica
pri pokušaju izvođenja samoubilačkog napada,” Saff (Sarajevo), 8 August 2014, at http://Saff.ba/u-iraku-dans-poginuo-emrah-fojnica/#.U-oTXKOBXuA, accessed on 12 August 2014 at 9:26am EST.
110.Ceresnjes and Green, “The Global Jihad Movement in Bosnia,” op. cit.
111.See the comments by Professor Adnan Silajdžić of the Faculty of Islamic Sciences in Sarajevo in the program “Tkz.
Selefije i Vehabije,” (Sarajevo: Bosnian Federation TV program Pošteno). Date unknown.
112.See Isa Blumi, “The Islamist Challenge in Kosova,” Current History (March 2003), 125.
113.See Konstantin Testorides, “Radical Islam on Rise in Balkans,” Associated Press, 19 September 2011 at http://
hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BALKANS_RADICAL_ISLAM?SITE=TNMEM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT, accessed on 21 September 2010 at: 5:45pm EST
114.See the comments by Dmitar Avramov in Toshkov, et. Al, “Radical Islam on Rise in Balkans, Raising Fears of
Security Threats to Europe,” op. cit.
115.See Dusica Tomovic, “All Female Islamic School Opens in Montenegro,” BalkanInsight, 28 April 2014, at http://
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/montenegro-gets-female-madrasah, accessed on 29 April 2014 at 3:56pm EST.
116.See Esad Hećimović, “Radical movements—a challenge for moderate Balkan-Islam?” (paper available at http://
www.bmlv.gv.at/pdf_pool/publikationen/rel_exterm_vs_fried_beweg_05_radical_movements_moderate_balkan_
islam_e_hecimovic_17.pdf , 96, 109, accessed on 22 January 2014 at 6:06pm EST.
117.See Azinović’s comments in Rusmir Smajilhodzić, “Saudi Style Wahhabism Flourishes in Bosnia,” Middle East
Online, 29 September 2010, at http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=41577, accessed on 11 February
2014 at 12:56pm EST. Similarly, Senad Agić, a Bosnian imam in the United States, warned in 2004 that Wahhabi
groups in Bosnia “are increasing in strength, publishing magazines, and have their own radio stations. If that is
not monitored and controlled, there is a possibility that traditional Islam in Bosnia-Herzegovina will change.”
See Agić’s comments as quoted by Stephen Schwartz, “Wahhabism and Al Qaeda in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” The
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Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 2, Issue 20, 20 October 2004, at http://www.islamicpluralism.
org/1270/wahhabism-and-al-qaeda-in-bosnia-herzegovina, accessed on 30 March 2014 at 11:01am EST.
118.See Kerem Őktem, “New Islamic actors after the Wahhabi intermezzo: Turkey’s return to the Muslim Balkans,”
(European Studies Center, University of Oxford: December 2010), 19. As of 2005, Ahmet Alibašić has reported
that there were 100 Bosnian students in Saudi Arabia, 60 in Syria, 40 in Egypt, 35 in Jordan, 30 in Iran, 10 in Pakistan,
10 in Turkey, and 20 in Malaysia. See Alibašić, “Traditional and Reformist Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina”
(Cambridge Programme for Security in International Society Working Paper No. 2, 17 February 2008), 4.
119.See the State Department cable entitled “Radical Islam in Montenegro,” (Origin: Embassy Podgorica, Cable date
10 July 2009), Reference # PODGORICA 00000171, at http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09PODGORICA171, accessed on 11 February 2014 at 1:04pm EST.
120.See Stephen Schwartz, “Kosovo Radical Islamists in New Political Offensive,” The Weekly Standard, 13 February
2013, at https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kosovo-radical-islamists-new-political-offensive_701196.html,
accessed on 29 March 2014 at 6:26pm EST.
121.As cited by Ahmetasevic, “Emissaries of Militant Islam Make Headway in Bosnia,“ op. cit.
122.See Ikanović’s statements in “Selefije u ‘svetom ratu’: eksluzivna ispovijest bh. džihad ratnika u Siriji,” op. cit.
123.See the statements by “Nermina” (pseudonym), a former Bosnian Wahhabi who left the movement, as quoted by
Ahmetasevic, “Emissaries of Militant Islam Make Headway in Bosnia,” op. cit.
124.See Xharra, “Kosovo: Radikaler Islam als ‘tickende bombe’,” op. cit., and Xharra, “Fissures in the Faith: Rise of
Conservative Islamists Alarms Kosovans,” op. cit.
125.See Stephen Schwartz, “Kosovo Radical Islamists In New Political Offensive,” The Weekly Standard, 13 February 2013, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kosovo-radical-islamists-new-political-offensive_701196.
html?page=1, accessed on 10 March 2013 at 11:30am EST.
126.See the comments by Krenar Gashi of the Institute for Development Policy in Priština in “Fear of Jihadis in Balkans Lacks Some Perspective,” Monitor Global Outlook, 25 November 2013, at http://monitorglobaloutlook.com/
news-story/fear-of-jihadis-in-balkans-lacks-some-perspective/, accessed on 30 June 2014 at 2:34pm EST.
127.“Vehabija sve više i u Makedoniji,” Nezavisne Novine (Banja Luka), 4 August 2010 at http://www.nezavisne.com/
novosti/ex-yu/Vehabija-sve-vise-i-u-Makedoniji-65294.html, accessed on 23 April 2013 at 11:46am EST.
128.See Misko Taleski, “Law Enforcement Re-examines Islamic Groups in the Balkans,” The Southeast European Times,
6 May 2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/05/06/feature-02, accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:36pm EST.
129.State Department cable entitled “Radical Islam in Montenegro,” op. cit., ftn. 87.
130. See Serbia’s Sandzak: Still Forgotten (Belgrade/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 8 April 2005), 24.
131.According to Aida Ćorović, human rights activist and former director of the Novi Pazar-based NGO Urban-In. See
“Radical Groups in the Balkans: The Case of Wahhabi Jašarević,” op. cit., 11.
132.See “Fejzić optužio Muftijstvo Sandžačko da podržava ‘vehabijski pokret’,” Sandžak Press, 6 September 2014,
at http://sandzakpress.net/fejzic-optuzio-muftijstvo-sandzacko-da-podrzava-vehabijski-pokret, accessed on 17
September 2014 at 4:07pm EST.
133.See Evan Kohmann, “The North African Mujahedin Network,” in Michael A. Innes, ed., Bosnian Security After
Dayton: New Perspectives (Oxford: Routledge, 2012) 113.
134.See the interview with Zlatko Dizdarević in BH Dani (Sarajevo), No. 124, October 1999. Along similar lines, Dževad
Galijašević, the former mayor of the central Bosnian municipality of Maglaj and a former member of Haris Silajdzić’s Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina (SBiH), has claimed “Alija Izetbegović was the father of [the project to set
up an Islamic republic in Bosnia.] . . . This type of BiH is Izetbegović’s life’s work.” See Galijašević’s interview
with Sara Babić, “Silajdžić je doveo mudžahedine u Bosnu,” Nacional 574 (Zagreb), 14 November 2006, at http://
www.nacional.hr/clanak/29058/silajdzic-je-doveo-mudzahedine-u-bosnu, accessed on 26 April 2013 at 8:51am
EST. For interesting critiques of Izetbegović’s writings, see Dr. Jasna Samić’articles “Cari Arapskog Jezika,”BH
Dani 145 (Sarajevo), 10 March 2000, and “Zašto postoji nesto a ne ništa?” BH Dani 146 (Sarajevo), 17 March
2000.
135.For a sampling of the literature on Islamist extremist groups in southeastern Europe, see Juan Carlos Antúnez, “Wahhabism in Bosnia-Herzegovina” (12 September 2008) at http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2468, accessed on 12 April 2013 at 9:57am EST; Bosnia’s Dangerous Tango: Islam and Nationalism (Brussels/
Sarajevo: International Crisis Group, 26 February 2013); A. Ceresnjes and R. Green, “The Global Jihad Movement
in Bosnia: A Time Bomb in the Heart of Europe” (Washington, DC: Middle East Media and Research Institute,
June 2012); Slaven Blavicki, “Islamist Terrorist Networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (Monterey, CA: Naval
Postgraduate School, 2009); Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America (New York:
Forum, 2001); Evan F. Kohlman, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network (Oxford: Berg, 2004);
Kenneth Morrison, “Wahhabism in the Balkans” (Defence Academy of the United Kingdom: Advanced Research
and Assessment Group, February 2008); and former National Security Agency analyst John R. Schindler, Unholy
Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida and the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit. Kohlmann’s book provides the most detailed
analysis of Al Qaeda’s move from Afghanistan to Europe. The Schindler volume is the best extant work placing
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the rise of militant Islamism in Bosnia within the context of Alija Izetbegović’s movement. The most detailed Bosnian
examination of the topic is Esad Hećimovič, Garibi: Mudžahedini u BiH 1992-1999 (Zenica: Fondacija Sina, 2006).
136.According to Matthew Levitt, see “Hearing on the Blacklisting of Hezbollah by the European Union,” (Testimony
before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, 9 July 2013), at https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/testimony/LevittTestimony20110709-EU.pdf, accessed on 6 October 2014 at 1:55pm EST.
137.See “Bushati Says Terrorists Are Trained in Albania,” ALBEU, 2 September 2014, at http://english.albeu.com/
news/news/bushati-says-terrorists-are-trained-in-albania/168317/, accessed on 2 September 2014 at 10:55am EST.
138.See, for instance, Harvey Morris, “Could Syria’s Civil War Create Jihadis in Europe and the U.S.?” The New York
Times, 24 April 2013, at http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/could-syrias-civil-war-create-european-and-american-jihadis/?_r=0, accessed on 20 November 2013 at 11:25am EST.
139.Estimate according to Dr. Thomas Hegghammer of the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, as cited
by Frank Gardner, “Europe Could Feel the Backlash from Jihadist Conflicts,” at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
world-middle-east-25155188, accessed on 2 December 2013 at 10:19am EST. Bosnian recruits for the Syrian jihad
allegedly receive €15,000, and the families they leave behind are provided for. See A. Čorbo-Zećo, “I žene iz BiH
idu u Siriju,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 28 November 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/teme/i-zene-iz-bih-iduu-siriju, accessed on 29 November 2013 at 12:11pm EST. The interior minister of Republika Srpska in Bosnia
& Herzegovina, Radislav Jovičić, has said that according to his information Syrian jihad volunteers from Bosnia
receive €1500-2000 per month. See Jovičić’s interview in Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), “Neki od BH ratnika u Siriji se
pripremaju za samoubilačke akcije!”, 19 January 2014, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/intervju/neki-od-bh-ratnikau-siriji-pripremaju-se-za-samoubilacke-akcije1, accessed on 31 January 2014 at 10:37am EST.
140.According to a news report by Večernje Novosti (Belgrade), an analysis produced by the BiH Joint Commission for
Security and Defence had determined that 340 BiH citizens had gone to fight in Syria by August 2013. See M. Filipović, “Džihad preti Evropi!” Večernje Novosti (Belgrade), 27 August 2013, at http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/planeta.300.html:451151-Dzihad-preti-i-Evropi, accessed on 31 August 2013 at 8:15am EST. See also “U Siriji ratovalo
52 bh. državljanina, jedan je poginuo,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 17 May 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/globus/svijet/u-siriji-ratovala-52-bh-drzavljanina-jedan-je-poginuo, accessed on 18 May 2013 at 5:26pm EST; Dženana Halimović, “Selafistički borci iz BiH u Siriji: Korijeni iz devedesetih godina,” Radio Slobodna Evropa, 1 June 2013,
at http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/selafisticki-borci-iz-bih-na-ratistima-sirom-svijeta/25003939.html, accessed on 17 June 2013 at 4:53pm EST; S. Mijatović, “Imena vehabija iz BiH na ratištu u Siriji,” Slobodna Bosna
(Sarajevo), 23 May 2013, at http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/7996/ekskluzivno_imena_vehabija_iz_bih_na_
ratistu_u_siriji.html, accessed on 11 July 2013 at 11:24am EST; S Mijatović, “Bosanci u sirijskom ratu,” Slobodna
Bosna (Sarajevo), 17 June 2013, at http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/8634/bosanci_u_sirijskom_ratu.html,
accessed on 11 July 2013 at 11:27am EST; S. Mijatović, “Gornja Maoča je transit za vehabije koje odlaze u sveti
rat,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 2 April 2013, at: http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/275/gornja_maocha_je_
tranzit_za_vehabije_koje_odlaze_u_sveti_rat.html, accessed on 11 July 2013 at 11:34am EST; Suzana Mijatović,
“Bosanski džihad u Siriji: U svojoj vjeri, na tuđoj zemlji,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 10 October 2013, No. 883,
at http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/login.html?brl=%2Ftekst%2F34643%2Fnovi_zivot_bosanskih_ratnika_u_siriji_
hoces_kucu_nadji_zenu.html; Zoran Arbutina and Nemanja Rujević, “Vehabije iz BiH u ‘svetom ratu’,” Deutsche
Welle (Bosnian service), at http://www.dw.de/vehabije-iz-bih-u-svetom-ratu/a-17403012, accessed on 3 February
2014 at 11:29am EST.
141.According to Bajro Ikanović, a well-known Bosnian extremist who has been in Syria since January 2013. Ikanović
had been arrested in Bosnia in 2005 for his involvement in the Bektašević plot, an aborted attempt to launch suicide-terrorist attacks against western embassies in Sarajevo. See “Selefije u ‘svetom ratu’: ekslusivna ispovijest bh.
džihad ratnika u Siriji,” 10 July 2013, at http://source.ba/clanak/1400134/vijesti/Ekskluzivna%20ispovijest%20
bh.%20d%C5%BEihad%20ratnika%20u%20Siriji/?ref=najcitaniji, accessed on 27 July 2013 at 10:05am EST.
As of January 2014, some 15 Bosniacs (Muslims either from Bosnia proper or the Sandžak) have reportedly been
killed in Syria, eleven from Bosnia and four from the Sandžak. See “Mujo Hamidović iz Sjenice poginuo u
Siriji,” SandžakPress (Novi Pazar), 22 January 2014, at http://sandzakpress.net/mujo-hamidovic-iz-sjenice-poginuo-u-siriji, accessed on 22 January 2014 at 5:35pm EST.
142.See “Ferid Tatarević iz Zenice poginuo u Siriji,” klix.ba, 14 March 2014, at http://www.klix.ba/vijesti/bih/ferid-tatarevic-iz-zenice-poginuo-u-siriji/140314125, accessed on 24 March 2014 at 5:34pm EST.
143.See Suzanna Mijatović, “Od Gornje Maoče do Islamske Države: Ženska strana priče,” Slobodna Bosna 934 (Sarajevo), 2 October 2014.
144.See “Još jedan građanin BiH poginuo na ratištu u Siriji?,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 25 September 2013, at http://
www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/jos-jedan-gradjanin-bih-poginuo-na-ratistu-u-siriji, accessed on 7 October 2013 at 4:51pm EST.
145.See the comments by Croatian foreign minister Vesna Pusić in Ivica Kristović, “Cetiri su Hrvatice na teritoriji ISIL-a:
Pitanje je treba li ih spasiti ili sankcionirati,” Večernji list (Zagreb), 3 October 2014, at http://www.vecernji.hr/
hrvatska/vesna-pusic-cetiri-hrvatice-su-na-teritoriju-isil-a-965006, accessed on 3 October 2014 at 11:23am EST.
146.According to research done by Rafaël Lefévre of the University of Cambridge, see “Swede Behind Syria Arms
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Smuggling,” Radio Sweden, 31 October 2013, at http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5690625,
accessed on 31 January 2014 at 12:07pm EST.
147.See Mohammed al-Arnout, “Albanian Islamists Join Syrian War,” Al Monitor, 28 April 2013, at http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/2013/04/albanian-kosovo-islamists-join-syria-war.html, accessed on 2 May 2013 at 8:25am
EST; and Muhamet Hajrullahu, “Kosovo Muslim Embraces ‘Jihad’ in Syrian War,” BalkanInsight, 13 June 2013,
at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-muslim-embraces-jihad-in-syrian-war, accessed on 17 June
2013 at 4:47pm EST. Several Albanians from Macedonia have also died in the Syrian conflict, although some
appear to have been recruited in western Europe; see Sase Dimovski, “Syrian War Claims Macedonian Albanian
Lives,” BalkanInsight, 30 August 2013, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/syrian-war-claims-macedonian-albanian-lives, accessed on 7 September 2013 at 9:54am EST. See also Zorana Gačovska Spasova, “Kolku makedonski
drzavjani se borat vo Siriji?” Radio Slobodna Evropa, 28 May 2013 at http://www.makdenes.org/content/article/24999489.html, accessed on 22 January 2014 at 6:24pm EST; and Marija Mitevska, “IVZ apelira da se ne odi
vo Sirija,” Radio Slobodna Evropa, 15 January 2014, at http://www.makdenes.org/content/article/25230607.html,
accessed on 22 January 2014 at 6:15pm EST. For a brief analysis of the phenomenon of Albanian jihadis in Syria,
see Angelina Verbica’s interview with Gido Šteinberg, “Albanski džihadisti u Siriji,” Deutsche Welle, 23 March
2014, at http://www.dw.de/albanski-d%C5%BEihadisti-u-siriji/a-17510603?maca=bos-TB_bs_avaz_sve-4962-html-cb, accessed on 23 March 2014 at 1:22pm EST.
148.See “Afro 40 të rinj nga Skënderaj janë muxhahedinë në Siri,” Gazeta Express (Priština), 2 May 2014, at http://www.
gazetaexpress.com/lajme/afro-40-te-rinj-nga-skenderaj-jane-muxhahedine-ne-siri-11426/, accessed on 2 May 2014 at
10:05am EST.
149.Besar Likmeta, “Albania Nabs Suspected Al Qaeda Recruiters,” BalkanInsight, 12 March 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albania-arrests-seven-suspected-al-qaeda-recruiters, accessed on 22 March 2014 at 12:39pm EST.
150.See “Kërcënimi nga Siria” (“The Threat from Syria”), Koha Ditore (Priština), 26 January 2014, at http://www.koha.
net/?page=1,13,173123, accessed on 27 January 2014 at 7:39pm EST.
151.Estimate according to Aida Skorupan; see Predrag Tomović, “Vehabije na Balkanu su izmanipulisane,” Radio Slobodna
Evropa, 1 June 2013, at http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/vehabije-na-balkanu-izmanipulisane/25003930.
html, accessed on 4 February 2014 at 12:07pm EST.
152.See Aida Skorupan’s comments as cited by Petar Komnenić, “Crnogorske vlasti najavile reakciju nakon vijesti RSE
o odlasku na strana ratišta,” Radio Slobodna Evropa, 18 September 2014, at http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/
content/dobrovoljci-iz-crne-gore-u-isiriji-i-iraku-vlast-reagovala-nakon-vijesti-rse/26592466.html, accessed on 30
September 2014 at 9:32am EST.
153.See Dusica Tomovic, “Hundreds of Balkan Jihadists Have Joined ISIS, CIA Says,” BalkanInsight, 17 September
2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/hundreds-of-balkan-jihadist-reportedly-joined-isis, accessed on
17 September 2014 at 3:37pm EST.
154.See Kamil Arli, “Albanian Expert: Turkey Waypoint for Balkan Jihadists,” Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 19 July 2014,
at http://www.todayszaman.com/interviews_albanian-expert-turkey-waypoint-for-balkan-jihadists_353477.html,
accessed on 17 September 2014 at 3:59pm EST.
155.See “V Siriji umrl slovenski državljan,” Delo (Ljubljana), 30 September 2014, at http://www.delo.si/svet/krize/v-siriji-umrl-slovenski-drzavljan.html, accessed on 1 October 2014 at 10:48am EST; and “V Siriji umrl Slovenec
Jure Korelec,” Svet24 (Ljubljana), 30 September 2014, at http://svet24.si/clanek/novice/slovenija/542ae0c19acd3/v-siriji-umrl-slovenec-jure-korelec, accessed on 1 October 2014 at 10:52am EST.
156.See di Giuliano Foschini and Fabio Tonnaci, “Bilal Bosnic: “Ci sono italiani nell’ls, conquisteremo Il Vaticano,”
Repubblica (Rome), 28 August 2014, at http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2014/08/28/news/bilal_bosnic_ci_sono_
italiani_nell_is_conquisteremo_il_vaticano-94559220/, accessed on 24 October 2014 at 11:34am EST.
157.See the estimate by Almir Džuvo, director of the BiH Intelligence-Security Agency (OSA), as cited in the European Police Mission BiH Daily Media Summary, 13 July 2010 at http://www.eupmbih.eu/Detail.aspx?ID=1451&TabID=5, accessed on 12 July 2012 at 9:01 EST.
158.See the interview by Renate Flottau with Ali Hamad entitled “Weiße Qaida in Bosnien: ‘Mit Motorsägen zerstückeln’,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 3 December 2006 at http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/weisse-qaida-in-bosnien-mit-motorsaegen-zerstueckeln-a-451729.html, accessed on 20 April 2013 at 3:17pm EST. See also William
J. Kole, “Are Terrorists Recruiting ‘white Muslims’?” Associated Press (Dateline Sarajevo), 18 April 2006, at
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2002936760_balkans18.html, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 9:39am
EST. According to Aida Ćorović, a human rights activist from Novi Pazar, “white Muslims” from the Balkans
“are a good terroristic force because they are very familiar with other Europeans and look different from other
Muslims. It is easy to place them in order to manage terroristic acts without being easily noticed.” As quoted by
Ivana Jovanovic, “Experts Say ‘white al-Qaeda’ is the Biggest Terrorist Threat in the Region,” The Southeast
European Times, 7 February 2014, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2014/02/07/feature-02, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 11:28am EST.
159.See Craig Pyes, Josh Meyer and William C. Rempel, “Bosnia Seen as Hospitable Base and Sanctuary for Terrorists,” The Los Angeles Times, 7 October 2001, at http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/07/news/mn-54505, accessed
on 20 November 2013 at 11:48am EST.
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160.See N. K., “Iranski špijuni opet aktivni u BiH,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 20 October 2014, at http://www.avaz.ba/
clanak/141675/iranski-spijuni-opet-aktivni-u-bih, accessed on 21 October 2014 at 10:47am EST.
161.See Hajrudin Somun, “’Mujahedin’ from Balkans in Syria,” Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 23 June 2013, at http://
www.todayszaman.com/news-318952-mujahideen-from-balkans-in-syria-by-hajrudin-somun-.html, accessed on
31 January 2014 at 11:56am EST.
162.See “US Officials on Balkan Counter-Terrorism Mission,” BalkanInsight, 28 January 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/us-officials-in-balkans-counter-terrorism-mission, accessed on 31 January 2014 at 11:44am
EST; and “Američki zvaničnici u borbu protiv terorizma u posjeti BiH,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 31 January 2014
at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/americki-zvanicnici-za-borbu-protiv-terorizma-u-posjeti-bih,
accessed on 31 January 2014 at 11:47am EST.
163.See Nebi Qena, “Kosovo Police Arrest Six Terror Suspects,” Associated Press (Dateline Priština), 12 November
2013, at http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/kosovo-police-arrest-terror-suspects-20862708, accessed
on 13 November 2013 at 8:48 am EST; Linda Karadaku, “Kosovo Moves Against Islamic Extremists,” The Southeast
European Times, 13 November 2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/
features/2013/11/13/feature-01, accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:41pm EST; and Linda Karadaku, “Facing a
Threat, Kosovo Seeks More Information About Terrorist Group,” The Southeast European Times, 14 November
2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/11/14/feature-02,
accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:45pm EST.
164.See “Xhemati i Xhihadit” kërcënon me sulme Policinë e Kosovës” Koha Ditore (Priština), 12 November 2013, at
http://www.koha.net/?page=1,13,165321, accessed on 13 November 2013 at 8:59am EST. A Bosnian translation of
the group’s communiqué was released on the Put Vjernika website; see “Džemat Džihada prijeti napadima Policiji
Kosova,” at http://www.putvjernika.com/balkan/dzemat-dzihada-prijeti-napadima-policiji-kosova.html, accessed
165.For reports on the Tešanj arms cache and the attempted coverup, see “SIPA u Tešnju pronašla 500 granata,” Dnevni
Avaz (Sarajevo), 1 November 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/sipa-u-tesnju-pronasla-500-granata, accessed on 13 November 2013 at 9:43am EST, and “Mehmedović nam je rekao: “Zakopajte to
za ne daj Bože!“ Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 8 November 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/teme/mehmedovicnam-je-rekao-zakopajte-to-za-ne-daj-boze, accessed on 13 November 2013 at 9:45am EST. The area in which
the arms cache was found is in territory controlled Šemsudin Mehmedović, considered to be an Islamist hardliner
in Izetbegović’s party and one of the main Bosnian liaisons with foreign Islamist militants in central Bosnia. See
Mike O’Connor, “Police Official’s Methods Raise Ethnic Fears in a Region of Bosnia,” The New York Times, 16
June 1996, at http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/world/police-official-s-methods-raise-ethnic-fears-in-a-regionof-bosnia.html, accessed on 2 April 2014 at 9:08am EST.
166.See “ISIS Fighter Goes on Trial in Germany,” Associated Press (Dateline: Berlin) 15 September 2014, at http://
english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/15/ISIS-fighter-goes-on-trial-in-Germany.html, accessed on 16
167.See Stephen Schwartz, “The Balkan Front,” The Weekly Standard, 14 May 2007, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/
Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/612zecct.asp, accessed on 27 November 2013 at 4:40pm EST. Several years
earlier, a leading Albanian politician in the region, the late Arben Xhaferi, had told the present author that the biggest
danger facing Albanian societies in southeastern Europe was the threat of “re-Islamisation.” (Interview with the
author, Tetovo, Macedonia, June 2003.)
168.See the comments of former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, as cited by Hajrudin Somun, “What is Israel
Aiming for in the Balkans?” Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 17 August 2010 at http://www.todayszaman.com/news219234-109-centerwhat-is-israel-aiming-for-in-the-balkans-bribyi-brhajrudin-somun-center.html, accessed on
10 April 2013 at 9:44 EST.
169.A point made by Bodansky; see Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, op. cit., 100.
170.LTC. John E. Sray (USA) put the number at 4000; see Sray, “Mujahedin Operations in Bosnia” (Ft. Leavenworth,
KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, February 1995) at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/muja.htm, accessed on 22 February 2013 at 8:27am EST. Sray was the G-2 (Chief, Intelligence Section) for the UN Command
in Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war. A former Bosnian jihadi/mujahedin from Syria, Abu Hamza al-Suri, has
on the other hand claimed that foreign-born members of Izetbegović’s Al Qaeda battalion, the Kateebat el-Mujahidin (otherwise known as the El Mudžahid battalion), only numbered about 300 fighters. See Abu Hamza’s interview with Franco Galdini, “From Syria to Bosnia: Memoirs of a Mujahid in Limbo,” The Nation, 19 December
2013, at http://www.thenation.com/blog/177669/syria-bosnia-memoirs-mujahid-limbo#, accessed on 3 February
2014 at 10:43am EST.
171.See Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, op. cit., xii, 11, 221, and 230, respectively; and Harry de Quetteville,
“US Hunts Islamic Militants in Bosnia,” The Telegraph (UK), 26 July 2004 at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
worldnews/europe/bosnia/1467897/US-hunts-Islamic-militants-in-Bosnia.html, accessed on 2 October 2012 at
8:47am EST
172.See Douglas Farah, “London and the Possible Bosnia Connection,” 14 July 2005, at http://counterterrorismblog.
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org/2005/07/douglas_farah_london_and_the_p.php, accessed on 5 February 2014 at 2:35pm EST. Emphasis added.
Similarly, even Bosnia’s former deputy security minister, Dragan Miketić, noted that “all the indicators show
that Bosnia is a territory where [terrorists] can come and rest, organize their activities, and then go and
carry out [attacks elsewhere.” See Nicholas Wood, “Police Raid Raises Fear of Bosnia as Haven for Terrorists,”
The New York Times, 3 December 2005, at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/03/international/europe/03bosnia.
html?ei=5099&en=e0e1466f0bb188f3&ex=1134190800&adxnnl=1&partner=TOPIX&adxnnlx=1133586686-oKfynmL95HY2Roh6Wumt+w&_r=0, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 9:22am EST. The former deputy director of
Bosnia’s state level intelligence agency, SIPA (the Bosnian equivalent of the FBI), has similarly claimed “Bosnia
has become a breeding ground for terrorists, including some on international wanted lists. We can clearly say
that.” See Kole, “Are Terrorists Recruiting ‘white Muslims’?” op. cit.
173.See the transcript to the PBS Frontline documentary, “Son of Al Qaeda,” op. cit.
174.As quoted by Joel E. Starr, “How to Outflank Al Qaeda in the Balkans,” European Affairs V (Fall 2004), at http://
www.europeaninstitute.org/20040902272/Fall-2004/how-to-outflank-al-qaeda-in-the-balkans.html
175.See, for instance, “Balkan Training Camps Pose a New Attack Threat,” STRATFOR Global Intelligence, 1 April
2005, at: www.stratfor.com, accessed on 5 October 2013 at 1:53pm EST.
176.See Anes Alić and Jen Tracy, “Training for an Islamic Bosnia,” Transitions Online, 26 April 2002 at http://www.
tol.org/client/article/4246-training-for-an-islamic-bosnia.html, accessed on 10 July 2012 at 8:38am EST. For a description of the raid by the tactical advisor to the NATO CINC in Bosnia, see Col. David Hunt (USA, Ret.), They
Just Don’t Get It (New York: Crown Forum, 2005), 1-4.
177.When Abu Hamza was arrested in Bosnia, the younger Izetbegović offered “to help in any way.” See the transcript
of BiH press reports compiled by the European Union Police Mission in BiH, PPID Daily Media Summary, 10
March 2008, at http://www.eupm.org/Details.aspx?ID=745&TabID=5, accessed on 31 August 2013 at 8:25am EST.
The younger Izetbegović has for years also been considered to have close ties to local criminal organizations.
After the war, Bakir Izetbegović was placed in charge of Sarajevo’s City Development Institute, which had the authority
to grant citizens occupancy rights to their apartments. Izetbegovic was alleged to be charging $2,000 to the citizens
to obtain the rights. Many of the apartments Izetbegović was giving out belonged to Croats or Serbs before the war.
The younger Izetbegović was also reported to be getting a cut of the extortion money Sarajevo’s gangsters were
charging shopkeepers See Chris Hedges, “Leaders in Bosnia are Said to Steal Up To $1 Billion,” The New York
Times, 17 August 1999, at http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/17/world/leaders-in-bosnia-are-said-to-steal-up-to-1billion.html, accessed on 7 November 2014 at 10:53am EST.
178.According to STRATFOR analyst Marko Papic; see “Bosnia/Serbia: Dodik Wins RS Presidential Race,” 4 October
2010, at http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1798664_re-g3-bosnia-serbia-dodik-wins-rs-presidential-race-.html,
accessed on 8 July 2014 at 6:40pm EST.
179.See Vildana Selimbegović, “Slučaj Leutar: Rat AID-a i Hrvatskih Obaveštajnih Službi,” BH Dani 98 (Sarajevo),
29 March 1999, at https://www.bhdani.com/portal/arhiva-67-281/98/tekst898.htm, accessed on 16 October 2014 at
12:06pm EST; and Kohmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network, op. cit., 199.
180.See Flottau, “Weiße Qaida in Bosnien: ‘Mit Motorsägen zerstückeln’,” op. cit.
181.See “Jihad, Bought and Sold,” ISN Security Watch, 26 January 2009, at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Security-Watch/
Articles/Detail/?lng=en&id=95734, accessed on 30 June 2012 at 3:09pm EST.
182.See Pyes, et. Al., “Bosnia Seen as Hospitable Base and Sanctuary for Terrorists,” op. cit.
183.See “Bin Laden and the Balkans: The Politics of Anti-Terrorism” (Belgrade/Podgorica/Pristina/Sarajevo/Skopje/
Tirana/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 9 November 2001), 11.
184.See Wood, “Police Raid Raises Fear of Bosnia as Haven for Terrorists,” op. cit.
185.See Kohlmann, Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe, op. cit., 163.
186.Senad Pečanin, “I Osama bin-Laden ima bosanski pasoš,” BH Dani 121 (Sarajevo), 24 September 1999 at http://www.
bhdani.com/arhiva/121/t212a.htm, accessed on 1 June 2012. In just one instance, Alija Izetbegović and his son
Bakir reportedly gave fifty Bosnian passports to a group of Bosnian jihadis. See Vildana Selimbegović, “Putovnica
za gori život,” BH Dani 224, 21 September 2001, at http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/224/t22416.shtml, accessed on
1 June 2012 at 7:13pm EST.
187.Erich Follath and Gunther Latsch, “Der Prinz und die Terror-GMBH,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 15 September 2001.
188.See Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of Al Qaeda (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008, Updated
Edition), 255. Yossef Bodansky also reports that bin-Laden visited the Balkans at least once in the early 1990’s
to help set up a terrorist/financial network; see Bodansky, Bin-Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America
(New York: Prima Publishing, 2001), 100. Other reports have claimed that bin-Laden visited the Balkans on three
occasions between 1994 and 1996. See Marcia Christoff Kurop, “Al Qaeda’s Balkan Links,” The Wall Street Journal (Europe), 1 November 2001. In a promotional video that the Bosnian mudžahedin produced entitled Odred
El-Mudžahedin Bosna 1, during a scene showing a gathering of mudžahedin in central Bosnia during the war the
camera focuses for several seconds on a man resembling Osama bin Laden (the individual is also wearing the
white prayer cap bin Laden was frequently photographed wearing), but the video’s poor resolution makes it impossible to positively identify him. See Odred El-Mudžahedin Bosna 1, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kngioq0TK0I. The individual who resembles bin Laden appears at approximately minute 1:40.
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189.See Nasser Al-Saqqaf, “From “Father of Death” to Life Coach: The Journey of Osama Bin-Laden’s Bodyguard,”
The Yemen Times, 30 April 2014, at http://www.yementimes.com/en/1777/intreview/3799/From-%E2%80%98father-of-death%E2%80%99-to-life-coach-The-journey-of-Osama-Bin-Laden%E2%80%99s-bodyguard.htm,
accessed on 20 September 2014 at 10:13am EST. Al-Bahri claimed he was moved to join the Bosnian jihad after
he watched a video in which he saw “six young men battling 10,000 Serbian fighters.”
190.Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, op. cit., 37-39.
191.Kohlmann, Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe, op cit., 201.
192.“Bin-Laden’s Arrested Aide was Bosnian Citizen,” Agence France Presse, 21 September 1999. Auduni’s Bosnian
nom de guerre had been Abu Talha. See also “Executive Order 13224 – Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism” (Washington, DC: The White
House, 23 September 2001), at http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/documents/terror.pdf,
accessed on 10 May 2013 at 9:41am EST.
193.For the person in question, Alija Izetbegović’s personal former intelligence chief Bakir Alispahić, see “Office of
Foreign Assets Control: Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List,” 23 January 2014, page 63, at
http://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/t11sdn.pdf, accessed on 3 February 2014 at 1:15pm EST. See also I.
Ćatić, “Paraobavještajni odbor SDA ignorira vladu SAD-a: Čovjek s američke crne liste šef ministru sigurnosti,”
Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 5 July 2012 at http://www.dnevniavaz.ba/vijesti/teme/99173-paraobavjestajni-odbor-sdaignorira-vladu-sad-a-covjek-s-americke-crne-liste-sef-ministru-sigurnosti-bih.html, accessed on 6 June 2012 at:
1:55pm EST.
194.See Veselin Toshkov, Sabina Niksic, Dusan Stojanovic, Llazar Semini, Nebi Qena and Elena Becatoros, “Radical
Islam on Rise in Balkans, Raising Fears of Security Threats to Europe,” Associated Press (dateline Skopje), 18
September 2010, at http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/18/radical-islam-rise-balkans-raising-fears-security-threat-europe/, accessed on 17 July 2013 at 1:17pm EST.
195.See Verfassungsschutzberiicht 2014 (Wien: Bundesamt fűr Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung, 2014), 36.
196.See “Radikalni selefije kupuju zemlju i kuće za novo gnijezdo vehabija,” Dnevnik.hr (Zagreb), 5 October 2014,
at http://dnevnik.hr/vijesti/svijet/husein-bilal-bosnic-jedan-od-vodja-vehabijske-zajednice-u-bih-kupuje-zemlju-i-kuce-za-novo-gnijezdo-vehabija---355197.html, accessed on 21 October 2014 at 11:31am EST, and “Vehabije
kupuju srpsku zemlju u Velikoj Kladuši,” Nezavisne Novine (Banja Luka), 20 October 2014, at http://www.nezavisne.com/novosti/bih/Vehabije-kupuju-srpsku-zemlju-u-Velikoj-Kladusi-268954.html, accessed on 21 October
2014 at 11:35am EST.
197.See Janez Kovac, “Mujahedin Resist Eviction,” IWPR Balkan Crisis Report, 21 July 2000, at http://iwpr.net/
report-news/mujahideen-resist-eviction, accessed on 7 October 2013 at 4:45pm EST.
198.See Pyes et. Al., “Bosnia Seen as Hospitable Base and Sanctuary for Terrorists,” op. cit.
199.See R. Jeffrey Smith, “A Bosnian Village’s Terrorist Ties: Links to US Bomb Plot Arouse Concern About Enclave
of Islamic Guerillas,” The Washington Post, 11 March 2000, A01 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-03/11/006r-031100-idx.html, accessed on 15 March 2013 at 9:49am EST, and Yaroslav Trofimov, Faith
at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, From Baghdad to Timbuktu (New York: Henry Holt & Company,
2005), 289.
200.See Morrison, “Wahhabism in the Balkans,” op. cit., 5.
201.Suzana Mijatović, “Gornja Maoča je transit za vehabije koje odlaze u sveti rat,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 2
April 2012, at http://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/275/gornja_maocha_je_tranzit_za_vehabije_koje_odlaze_u_
sveti_rat.html, accessed on 18 May 2013 at 6:14pm EST.
202.In 2010, Jašarević had been arrested in Novi Pazar while standing in front of the Municipal Hall carrying a longblade knife during a visit by the American ambassador to Belgrade, Mary Warlick. See “Radical Groups in the
Balkans: The Case of Wahhabi Jašarević,” Helsinki Bulletin No. 84 (Belgrade: Helsinki Human Rights Committee
in Serbia, November 2011), 1. For more on would-be suicide-bomber Emrah Fojnica, see “Emrah Fojnica poginuo
u Iraku,” Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 12 August 2014, at http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/emrah-fojnica-poginuo-u-iraku, accessed on 16 September 2014 at 11:57am EST.
203.See “American Arrested in Raid on Bosnian Village,” Intelwire, 9 February 2010 at http://intelwire.egoplex.
com/2010_02_09_blogarchive.html, accessed on 10 October 2014 at 9:41am EST.
204.Sherrie Gossett, “Jihadists Find Convenient Base in Bosnia,” 17 August 2005 at http://www.aina.org/
news/20050817121245.htm, accessed on 30 June 2012 at 2:24pm EST.
205.See, for instance, Dzenana Karup’s description of the experiences of a Central Bosnian recruit to the Wahhabi
movement, Samir Pracalić, in “Poslednji dani raja,” BH Dani 67 (Sarajevo), January 1998, at https://www.bhdani.
com/portal/arhiva-67-281/67/tekst567.htm, accessed on 30 September 2014 at 9:22am EST; and the description
of the recruitment process into the El Mujahedin brigade by Esad Hećimović in the documentary Bosanski Lonac
(“The Bosnian Kettle”). Belgrade: TV B92, 2009. Producer:Petar Ilić Ćiril. Available at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=QAzcRjXGVWw
206.See Giovanni Gacalone, “Il Jihadismo nei Balcani: I Nuovi Focolai Bosniaci” (Milan: Instituto Per Gli Studi di
Politica Internazionale, Analysis No. 264, July 2014), 9.
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207.See Amela Bajrovic, “Raid on Wahhabi ‘Camp’ Raises Tensions in Sandzak,” BalkanInsight, 22 March 2007 at
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/raid-on-wahhabi-camp-raises-tensions-in-sandzak, accessed on 25 April
2013 at 1:13pm EST.
208.See Damir Kaletovic and Anes Alic, “Terror Plot Thwarted in Bosnia,” ISN Security Network (Zurich), 28 March
2008, at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail//?ots591=4888CAA0-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=52023, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 10:29am EST.
209.See Karen McVeigh, “Former al-Qaida operative turned informant testifies in Abu Hamza trial,” The Guardian (UK),
28 April 2014, at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/abu-hamzaa-trial-saajid-badat-testifies Accessed
on 7 May 2014 at 12:32pm EST. Badat’s email address was “[email protected]” with the “sacrifice” signifying his willingness to be a suicide bomber, and the “72” referring to Al Qaeda’s doctrine that suicide terrorists are
given 72 virgins in Paradise. See “Would-be bomber, Saajid Badat, used sacrifice72 as his email name.” Agence
France-Presse, 30 April 2014, at http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1500876/would-be-bomber-saajid-badat-used-sacrifice72-his-e-mail-name, accessed on 7 May 2014 at 12:37pm EST.
210.See “Nastavljena istraga o odgovornim za skrivanja oružja,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 16 July 2013, at http://www.
avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/nastavljena-istraga-o-odgovornim-za-skrivanje-naoruzanja, accessed on 17
July 2013 at 12:50pm EST.
211.Antúnez, “Wahhabism in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” op. cit.
212.For the story of Abdulrahman Khadr, see the PBS Frontline Documentary “Son of Al Qaeda,” op. cit.
213.See, for instance, “Balkan Training Camps Pose a New Attack Threat,” 2 April 2005, at www.stratfor.com.
214.al-Arnout, “Albanian Islamists Join Syrian War,” op. cit.
215.Sinisa Jakuv Marusic, “Radical Islam Threatens Macedonia,” BalkanInsight, 2 July 2010 at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/29193/, accessed on 2 July 2010 at: 1:24pm EST, and Bojan Pancevski, “Saudis Fund
Balkan Muslims Spreading Hate of the West,” The Sunday Times (London), 28 March 2010, at http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Europe/article251901.ece, accessed on 30 October 2014 at 9:22am EST.
216.See Anes Alic, “A New Generation of Extremists Threaten Bosnia,” Eurasia Press and News, 14 January 2011, at
http://eurasia.ro/?p=39758, accessed on 23 March 2014 at 1:03pm EST. For a useful profile of Balkan, see Alic,
“Nedžad Balkan: The Face of Southeastern Europe’s Newest Radical Threat,” Jamestown Foundation Militant
Leadership Profile, Vol. 2, Issue 1, at www.jamestown.org, accessed on 23 March 2014 at 1:42pm EST.
217.See Miki Trajkovski, “Experts Warn of Spread of Extremism in Balkan Prisons,” The Southeast European Times,
12 February 2014, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2014/02/12/
feature-01, accessed on 31 March 2014 at 9:50am EST.
218.See Serbia’s Sandzak: Still Forgotten, op. cit., 25.
219.The CIA report is available at http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/cia-ngos-1996.pdf, accessed on 10 July 2012 at 4:49pm EST.
220.See Kurop, “Al Qaeda’s Balkan Links,” op. cit. For a useful survey of how Saudi sources financed various NGO’s
with links to Al Qaeda, see David E. Kaplan, “The Saudi Connection: How Billions in Oil Money Spawned a
Global Network of Terror,” US News and World Report, 7 November 2003, at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/
news/articles/031215/15terror.htm.
221.See Matthew Levitt, “Prosecuting Terrorism beyond ‘Material Support’,” Washington Institute Policy #1326, 14
January 2008, at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/prosecuting-terrorism-beyond-material-support, accessed on 22 January 2014 at 5:26pm EST. Levitt claims that between August 1993 and June 1995
Care International Inc. sent $167,000 from the US to the Al Qaeda affiliate in Bosnia, Mektab al-Khidmat (MAK),
the Afghan Services Bureau established by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam and Osama Bin Laden.
222.See Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit., 284. According to a Radio
Free Europe report, the Saudis claim to have spent $1 billion (US) in Bosnia between 1992-1998 on “Islamic
activities.” See Nenad Pejic, “The Suicide of Multiethnic Sarajevo,” at http://www.rferl.org/content/The_Suicide_Of_Multiethnic_Sarajevo/2023847.html, accessed on 26 November 2013 at 12:02pm EST. When Izetbegović was asked
why the monies were not used to build factories or rebuild the economy, he noted “They would not give money
for building factories . . . They would only support building mosques.” Another estimate of the amount the Saudis
gave to Bosnia is $600 million (US); see David Pallister, “Terrorist Material Found in Sarajevo Charity Raid,” The
Guardian (UK), 22 February 2002, at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/feb/23/davidpallister, accessed on
26 November 2013 at 12:54pm EST.
223.See Nidzara Ahmetasevic, “Emissaries of Militant Islam Make Headway in Bosnia,” 21 March 2007 at http://birn.eu.com/en/75/10/2490/, accessed on 17 July 2012 at 11:55am EST. See also Matthew Levitt, “Charitable and Humanitarian Organizations in the Network of International Terrorist Financing,” 1 August 2002 (Testimony before the
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance),
at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/charitable-and-humanitarian-organizations-in-the-network-of-international-t, accessed on 26 November 2013 at 12:37pm EST.
224.“F.B.I. Raids 2 of the Biggest Muslim Charities; Assets of One Are Seized,” The New York Times, 15 December
2001; “KFOR Search Operations Combat International Terrorism,” KFOR News Release, 14 December 2001;
“Coordinated Moves Against Suspected bin-Laden Balkan Link,” RFE/RL Newsline, 17 December 2001 at http://
www.rferl.org/content/article/1142581.html, accessed on 12 April 2013 at 10:03am EST.
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225.See “Turkey Investigating IHH Head for Funding al-Qaida,” The Jerusalem Post, 15 May 2010, at http://www.
jpost.com/International/Turkey-investigating-IHH-head-for-funding-al-Qaida, accessed on 27 November 2013 at
4:16pm EST. See also Jamie Dettmer, “Turkey Acts Against Jihadists,” Voice of America, 15 January 2014, at http://
www.voanews.com/content/turkey-acts-against-jihadists/1830973.html, accessed on 12 June 2014 at 10:06pm EST.
226.See “Turkish NGO Recruiting Muslim Albanians for War in Syria,” Fars News Agency (Dateline Tehran), 14
August 2013, at http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920523000421, accessed on 5 November 2014
at 9:24am EST.
227.See Sylvia Poggioli, “Radical Islam Uses Balkan Poor to Wield Influence,” National Public Radio, 25 October 2010,
at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130801242, accessed on 16 October 2013 at 2:39pm EST.
228.See, for instance, Oluic, “Radical Islam on Europe’s Frontier—Bosnia & Herzegovina,” op. cit., 45.
229.See Susan Sachs, “An Investigation in Egypt Illustrates Al Qaeda’s Web,” The New York Times, 21 November 2001, at
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/international/middleeast/21JIHA.html, accessed on 11 April 2013 at 9:19am
EST; R. Jeffrey Smith, “U.S. Probes Blasts’ Possible Mideast Ties,” The Washington Post, 12 August 1998, A19,
at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/eafricabombing/stories/albania081298.htm, accessed on
29 April 2014 at 4:0-pm EST.
230.See Country Reports on Terrorism 2010 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Counterterrorism, July 2011) at http://www.
state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2010/index.htm, accessed on 11 April 2013 at 9:38am EST.
231.According to the US State Department cable, “Macedonia: A/s O’brien Visit Highlights Terrorism Financing Issues,”
Embassy Skopje (Macedonia), 22 August 2007, at http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=07SKOPJE695&q=macedonia, accessed on 28 January 2014 at 11:45pm EST.
232.See Schwartz, “How Radical Islam Infiltrates Kosovo,” The Weekly Standard, 30 August 2012, at http://www.
weeklystandard.com/blogs/how-radical-islam-infiltrates-kosovo_651173.html?nopager=1, accessed on 4 May
2014 at 10:27am EST.
233.See Loretta Napoleoni, Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (London: Pluto Press, 2003), 109.
234.For descriptions and analyses of the content of these websites and YouTube spots, see Ceresnjes and Green, “The
Global Jihad Movement in Bosnia—A Time Bomb in the Heart of Europe,” op. cit.; Halimović, “Vehabije u Bosni: Od Bočinje do Maoče,” op. cit.; and Blavicki, Islamist Terrorist Networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, op. cit., 31-35.
235.See “Nova naređenja Zavahirija: fokusirajte se na napad na američke interese,” 12 October 2013, at http://www.
putvjernika.com/Glas-dzihada/nova-naredenja-zavahirija-fokusirajte-se-na-napad-na-americke-interese.html,
236.See Alic and Kaletovic, “Bosnia Investigates Radical Threats,” op. cit.
237.See the comments by Fahrudin Kladicanin of the Forum 10 academic initiative from Novi Pazar in Ivana Jovanovic,
“Extremists Use the Internet to Recruit in the Region, Experts Say,” The Southeast European Times, 19 November
2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/11/19/feature-01,
accessed on 29 November 2013 at 12:22pm EST.
238.See “Posjećnost portala Vijesti Ummeta sve više raste,” Vijesti Ummeta, 17 October 2014, at http://vijestiummeta.
com/posjecenost-portala-vijesti-ummeta-sve-vise-raste/, accessed on 17 October 2014 at 11:54am EST.
239.See “Imam Shefqet Krasniqi najgledaniji Kosovar na YouTubeu,” Saff (Sarajevo), 18 August 2014, at http://Saff.
ba/imam-shefqet-krasniqi-najgledaniji-kosovar-na-youtubeu/ , accessed on 21 August 2014 at 10:22am EST.
240.See Besar Likmeta, “Islamists are Threat to Albania, Experts Say,” BalkanInsight, 16 January 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/jihadists-pose-threat-to-albania-s-security?utm_source=Balkan+Insight+Newsletters&utm_
campaign=55509fef24-BI_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4027db42dc-55509fef24-308238421,
241.See Anes Alic, “A New Generation of Extremists Threaten Bosnia,” op. cit.
242.See Stephen Schwartz, “Jihad from North Carolina to Kosovo,” The Weekly Standard, 19 August 2009, at http://
www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/851tqrch.asp, accessed on 21 October 2014 at
11:02am EST.
243.Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 (Washington, DC: Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 30
April 2009), at http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2008/122432.htm, accessed on 25 April 2013 at 5:16pm EST.
For background on AIO, see Ena Latin, “Suspicious Islamic Missionaries: Active Islamic Youth,” Southeast
European Times, 30 June 2003, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/articles/2003/06/030630-ENA-001, accessed on 31 March 2014 at 9:30am EST.
244.See Atanas Panovski, The Spread of Islamic Extremism in the Republic of Macedonia (Monterey, CA.: Naval
Postgraduate School, December 2011), 44.
245.See Irfan al-Alawi, “Extremists Establish Foothold in the Balkans,” (Gatestone Institute International Policy Council,
24 September 2012) at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3360/kosovo-peace-tv, accessed on 22 April 2013 at
3:16pm EST.
246.See “Tajna Diplomatska Ofanziva Iranaca u BiH,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 24 October 2012, at http://www.
slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/2933/ekskluzivno_tajna_diplomatska_ofanziva_iranaca_u_bih.html, accessed on 20
November 2012 at 8:29am EST.
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247.See “Radikali prešli dozvoljenu crtu: Ahmetović i SDA upzoreni zbog ‘iranaca’!” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 3 August
2012, at http://www.dnevniavaz.ba/vijesti/teme/109387-radikali-presli-dozvoljenu-crtu-ahmetovic-i-sda-upozoreni-zbog-iranaca.html, accessed on 11 October 2012 at 7:12am EST.
248.See the comments by former high representative Wolfgang Petritsch, “BiH se mora okrenuti ka Evropi, and ne Iranu!,”
Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 28 August 2012, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/intervju/bih-se-mora-okrenuti-ka-evropi-ane-iranu, accessed on 11 October 2012 at 6:59am EST.
249.See Tarik Lazović, “Vitalno savezništvo,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 12 September 2012, at http://www.avaz.ba/
vijesti/komentar-dana/vitalno-saveznistvo, accessed on 11 October 2012 at 6:54am EST.
250.See N. K., “Iranski špijuni opet aktivni u BiH,” op. cit.,; “Najvažniji punkt iranskih špijuna a u BiH je Institut Ibn
Sina u Sarajevo,” Saff (Sarajevo), 21 October 2014, at http://saff.ba/najvazniji-punkt-iranskih-spijuna-u-bih-je-institut-ibn-sina-u-sarajevu/#.VEZyPFeOqSo, accessed on 21 October 2014 at 10:51am EST; and Željko Trkanjec,
“Upozorenje zapadnih služi: ‘Tisuca agenata islamskih zemalja tajno djeluju u BiH,” Jutarnji list (Zagreb), 27
October 2014, at http://www.jutarnji.hr/tisucu-agenata-islamskih-zemalja-tajno-djeluje-u-bih-/1231050/, accessed
on 27 October 2014 at 11:45am EST.
251.Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, op. cit., 246.
252.See Nedzad Latić, “Kondicioni sudija i lepa Hercegovka,” BH Dani 121 (24 September 1999), at http://www.bhdani.
com/arhiva/121/feljton21.htm, accessed on 4 June 2012 at: 3:09pm EST, and Ljiljana Smajlovic, “Strategy of
Flirt,” at http://www.ex-yupress.com/vreme/vreme15.html, accessed on 13 May 2012 at: 9:01 am EST.
253.See Scheuer’s comments in Sarajevo Ricochet, op. cit.
254.Ivo Lucic, “Bosnia and Herzegovina and Terrorism,” op. cit, 123.
255.See Lewis MacKenzie, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo (Vancouver/Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1993), 195.
256.Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 11 March 1996, 4.
257.See Vildana Selimbegović and Esad Hećimović, “Slučaj Pogorelici: Globalni terorizam i(li) čaršijska osveta,” BH
Dani 253 (Sarajevo), 19 April 2002, at https://www.bhdani.com/portal/arhiva-67-281/253/t25314.shtml, accessed
on 3 October 2014 at 11:43am EST.
258.See the figures as compiled by the UN Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina, as cited in Jeremy King, A. Walter Dorn,
and Matthew Hodes, An Unprecedented Experiment: Security Sector Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Saferworld, 2002) 20.
259.See the interview with Cees Wiebes by Brendan O’Neill, “You are Only Allowed to See Bosnia in Black and White,”
at http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA374.htm, accessed on 13 May 2012 at: 9:20am EST.
260.See Robert Baer and Dayna Baer, The Company We Keep (New York: Broadway, 2012), 130. Chris Deliso
interviewed one former MI-6 official who expressed similar views, albeit stressing the Saudi connection instead:
“the Bosnians are just not reliable partners. We’ve seen them befriending the Saudis, but also others if it suits
[their interests]. Bottom line being, they are never going to be trusted completely.” See Deliso, “Attack on US
Bosnia Embassy Not Seen as a Major Security Concern, Despite Precedents and International Links,” Balkananalysis.com, 28 November 2011, at http://www.balkanalysis.com/bosnia/2011/11/28/attack-on-us-bosnia-embassy-not-seen-as-a-major-security-concern-despite-precedents-and-international-links/, accessed on 26 March 2014
at 7:36pm EST.
261.See Sray, “Selling the Bosnian Myth to the American Public: Buyer Beware,” op. cit. Indeed, this was a common
view amongst U.S. and European military officials in Bosnia at this time. After a year of dealing with Izetbegović,
General Sir Michael Rose, the UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia in 1994-95, similarly noted that “I came to
believe that his talk of creating a multi-religious, multi-cultural state in Bosnia was a disguise for the extension of
his own political power and the furtherance of Islam.” See Rose, Fighting for Peace (London: Harvill, 1998), 38.
262.See Daniel Server, “Why Bosnia Can’t Be Divided,” 20 August 2012, at http://www.peacefare.net/?p=10516,
accessed on 26 September 2012 at 8:16am EST. Bosnian journalists have expressed similar views; thus, according
to Senad Pečanin, if Croats and Serbs were allowed to secede from Bosnia, “a sort of European Gaza would be
created for the Bosnian Muslims . . . [leading to the creation of a radical Islamic republic] . . . The worst scenario
for the Bosniaks: a radical Islamic state led by the clerics.” See the interview with Pečanin by Andrea Rossini
entitled “Bosnian Chess,” Osservatorio balcani e caucaso, 2 July 2009, at http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Regions-and-countries/Bosnia-Herzegovina/Bosnian-Chess-46072, accessed on 29 August 2014 at 12:28pm EST.
263.See Robert J. Donia and John V.A. Fine Jr., Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Tradition Betrayed (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994), 268. For extended analyses of Iranian policy in the Balkans, see Alireza Bagherzadeh,
“L’ingérence iranienne en Bosnie-Herzégovine,” in Xavier Bougarel and Nathalie Clayer, eds., Le Nouvel Islam
balkanique: Les Musulmans, acteurs du post-communisme 1990-2000 (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2001),
397-428; and Gordon N. Bardos, “Iran and the Balkans: A History and a Forecast,” World Affairs 175 (January/
February 2013), 59-66.
264.As cited by Bagherzadeh, “L’ingerence iranienne en Bosnie-Herzégovine,” op. cit., 416.
265. Laurent Rebours, “NATO Captures Terrorist Training Camp in Bosnia, Claims Iranian Involvement,” Associated Press (Dateline Dusina, Bosnia & Herzegovina), 16 February 1996; and Kit R. Roane, “NATO Links Bosnia Government to
Training Center for Terrorists,” The New York Times, 17 February 1996, at http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/17/
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world/nato-links-bosnia-government-to-training-center-for-terrorists.html, accessed on 24 September 2014 at
2:32pm EST.
266.For the story of the foiled Iranian plot to kill the CIA station chief in Sarajevo, see H.K Roy (pseudonym), Betrayal
in the Balkans, August 2001, at www.worldandi.com In 1995, Hezbollah operatives were also discovered in what
is believed to have been a plan to assassinate U.S. officials in Croatia. See James Risen and Doyle McManus,
“Terrorist Risk to Americans in Croatia is Linked to Iran,” The Los Angeles Times, 21 May 1996, at http://articles.
latimes.com/1996-05-21/news/mn-6549_1_terrorist-threat, accessed on 24 March 2014 at 6:25pm EST.
267.As cited by Carl Bildt, Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia (London: Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1998), 51.
268.See “Bosnian Threatens Poisonous Gas Against Serb Forces,” The New York Times, 31 October 1992, at http://
www.nytimes.com/1992/10/31/world/bosnian-threatens-poison-gas-against-serb-forces.html, accessed on 19
269.See James Risen, “Iran Gave Bosnia Leader $500,000, CIA Alleges,” The Los Angeles Times, 31 December 1996,
at http://articles.latimes.com/1996-12-31/news/mn-14139_1_iranian-influence, accessed on 22 October 2012 at
1:28pm EST. A written statement released to the press by the SDA in 1997 admitted that the party received the
money, which it claimed was used to provide student scholarships. See Senad Slatina, “Iranski novac za bosanskog
predsjednika?” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 12 January 1997.
270.Chris Hedges, “Bosnian Leader Hails Islam at Election Rallies,” The New York Times, 2 September 1996.
271.See Robin Harris, Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher (London: Bantam Press, 2013), 389.
272.John Pomfret, “Arming the Bosnians: U.S. Program Would Aid Force Increasingly Linked to Iran,” The Washington
Post, 26 January 1996, A 25.
273.See John Pomfret and Christine Spolar, “Foreign Fighters Train Security Corps for Bosnian Muslims,” The Washington Post, 7 March 1996, A19.
274.Kenneth Katzmann, Julie Kim, and Richard Best, “Bosnia and Iranian Arms Shipments: Issues of U.S. Policy and
Involvement,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 24 April 1996, cited by Al-Marashi, op. cit.
275.See Mike O’Connor, “Spies for Iran are Said to Gain a Hold in Bosnia,” The New York Times, 28 November 1997,
at http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/28/world/spies-for-iranians-are-said-to-gain-a-hold-in-bosnia.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm, accessed on 14 May 2012 at: 11:47am EST.
276.See John Pomfret, “Disputed Bosnian Official Removed; Ouster of Muslim With Ties to Iran Opens Way for Arms
Deliveries,” The Washington Post, 20 January 1996, A28.
277.See Nedžad Latić, “Izbor Tihića nije bio greška: Ako je Alija Izetbegović morao birati između Sulejmana Tihića
i Hasana Čengića!” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 5 October 2014, at http://www.avaz.ba/clanak/139021/izbor-tihica-nije-bio-greska-ako-je-alija-izetbegovic-morao-birati-izmedu-sulejmana-tihica-i-hasana-cengica, accessed on 7
October 2014 at 12:02pm EST.
278.According to “The World Geopolitics of Drugs Annual Report 1995/96,” Observatoire Geopolitique Des Droges
(Paris), 1997, at: http://www.ogd.org/rapport/RP01_RAP.html.
279.Laurent Rebours, “NATO Captures Terrorist Training Camp in Bosnia, Claims Iranian Involvement,” Associated Press
(Dateline Dusina, Bosnia & Herzegovina), 16 February 1996; and Kit R. Roane, “NATO Links Bosnia Government to Training Center for Terrorists,” The New York Times, 17 February 1996, at http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/17/
world/nato-links-bosnia-government-to-training-center-for-terrorists.html, accessed on 24 September 2014 at
2:32pm EST.
280.As quoted by Anes Alic and Jen Tracy, “Training for an Islamic Bosnia,” Transitions Online, 26 April 2002.
Another reported target of the Pogorelici trainees, the Sarajevo lawyer Faruk Balijagić, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at the Sarajevo Holiday Inn only ten days after meeting with Izetbegović to discuss state terrorism and crime. For a detailed report on attempts to liquidate Bosniac opposition leaders, see Senad Avdić, “Novi
dokazi o terorizmu celnika AID-a: Kako je pripremana likvidacija Fikreta Abdica,” Slobodna Bosna 284, at http://
www.slobodna-bosna.ba/tekstovi_pdf/284.pdf
281.See Selimbegović and Hećimović, “Slučaj Pogorelici: Globalni terorizam i(li) čaršijska osveta,” op. cit.
282.See S. Numanović, “Izetbegović i Dodik na listi nepoželjnih?” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 23 May 2013, at http://www.
avaz.ba/vijesti/teme/izetbegovic-i-dodik-na-listi-nepozeljnih, accessed on 3 June 2013 at 7:05pm EST.
283.See I. Ćatić, “Paraobavještajni odbor SDA ignorira vladu SAD-a: Čovjek s američke crne liste šef ministru sigurnosti,”
Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 5 July 2012, at http://www.dnevniavaz.ba/vijesti/teme/99173-paraobavjestajni-odbor-sdaignorira-vladu-sad-a-covjek-s-americke-crne-liste-sef-ministru-sigurnosti-bih.html, accessed on 6 June 2012 at:
1:55pm EST.
284.See Harun Karčić, “Globalization and Islam in Bosnia: Foreign Influences and Effects,” Totalitarian Movements
and Political Religions 11 (June 2010), 160-162.
285.See Ezher Beganović, “Šiijska zajednica iz Lješeva kod Ilijaša,” Saff (Sarajevo), 14 October 2013, at http://www.
Saff.ba/islamske-teme/428-siijska-zajednica-iz-ljeseva-kod-ilijasa, accessed on 30 March 2014 at 10:03am EST.
286.See “Ramazanska ofanziva šija na Bosnu i Hercegovinu,” Saff (Sarajevo), 16 August 2013, at http://www.Saff.ba/
bih/142-ramazanska-ofanziva-sija-na-bosnu-i-hercegovinu, accessed on 18 August 2013 at 9:05am EST.
287.See “Iranske diplomate napustili teritoriju BiH,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 14 May 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/sport/
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rukomet/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/iranske-diplomate-napustili-teritoriju-bih, accessed on 18 May 2013 at 5:43pm
EST; see also John Schindler’s report on the incident, “Bosnia tells Iranian Spies to Leave . . . to No Avail,” at
http://20committee.com/, 7 May 2013, accessed on 18 May 2013 at 5:47pm EST.
288.See Besar Likmeta, “Albania Backs Israel, Compares Iranian Chief to Hitler,” BalkanInsight, 22 August 2012, at
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/israel-finds-new-cheerleader-in-albania-s-pm, accessed on 20 November
2012 at 8:43am EST.
289.For reports on the dispute over the MEK between Albania and Iran, see “Resettled MKO Members in Albania Disobey Ringleaders,” Fars New Agency (Dateline Tehran), 29 June 2013, at http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.
aspx?nn=13920408000229, accessed on 5 November 2014 at 10:04am EST, and “Tens of Members of Defect MKO
Upon Arrival in Albania,” Fars News Agency (Dateline Tehran), 19 October 2013, at http://english.farsnews.com/
newstext.aspx?nn=13920727001109, accessed on 5 November 2014 at 10:08am EST. For a useful overview of
the MEK’s history and orientation, see Jonathan Masters, “Mujahedeen-e-Khalq,” Council on Foreign Relations
Backgrounders, 28 July 2014, at http://www.cfr.org/iran/mujahadeen-e-khalq-mek/p9158, accessed on 5 November 2014 at 10:11am EST.
290.See Holbrooke, “Lessons from Dayton for Iraq,” The Washington Post, 23 April 2008, A21.
291.See Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida and the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit., 150.
292.See Berger’s comments in Sarajevo Ricochet (Oslo: Fenris Film, 2010). Directed by Ola Flyum and David Hebditch. In the same documentary, former Bosnian diplomat Muhammed Filipović claimes that the elder Izetbegović
apparently spent so much time alone in the apartment of the forementioned Hassanein that his security detail
began to believe they had a sexual relationship. Filipović is also of the belief that the TWRA funds were controlled
by a relatively small circle of people, i.e., Aljia and Bakir Izetbegović and Hasan Cengić. Bakir Izetbegović’s
central role in his father’s policies during this period are widely acknowledged. In one interview, for instance, the
elder Izetbegović publicly stated that he most readily accepted his son’s advice. See Alija Izetbegović’s interview
entitled “Odgovori Alije Izetbegovića na 100 pitanja magazina Start,” at http://www.mm.co.ba/index.php/bs/aktuelno/vijesti-iz-bih/930-odgovori-alije-izetbegovica-na-100-pitanja-magazina-start, accessed on 9 November 2014
at 9:43am EST. Similarly, as a leading Bosnian journalist, Vildana Selimbegovic, has noted, “for a long time it has
not been a secret that the recent president of the presidency Alija Izetbegović, through his son Bakir controlled the
military and police officials at the highest levels, and it’s an open secret that around the younger Izetbegović specifically a team of the unofficial Bosnian secret services has been formed.” See Selimbegović, “Žrtva rata orlova i
Ševa? Kome je smetao Nedžad Ugljen?” BH Dani 178 (Sarajevo), 27 October 2000.
293.Thomas Joscelyn, “ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] Gave $100K to Terrorist Front Group,” The Weekly
Standard, 24 June 2009, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/report_isna_gave_100k_
to_terro.asp, accessed on 20 February 2014 at 10:19am EST.
294.The most detailed investigation into TWRA’s operations made public so far was carried out by German police
authorities at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). See Expert Report Concerning the Area—Financial Investigations—relating to the judicial assistance request, ref. no. INV/10289/
T09-PH (245), dated 8/27/2002 of the “Office of the Prosecutor” (OTP) of the International Court of Criminal
Justice for the Former Yugoslavia relating to the “Third World Relief Agency” (TWRA) Vienna/Austria. Meckenheim: Federal Office of Criminal Investigations, ST-45-2-185-02, 8/28/2003.
295.See Sefer Halilović’s interview with Senad Pečanin, “Izetbegović je izdajnik, a mora dokazati da nije kriminalac,”
BH Dani 119 (Sarajevo), 10 September 1999 at http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/119/inter.htm, accessed on 16 April
2013 at 9:23am EST. Mustafa Cerić and Salim Šabić (at the time the vice-president of the SDA) have also been
reported to have been in charge of TWRA’s Zagreb office; see Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida and
the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit., 148. For more on TWRA, see Douglas Farah, “The Role of Sudan in Islamist
Terrorism: A Case Study,” 13 April 2007, at http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.156/pub_detail.asp,
accessed on 18 March 2014 at 12:31pm EST; Thomas H. Kean, et. Al., The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report
of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: W.W. Norton & Company),
58; Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, op. cit., 45-47; John Pomfret, “Bosnia’s Muslims Dodged Embargo,” The
Washington Post, 22 September 1996, A01, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/bosvote/
front.htm, accessed on 18 March 2014 at 10:06am EST; Dženana Karup-Druško, “BIO i ostao največi bošnjački
tajkun,” BH Dani 229 (Sarajevo), 26 October 2001 at http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/229/t22907.shtml, accessed
on 16 April 2013 at 9:12am EST; and Cees Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia, 1992-1995 (Műnster:
LitVerlag, 2003), 180-181.
296.Estimate according to Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun; see Merchant of Death: Money, Guns and the Man Who
Makes War Possible (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), 50.
297.Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit., 149.
298.See J.M. Berger, “Al Qaeda and the U.S. Military,” Intelwire, 5 December 2011, at http://news.intelwire.com/search/
label/Bosnia. accessed on 13 February 2014 at 8:53am EST.
299.For a profile of Clement Rodney Hampton-el, see Francis X. Clines, “Spectre of Terror; U.S.-Born Suspect in Terror Plots:
Zealous Causes and Civic Roles,” The New York Times, 28 June 1993, at http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/28/
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nyregion/specter-terror-us-born-suspect-bombing-plots-zealous-causes-civic-roles.html, accessed on 25 March
2014 at 2:09pm EST.
300.According to Landmarks Plot co-conspirator Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali; see Kohmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe:
The Afghan-Bosnian Network, 73-74.
301.Ibid., 152-53.
302.See Colin Soloway, “Kosovo Reckoning: Bin Laden Casts a Shadow over Sarajevo Summit,” The Independent (UK),
29 July 1999, at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/kosovo-reckoning-bin-laden-casts-a-shadow-over-sarajevo-summit-1109335.html, accessed on 11 June 2014 at 10:03am EST.
303.See Richard Esposito, “Mole Who Met Bin Laden Killed by Al Qaeda in Bosnia,” NBC News, 27 February 2014, at
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/exclusive-mole-who-met-bin-laden-killed-al-qaeda-bosnia-n39306,
304.See Kean, et. Al., The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States, op. cit., 154.
305.See Erich Follath and Gunther Latsch, “Der Prinz und die Terror-GMBH,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 15 September 2001.
306.See Senad Pečanin, “I Osama bin-Laden ima bosanski pasoš,” BH Dani 121 (Sarajevo), 24 September 1999 at
http://www.bhdani.com/arhiva/121/t212a.htm, accessed on 1 June 2012.
307.See the interview with Izetbegović in Time (European edition), 31 October 2001.
308.See Hana Imamović, “Reactions in South East Europe to the Attacks on September 11,” AIMPRESS Sarajevo,
11 October 2001, at http://www.aimpress.ch/dyn/dos/archive/data/2001/11012-dose-01-14.htm, accessed on 29
October 2013 at 12:28am EST.
309.According to John Schindler; see “9/11 Planner Freed by Syrian Jihadists,” The XX Committee, 11 March 2014, at
http://20committee.com/page/2/, accessed on 29 March 2014 at 10:13am EST.
310.See Peter Finn, “Hamburg’s Cauldron of Terror: Within Cell of 7, Hatred Toward US Grew and Sept. 11 Evolved,”
The Washington Post, 11 September 2002, A01.
311.See Holger Stark, “The Forgotten Prisoner: A Tale of Extraordinary Renditions and Double Standards,” Der Spiegel
(Hamburg), 21 November 2005, at http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/the-forgotten-prisoner-a-tale-of-extraordinary-renditions-and-double-standards-a-386033.html, accessed on 30 March 2014 at 6:11pm EST.
312.See John Crewdson (with Viola Gienger), “2 Firms Linked to Al Qaeda, Saudi Intelligence Agency,” The Chicago
Tribune, 31 March 2004, at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-03-31/news/0403310198_1_al-qaeda-saudi-arabian-mamoun-darkazanli, accessed on 7 February 2014 at 9:53am EST; and “JTF-GTMO Detainee Assessment for Ramzi Abdullah Mohammed Bin al-Shihb,” (Department of Defense, Headquarters, Joint Task Force
Guantanamo, 8 December 2006), at http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/10013-ramzi-bin-al-shibh,
accessed on 30 March 2014 at 6:25pm EST.
313.For instance, Michael A. Ledeen, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has reported that Mohammed
Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 attack, trained in terrorist camps in Bosnia, and that Said Bahaji, another
key member of the Hamburg Cell, had been in Bosnia as well. See “Talking to Iran,” The Wall Street Journal, 18
August 2007, at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB118739533381601535, accessed on 16 July 2014.
314.See “Germany Nabs Suspected Al Qaeda Financier,” The Associated Press (Dateline Berlin, 16 October 2004),
at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-10-16-al-qaeda-ties_x.htm, accessed on 31 March 2014 at
11:45am EST.
315.Reda Seyam was an Egyptian suspected of helping to finance the October 2002 Bali bombings which killed over
200 people. Seyam managed a rental-car agency in Sarajevo which was considered a front for Saudi intelligence.
A Spanish indictment against Seyam named him “Osama Bin Laden’s financier in Europe.” See Crewdson, et. Al.,
“2 Firms Linked to Al Qaeda, Saudi Intelligence Agency,” op. cit.; Richard Bernstein, “The Fear Born of a Much
Too Personal Look at Jihad,” The New York Times, 27 September 2004, at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/
international/europe/27fprofile.html?pagewanted=print&position=&_r=1&, accessed on 18 August 2014 at
8:45am EST; and John Crewdson, Viola Gienger, Lilian-Astrid Geese, and Dewi Loevard, “A Couple’s Life Torn
Apart by Islamic Jihad,” The Chicago Tribune, 26 November 2004, at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-1126/news/0411260271_1_saudi-arabia-islamic-jihad-german-federal-prosecutor, accessed on 15 August 2014 at
8:23am EST.
316.See “United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, United States of America vs. Enaam
M. Arnout, Section 5, 68-69.
317.Kohlmann, Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe, op cit., 201.
318. See the State Department cable “BiH Federation Police Search Benevolence International,” # 00934, Embassy
Sarajevo, March 2002, at http://intelwire.egoplex.com/DOS-Benevolence-Binder.pdf, accessed on 26 April 2014
at 1:01pm EST.
319.See “Benevolence Director Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy: Providing Material Support to Al Qaeda and
Other Violent Groups,” U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney, Northern District of Illinois, 9 October
2002; at http://www.justice.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2002/pr1009_01.pdf, accessed on 26 August 2014 at 1:52pm
EST.
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320.See Matthew A. Levitt, “The Political Economy of Middle East Terrorism,” Middle East Review of International
Affairs 6 (December 2002), 58, and Viola Gienger, “Bosnian Tied to Chicago-area Charity Found Guilty,” The
Chicago Tribune, 2 July 2003, at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-07-02/news/0307020210_1_al-qaeda-benevolence-international-foundation-enaam-arnaout, accessed on 26 August 2014 at 2:02pm EST. Predictably,
Zahiragić was found guilty of a lesser offense and released.
321.See “United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. IN RE: TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.
Docket No. 06-0319-cv(L). Decided: August 14, 2008.”
322.For reports on attempts by Al Qaeda leaders to flee to Bosnia after the 9/11 attacks, see Craig Pyes, Josh Meyer
and William C. Rempel, “Bosnia Seen as Hospitable Base and Sanctuary for Terrorists,” The Los Angeles Times,
7 October 2001, at http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/07/news/mn-54505, accessed on 20 November 2013 at
11:48am EST; “Bosnian Leadership Prepared to Intercept Militants with Links to Bin-Laden,” Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty Newsline, 1 October 2001; Azhar Kalamujić, “Agenti FBI učestvovali u hapšenju Jordanaca Abu
Kharrourba Majeda,” Oslobođenje (Sarajevo), 5 October 2001, 5. The director of Bosnia’s State Border Service,
Tomislav Mihalj, also claimed that after 9/11 members of al-Qaeda were trying to reach Bosnia. BH Dani 234
(Sarajevo), 30 November 2001.
323.See Kohmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, op. cit., 218.
324.The CIA report on Bosnian NGO’s supporting terrorist organizations and operations is available at http://intelfiles.
egoplex.com/cia-ngos-1996.pdf, accessed on 10 July 2012 at 4:49pm EST.
325.See the documents reported in Sarajevo Ricochet, op. cit.
326.See “Bosnian TV Alleges Muslim Official Linked to 9/11 Attacks,” BBC Monitoring Europe, 9 May 2008.
(Available on the LexisNexis Academic database), accessed on 26 April 2013 at 9:19am EST. The present author
remains skeptical of the accuracy of this particular report.
327.See Besar Likmeta, “Albania Nabs Suspected Al Qaeda Recruiters,” op. cit.
328.For reports on the August 2014 raids against Islamist militants in Kosovo, see “Kosovo police net Iraq and Syria
‘militant suspects’,” BBC News, 11 August 2014, at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28739084, accessed
on 12 August 2014 at 8:54am EST; Nektar Zogjani, “Kosovo President Hails Roundup of Suspected Militants,”
BalkanInsight, 11 August 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-police-arrests-suspected-terrorists, accessed on 12 August 2014 at 8:50am EST; Bahri Cani, “Jihad ‘Made in Kosovo’,” Deutsche Welle, 24
August 2014, at http://www.dw.de/jihad-made-in-kosovo/a-17874069, accessed on 3 October 2014 at 2:37pm EST;
and “Kosovo Nastavlja Policijska Akcija Protiv Muslimana,” Vijestiummeta, (no date given), at http://vijestiummeta.com/kosovo-na-kosovu-se-nastavlja-policijska-akcija-protiv-muslimana/, accessed on 3 October 2014 at
2:33pm EST.
329.See Nektar Zogjani, “Kosovo Police Swoop on Hardline Muslim Leaders,” BalkanInsight, 17 September 2014, at http://
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-police-swoop-on-hardline-muslim-leaders, accessed on 3 October 2014.
330.See “Velika antiteroristička akcija SIPA-e: Uhapšeni Bosnić, Muratović, Durguti, Fojnica . . . “ Oslobođenje
(Sarajevo), 3 September 2014, at http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/u-toku-velika-antiteroristicka-akcija-sipe-u-bih-uhapseno-15-osoba, accessed on 2 October 2014 at 11:46am EST. Among the locations raided in
Operation Damask were Wahhabi outposts in Sarajevo, Kiseljak, Zenica, the villages of Ošve and Gornja Bočinja
near Maglaj, Gornja Maoča, Bužim, and Teslić. See also Elvira M. Jukic, “Bosnia Arrests 16 Suspected Jihad
Recruiters,” BalkanInsight, 3 September 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnia-arrests-15-alleged-terrorists, accessed on 2 October 2014 at 11:58am EST; Jukic, “Bosnia Steps Up Crackdown on Islamic
Militants,” BalkanInsight, 8 September 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnia-steps-up-crackdown-on-islamic-militants, accessed on 2 October 2014 at 12:11am EST.
331.See “Designations of Foreign Terrorist Fighters” (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 24 September 2014),
at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/09/232067.htm, accessed on 2 October 2014 at 11:32am EST.
332.See “Serbia Charges Alleged ISIS Funders and Recruiters,” BalkanInsight, 7 October 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbia-files-charges-against-alleged-isis-funders-and-recruiters, accessed on 28 October 2014 at
11:12am EST.
333.“Slovenksa policija hapsila pristalice Bilala Bosnića,” Saff (Sarajevo), 24 September 2014, at http://saff.ba/slovenska-policija-hapsila-pristalice-bilala-bosnica/, accessed on 28 October 2014 at 11:31am EST.
334.Petrit Collaku, “Kosovo Court Rejects Detention of Terror Suspects,” BalkanInsight, 3 October 2014, at http://www.
balkaninsight.com/en/article/court-of-appeal-finds-no-legal-reason-for-detention-on-remand-for-terrorist-suspects,
335.See Petritsch, “Islam is Part of the West, Too,” The New York Times, 20 November 2001, at http://www.nytimes.
com/2001/11/20/opinion/20PETR.html, accessed on 9 April 2014 at 2:04pm EST. Petritsch did add the proviso
“although this cannot be excluded,” although given the fact that he had been in Bosnia over two years at this point,
to be unaware of the role Bosnia played in the greatest security threat to Western interests in the post-Cold War era
reveals the willful ignorance all too many Western officials have about conditions in the region. Six months later,
Petritsch continued to promote the same obfuscations, claiming that “Rumours have it that there is evidence that
Al-Qaeda has a substantial base in Bosnia. That is not true.” See Petritsch’s interview with Financeel Dagblaad,
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as posted on the OHR website, “Bosnia is Much More European then Denmark,” at http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/
presso/pressi/default.asp?content_id=7402, accessed on 11 October 2014 at 2:37pm EST.
336.See “Inzko: Vehabije u BiH nisu opasnost Evropi,” Al Jazeera, 1 March 2012, at http://balkans.aljazeera.net/vijesti/
inzko-vehabije-u-bih-nisu-opasnost-evropi, accessed on 3 February 2014 at 11:57am EST. Indeed, given such inaction by international officials in Bosnia, perhaps Mustafa Cerić was not being entirely facetious when he claimed
that “If Al Qaeda collaborators are in BiH, then the Office of the High Representative and NATO are responsible
for their existence.” See Cerić’s comments as quoted in “Cerić tvrdi da u BiH nema simpatizera Al-Qaide,”
Dnevnik.hr, 19 August 2007, at http://dnevnik.hr/vijesti/svijet/ceric-tvrdi-da-u-bih-nema-simpatizera-al-qaide.html,
accessed on 30 March 2014 at 11:16am EST.
337.See “41st Report of the High Representative for Implementation of the Peace Agreement on Bosnia and Herzegovina
to the Secretary-General of the United Nations,” 15 May 2012, at http://www.ohr.int/other-doc/hr-reports/default.
asp?content_id=47159, accessed on 13 October 2014 at 11:56am EST.
338.It has been speculated that Ashdown purged Alibabić on the advice of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also
known as MI6), allegedly because Alibabić bore some grudge against SIS and had begun leaking the names of SIS
agents in Bosnia hunting war crimes suspects. See Henry de Quetteville and Hugh Griffiths, “MI6 Spies Exposed
by Balkan Rivals,” The Telegraph (UK), 27 September 2004, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/4193735/MI6spies-exposed-by-Balkan-rivals.html, accessed on 24 October 2014 at 12:12pm EST.
339.See Antonio Prlenda’s interview with Ashdown, entitled “Time for BiH Politicians to Take Crucial Steps to Future,”
The Southeast European Times, 30 January 2004, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/document/setimes/features/2004/02/040130-ANTONIO-001, accessed on 23 October 2014 at 9:55am EST.
340.As quoted by Branka Branković, “Selefije i vehabije ozbiljna pretnja region,” Danas (Belgrade), 26 November 2008,
at http://www.danas.rs/danasrs/drustvo/terazije/selefije_i_vehabije_ozbiljna_pretnja_regionu.14.html?news_
id=146451, accessed on 20 November 2013 at 11:06am EST.
341.As quoted by Stephen Schwartz, “How Radical Islam Infiltrates Kosovo,” op. cit.
342.Understandably, Izetbegović’ and his circle consistently lied about the presence of jihadis and Iranian security forces
in Bosnia. At the signing ceremonies for the Dayton Peace Agreement in Paris in December 1995, President Clinton told Izetbegović that it was imperative for all the mujahedin and Iranian forces to leave Bosnia in accordance
with the agreement just signed. As Holbrooke described it, “Izetbegović told the president that the bulk of such
personnel ‘had already left,’ a statement we knew not to be true.” See Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998), 321. Former NATO commander General Wesley Clark had a similar experience when dealing
with Izetbegović and his closest associates. After the Paris signing ceremonies for the Dayton Accords, Clark went
to Sarajevo to himself impress upon the Muslim leadership the overriding importance of removing the mujahedin
and the Iranians from Bosnia. Izetbegović told Clark to talk to his intelligence chief, Alispahić. When Clark
discussed the mujahedin/Iranian problem with Alispahić, the latter said he had been misinformed. When Clark
presented evidence that the US had accumulated about the mujahedin/Iranian presence in Bosnia, Alispahić told
him it was incorrect. Alispahić then went to the extent of signing a statement certifying that no Iranian terrorists
were in Bosnia running training camps. See Sead Numanović, “Iranci su nam bili posebna briga, to su, u suštini,
bili teroristi!,” Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 4 October 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/intervju/iranci-su-nam-bili-posebna-briga-to-su-u-sustini-bili-teroristi, accessed on 7 October 2013 at 10:05am EST. Secretary of State Warren Christopher received the same treatment. In February 1996, Christopher went to Sarajevo to impress upon Izetbegović
the need to shut down the terrorist training facilities in Bosnia. Izebegović assured Christopher that “I am sure
that they don’t exist, and I just spoke with my intelligence director, Bakir Alispahić, and he told me the same” See
Anes Alic and Jens Tracy, “Training for an Islamic Bosnia,” Transitions Online, 26 April 2002, at http://www.tol.
org/client/article/4246-training-for-an-islamic-bosnia.html, accessed on 30 June 2012 at 1:57pm EST.
343.See Blavicki, “Islamist Terrorist Networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” op. cit., 63.
344.For instance, according to Vlado Azinović, “any resolute action aimed at reestablishing law and order [in Wahhabi villages] would enrage the country’s official Islamic Community. In recent years, this body in charge of
the religious affairs of Bosnian Muslims and a driving force behind the ruling Party of Democratic Action,
was quick to brand as Islamophobia any criticism of Salafi radicalization in Bosnia.” See Azinovic, “The True
Aims of Bosnia’s ‘Operation Light’,” at http://www.rferl.org/content/The_True_Aims_Of_Bosnias_Operation_
Light/1954254.html, accessed on 25 April 2012 at: 7:40pm EST. Similarly, according to Nenad Pejić, “There are
countless examples of local authorities in Bosnia failing to act properly against Islamic extremism. The majority of
these criminal cases have not been resolved and when the terrorists are identified the trials take years . . . Islamic community leaders and local politicians described terrorist acts in BiH as isolated “criminal acts” and not a
consequence of growing Islamic extremism. Attempts to initiate police investigations of the Wahhabi movement
were often defined as Islamophobic.” See Pejic, “Wahhabist Militancy in Bosnia Profits from Local and International Inaction,” The Jamestown Terrorism Monitor 9, Issue 42, 17 November 2011, at http://www.jamestown.
org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=38681, accessed on 26 April 2012 at: 8:49am EST. According to
Rešid Hafizović, a professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo, “The reaction of the top of the Islamic
community has always been understood by the Wahhabi gang as a tacit green light for their actions. That this is
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true is confirmed by the fact that every new Wahhabi attack in the country has been worse, more planned out, and
more dangerous.” See the interview with Hafizović, “Vehabije dolaze po tapiju na BiH,” Oslobođenje (Sarajevo),
5/6 November 2011, 32. Available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/74688492/Vehabije-dolaze-po-tapiju-na-BiHintervju-dr-Re%C5%A1id-Hafizovi%C4%87-Oslobo%C4%91enje-05-11-2011-god, accessed on 24 June 2012
at: 7:26 pm EST. According to another Sarajevo academic, Esad Duraković, “Wahhabi doctrine . . . has expanded
very seriously, it has metastasized in the institutions of the Islamic Community: in some madrasas, at some faculties of the Islamic Community, etc. Wahhabis pronounce their own fatwas, that is, they give their own formal and
parallel interpretations of Islam, and the Islamic Community is silent. Thus, the Wahhabis have entered deeply into
the system, they are educating the youth, while the leadership of the Islamic Community is silent or compliments
them for being the “new Muslims.” See the interview with Esad Duraković, “Vehabizam je ovdje izrazito suicidna
ideologija, tragično je što to ne shvataju mnogi muslimani, ni Bošnjaci,” 5 November 2011, at http://www.depo.
ba/front/vehabizam-je-ovdje-izrazito-suicidna-ideologija-tragicno-je-sto-to-ne-shvataju-mnogi-muslimani-ni-bosnjaci, accessed on 24 June 2012 at 7:44pm EST. Similarly, the leading Bosnian journalist tracking Islamist
extremists in Bosnia, Esad Hečimović, has noted “Even though the Bosnian tragedy is in the very center of the
motivations of [Al-Qaeda], never did one single Bosnian-Herzegovinian religious, national, or state leader oppose
these abused ideological interpretations which created a pretext for the new crimes against civilians from Jerusalem to New York.” See Hećimović, “Nastavak ‘pobjede iz Jemena?”, op. cit. Similarly, Mustafa Spahić, another
leading Islamic cleric in Bosnia, has said of Mustafa Cerić’s refusal to confront the Wahhabi movment in Bosnia,
“He is not fulfilling his duties. He travels to Germany and collects one award after another instead of dealing with
the radicals here.” See Walter Mayr, “The Prophet’s Fifth Column: Islamists Gain Ground in Sarajevo,” op. cit.
Similarly, in Kosovo, according to Ilir Deda, one of Kosovo’s leading political analysts, “The institutions have not
dealt with this issue . . . Radical Islam is mid- to long-term one of the biggest dangers for Kosovo, because they
are aiming to change our social fabric.” See Deda’s comments as quoted by Sylvia Poggioli, “Radical Islam Uses
Balkan Poor to Wield Influence,” National Public Radio, 25 October 2010, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=130801242, accessed on 16 October 2013 at 2:39pm EST.
345.See Farah’s post at “London and the Possible Bosnia Connection,” Counterterrorism Blog, posted 14 July 2005,
at http://counterterrorismblog.org/2005/07/douglas_farah_london_and_the_p.php, accessed on 27 March 2014 at
10:51am EST.
346.On these issues, see Music, Encountering the Wahhabi Movement in Bosnia: The Benefits of Social Network
Analysis in Intelligence Management and Police Harmonization, op. cit., and Panovski, The Spread of Islamic
Extremism in the Republic of Macedonia, op. cit.
347.For a review of measures pending in various Balkans states, see Miki Trajkovski, “Balkan Countries Create Deterrent
for Citizens Fighting in Syria,” The Southeast European Times, 21 January 2014, at http://www.setimes.com/
cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2014/01/21/feature-03, accessed on 31 March 2014 at
11:20am EST.
348.The Council of Europe’s Country Profiles on Counter-Terrorism Capacity are available at http://www.coe.int/t/
dlapil/codexter/country_profiles.asp Although useful for background on legislation that has actually been passed
by individual countries, the CoE’s Country Profiles unfortunately reflect little actual knowledge of the problematic
outside of where legislation stands in each country’s political/bureaucratic process.
349.See Dario Sito Sucic, “Bosnia Introduces Jail Terms to Curb Recruitment for Syria,” Reuters (Dateline Sarajevo),
29 April 2014, at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/29/us-syria-crisis-bosnia-idUSBREA3S0PN20140429,
accessed on 14 May 2014 at 11:10am EST.
350.Sinisa Jakov Marusic, “US Praises Macedonian Law to Jail Militants,” BalkanInsight, 20 October 2014, at http://
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/us-praises-macedonian-bill-to-jail-militants, accessed on 21 October 2014 at
9:11am EST.
351.As one expert on the Balkan militant Islamist phenomenon has observed: “If we look at this within international
dimensions, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the person who is calling people to join the jihad in Syria, but if you ask
about this in Bosnia & Herzegovina itself, then you will see that Sheik Qaradawi was received here by the new
reis-ul-Ulema Kavazović, by the former reis Cerić, and by the BiH presidency member Bakir Izetbegović, and no
one in any way publicly objected to his call for jihad in Syria. How can we now criticize young men for going to
jihad in Syria, if at the same time we do not ask those people who are publicly calling for jihad what their position
on this is?” See the comments by Esad Hećimović in “Mudžahid Senad Kobaši iz Zenice poginuo u Siriji,” BH
Magazin, 24 November 2013, at http://www.bhmagazin.com/bih-index/item/16403-mud%C5%BEahid-senad-koba%C5%A1-iz-travnika-poginuo-u-siriji-foto.html, accessed on 1 November 2014 at 10:34am EST.
352.See “Returning Fighters from Syrian Conflict Cause Concern in the EU,” EUROPOL Press Release, 29 May 2014,
at https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/returning-fighters-syrian-conflict-cause-concern-eu, accessed on 17 June
2014 at 2:38pm EST.
353.See Hećimović, “Radical movements—a challenge for moderate Balkan-Islam?” op. cit.
354.See “Selefije u ‘svetom ratu’: eksluzivna ispovijest bh. džihad ratnika u Siriji,” op. cit.
355.“Balkan jihadi/extremists” are here defined as either foreign or indigenous individuals who participated in the
Balkan wars of the 1990s or spent time in the region over the past twenty years.
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356.Some of the operational funds for the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 were provided by the
Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Vienna-based “Islamic charity” run by a long-time Izetbegović associate,
the Sudanese national Elfatih Hassanein. Osama bin Laden was known to work through TWRA. TWRA and the
first World Trade Center bombing is described in detail in section V.
357.Bosnian jihad veteran Muslih al-Shamrani was involved in the November 1995 bombing of the Saudi National
Guard building in Riyadh in which five Americans and two Indian nationals were killed. al-Shamrani was a Sunni
from Saudi Arabia who had participated in the jihad in Afghanistan as well as in Bosnia. He was beheaded by the
Saudi government in 1996. See Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network , op.cit.,
158; Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (New York: Touchstone, 2002),
90; and Joshua Teitelbaum and David Long, “Islamic Politics in Saudi Arabia,” Washington Institute Policy Watch
259 (9 July 1997), at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/islamic-politics-in-saudi-arabia,
358.Lionel Dumont was a French convert to Islam who participated in the Bosnian jihad, where his nom de guerre
was “Abu Hamza.” In March 1996, together with another Frenich-Muslim convert, Christophe Caze, Dumont was
part of the so-called “Roubaix Gang,” which in early 1996 participated in a spate of armed robberies in France,
culminating in a car-bombing of the police station in Lille, two hundred meters away from where French president
Jacques Chirac was supposed to open the G7 meeting two days hence. Caze was killed attempting to flee France,
while Dumont returned to Bosnia and again became involved in criminal activities. During the course of one of his
robberies he killed a policeman. He was ultimately tracked down and arrested in an apartment in ??? belonging to
the Interior Ministry of Zenica-Doboj Canton. After little more than a year in prison, Dumont escaped from a Sarajevo prison just five days he was supposed to be extradicted to France. As Kohlmann notes, French officials were
immediately suspicious of the timing, adding that “Perhaps Bosnian officials were embarrassed at the prospect of
what Dumont might testify to in a French court . . . . [that] senior-level members of the Bosnian government continued to provide covert protection to the Arab mujahideen, even after they had committed cold-blooded crimes
against innocent Bosnian Muslims themselves.” See Kohlmann, Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian
Network, op. cit., 194-97.
359.Medina Delalić, “Loše plačeni policijski amateri,” Slobodna Bosna (Sarajevo), 5 October 2002, 5-7.
360.See Anes Alic, “The Ringleaders of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Wahhabi Movement,” at http://www.jamestown.org/
single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1048, accessed on 14 June 2012 at: 8:06pm EST, and Anes Alic, “Wahhabism: From Vienna to Bosnia,” ISN Security Watch, 6 April 2007, at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Security-Watch/
Articles/Detail//?id=53104&lng=en, accessed on 15 September 2012 at 11:28am EST.
361. See “JTF-GTMO Detainee Assessment, Mustafa Ait Idr, 30 June 2008,” at http://wikileaks.org/gitmo/pdf/ag/us4ag-010004dp.
pdf The Mostar Car bombing injured some fifty people. Some reports have suggested that Ahmad Zuhayri had also
been involved in the murder of U.S. citizen William Jefferson near Banovići, Bosnia, in November 1995, and in
the bombing of the USS Cole. See Thomas Joscelyn, “Convicted Car Bomber and Likely Murdered Transferred
from Gitmo to Saudi Arabia,” The Weekly Standard, 12 June 2009, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/
TWSFP/2009/06/convicted_car_bomber_and_likel.asp, accessed on 14 May 2014 at 11:46am EST.
362.Kohlmann, Al-Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe-the Afghan-Bosnian Network, op cit., 201. For more on Mamdouh Mahmud
Salim, see Douglas Frantz, “US Based Charity is Under Scrutiny,” The New York Times, 14 June 2002, at http://
www.nytimes.com/2002/06/14/us/us-based-charity-is-under-scrutiny.html, accessed on 22 May 2014 at 10:52am
EST. Bosnian jihad veteran and Finsbury Park Mosque Imam Abu Hamza al Misri would later claim that the African Embassy bombings were retaliation for the arrest and deportation of several members of Al Qaeda’s Albanian
cell. See his 2002 interview with PBS’ Frontline: In Search of Al Qaeda, at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/search/interviews/almasri.html, accessed on 8 May 2014 at 1:17pm EST.
363.See “Summary of Evidence for Combatant Review Tribunal-Al Nashiri, Abd Al Rahim Hussein Mohammed,” at
http://www.defense.gov/news/ISN10015.pdf
364.See R. Jeffrey Smith, “A Bosnian Village’s Terrorist Ties,” The Washington Post, 11 March 2000, A1.
365.See “Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10015,” at http://www.defense.
gov/news/transcript_isn10015.pdf, accessed on 25 November 2013 at 12:09pm EST.
366.Bosnian jihad veterans Ibrahim al-Thawar, alias “Nibras,” and Hassan al-Khamiri were the two Saudi suicide terrorists who steered a small craft loaded with 270 kilograms of C-4 explosives alongside the USS Cole while it was
in Aden Harbor, then detonated the bomb killing themselves and seventeen U.S. servicemen, and injuring another
37. See Akiva J. Lorenz, “Analyzing the USS Cole Bombing,” Maritime Security Research Papers, 27 September
2007, at http://www.maritimeterrorism.com/2007/12/27/analyzing-the-uss-cole-incident/, accessed on 11November 2014 at 5:10pm EST. See also Ali H. Soufan, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against
Al Qaeda (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 239
367.Along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, other 9/11 participants who had fought with Izetbegović’s forces in Bosnia
included Khalid al Mindhar and Nawaf al Hamzi. See Thomas H. Kean, et. Al., The 9/11 Commission Report, 154.
368.See “Profile: Omar Saeed Sheikh,” available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1804710.stm, accessed on 22
April 2012 at: 6:11pm EST.
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369.Reda Seyam was an Egyptian suspected of helping to finance the October 2002 Bali bombings which killed over
200 people. Seyam managed a rental-car agency in Sarajevo which was suspected of being a front for Saudi
intelligence. A Spanish indictment against Seyam named him “Osama Bin Laden’s financier in Europe.” See John
Crewdson (with Viola Gienger), “2 Firms Linked to Al Qaeda, Saudi Intelligence Agency,” The Chicago Tribune,
31 March 2004, at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-03-31/news/0403310198_1_al-qaeda-saudi-arabian-mamoun-darkazanli, accessed on 7 February 2014 at 9:53am EST. For more on Seyam, see John Crewdson,
Viola Gienger, Lilian-Astrid Geese, and Dewi Loevard, “A Couple’s Life Torn Apart by Islamic Jihad,” The
Chicago Tribune, 26 November 2004, at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-11-26/news/0411260271_1_saudi-arabia-islamic-jihad-german-federal-prosecutor, accessed on 15 August 2014 at 8:23am EST.
370.The May 2003 Riyadh bombings involved a coordinated triple car-bombing of several compounds housing foreign
citizens in Saudi Arabia. Thirty-four people were killed in the attacks, including seven Americans. Bosnian jihad
veteran Khalid al-Juhani was the mastermind of the operation. al-Juhani had assumed command of Al Qaeda
operations in the Persian Gulf after the capture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (also a Bosnian jihad veteran), who
was suspected of involvement in the attack on the USS Cole (see above). See Richard B. Schmitt, Josh Meyer and
Robin Wright, “High Terror Risk is Declared,” The Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2003, at http://articles.latimes.
com/2003/may/21/nation/na-alert21, accessed on 10 November 2014 at 9:10am EST; Mark Hosenball, “Al Qaeda
Strikes Again,” Newsweek, 25 May 2003, at http://www.newsweek.com/al-qaeda-strikes-again-137523, accessed
371.Bosnian jihad veteran Abdel Karim Al-Tuhani Al-Majati was a Moroccan Al Qaeda member involved in the May
2003 Riyadh bombings. He was killed by Saudi security forces in April 2005. For more on Al-Majati, see “An Al
Qaeda Love Story: From Morocco to Bosnia to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, via New Jersey,” MEMRI Special
Dispatch No. 984, 9 September 2005, at http://www.memri.org/report/en/print1471.htm, accessed on 11 November
2014 at 4:08pm EST.
372.Bosnian jihad veteran Habib Aktaş was the alleged mastermind of the Istanbul bombings that killed some 60 people
in attacks on the British consulate, an HSBC bank in Istanbul, and two synagogues on November 15th and November 20th 2007. Among the fatalities was the British consul-general in Istanbul. Turkish authorities believed
that Aktaş was the head of the Al Qaeda cell in the country. See Karl Vick, “Al-Qaeda’s Hand in Istanbul Plot,”
The Washington Post, 13 February 2007, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/
AR2007021201715.html, accessed on 4 May 2013 at 8:24am EST; and “Istanbul Bombing Suspects Charged,”
BBC News, 25 February 2014, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3486536.stm, accessed on 7 October 2014 at
12:17pm EST.
373.Luke Harding, Helena Smith and Jason Burke, “Istanbul Bombings: The Softest Target,” The Observer (UK), 22
November 2003, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/23/turkey.terrorism, accessed on 4 May 2013 at
8:22am EST.
374.See Fernando Reinares, “The Evidence of Al-Qaida’s Role in the 2004 Madrid Attack,” CTC Sentinel 5 Issue 3, 22
March 2012, at http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-evidence-of-al-qaidas-role-in-the-2004-madrid-attack, accessed
on 26 July 2012 at 2:47pm EST; and Keith B. Richburg, “Plot Leader in Madrid Sought Help of Al Qaeda,” The
Washington Post, 12 April 2004, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/04/12/AR2005040206327.
html, accessed on 8 May 2014 at 1:22pm EST. According to Zlatan Music, the report of the Spanish court prosecuting the Madrid train bombings mentioned Bosnia and the El Mujahedin unit in Bosnia three hundred times. See
Music, “Encountering the Wahhabi Movement in Bosnia: The Benefits of Social Network Analysis in Intelligence
Management and Police Harmonization,” (Budapest, 2012), 13. Available at www.etd.ceu.hu/2012/music_zlatan.
pdf, accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:28pm EST. Bosnian émigré Sanel Sjekirica had been a roommate of the
ringleader of the Madrid bombers, Serhane ben Abdelmajid Fakhet. Although he had been under investigation by
Spanish authorities for his involvement in Islamist activities, he was ultimately cleared of personal involvement
in the Madrid attacks; see “Madrid ‘ringleader’ dies in blast,” BBC News Europe, 4 April 2004, at http://news.bbc.
co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3598219.stm, accessed on May 2014 at 11:31am EST, and “Three More Arrested in Spain
Bombings,” The Associated Press (Dateline Madrid), 16 April 2004, at http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/04/16/
three-more-arrested-in-spain-bombings/, accessed on 10 May 2014 at 11:37am EST. See also Zlatko Tulić and Ivica
Milešić, “Sanel Sjekirica pripada drugoj generaciji školovanih bosanskih mudžahedina,” Slobodna Dalmacija
(Split), 9 April 2009, at http://arhiv.slobodnadalmacija.hr/20040409/novosti02.asp, accessed on 10 May 2014 at
11:13am EST.
375.Abdelmajid Bouchar, a Moroccan suspected of involvement in the Madrid Train bombings, was arrested in a train
after it had crossed the Serbian border in June 2005, travelling on forged Iraqi documents. Security officials believe Bouchar was transiting through Serbia trying to make his way to the Middle-East. See “Arrest May Indicate
Balkans-Al Qaeda Link,” FoxNews, 29 August 2005, at http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/08/29/arrest-mayindicate-balkans-al-qaeda-link/, accessed on 19 November 2014 at 11:17am EST. Spanish officials said Bouchar’s
fingerprints had been found at the rural home where the bombs used in the Madrid attacks were believed to have
been assembled, and in the Madrid apartment where seven individuals suspected of involvement in the attacks blew
themselves up during a confrontation with police. Bouchar had apparently also used Bulgaria as a hideout. See Al
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Goodman, “Spain Seeks 3/11 Suspect in Serbia,” CNN.com, 26 August 2005, at http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/
europe/08/26/spain.extradition/index.html?_s=PM:WORLD, accessed on 19 November 2014 at 11:25am EST.
376.For more on Bosnian jihad veteran Al-Muqrin, see “Profile: Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin,” at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
middle_east/3821237.stm, accessed on 3 February 2014 at 12:35pm EST.
377.According to Douglas Farah, see “London and the Possible Bosnia Connection,” 14 July 2005, at http://counterterrorismblog.org/2005/07/douglas_fah_london_and_the_p.php, accessed on 5 February 2014 at 2:35pm EST.
378.In 2005, Italian investigators discovered a plot to bomb the funeral of Pope John Paul II which had originated in Gornja
Maoča. The plot involved smuggling eleven rocket launchers, C4 explosives and detonators into Italy from a safe
house in Zagreb using human trafficking channels through Trieste. Seid Redžematović, a member of the Aktivna
Islamska Omladina (AIO) connected with the Gornja Maoča Wahhabi community, was arrested on the day of the
Pope’s funeral, suspected of planning a suicide attack at the funeral. Several other individuals were arrested as
well. See Fiorenza Sarzanini, “Commando con lanciarazzi: puntava all’ Italia,” Corriere della Serra, 26 August 2005,
at http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/08_Agosto/26/sarzanini.shtml, accessed on 10 December
2014 at 5:09pm EST; “Terrorist Cells and Recruitment in Bosnia,” CSIS Transnational Threats Update 3 (No. 10),
August/September 2005, 2; Rade Maroevic and Daniel Williams, “Terrorist Cells Find Foothold in the Balkans,”
The Washington Post, 1 December 2005; Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad, op. cit., 316; Dženana Halimović, “Vehabije u Bosni: Od Bočinje do Maoče,” at http://www.slobodnaevropa.
org/content/maoca_vehabije_selefije_akcija_svjetlost/1950070.html, accessed on 19 November 2013 at 10:38am
EST; and Leslie S. Lebl, “Islamism and Security in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (May 2014), 9. It is worth noting that despite the fact that a Bosnia-based plot to carry out an attack on
one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in history had been uncovered, the OHR’s subsequent 28th and 29th
Reports to the UN Secretary-General made no mention of this.
379.Abu Hamza al-Masri was the imam of London’s Finsbury Park mosque, and considered to be the spiritual leader of
the London 7/7 bombers. Abu Hamza fought in Bosnia in the 1990s, married a Bosnian war widow, and was granted Bosnian citizenship. In July 2005, Douglas Farah reported that Western intelligence officials had been warning
that a large quantity of high-level plastic explosives had gone missing in Bosnia, and “if there were an attack in
Europe, it would be very likely the materiel would have been obtained in Bosnia.” See Farah’s comments at http://
counterterrorismblog.org/2005/07/douglas_farah_london_and_the_p.php, accessed on 7 February 2014 at 10:06am
EST. In the aftermath of the 7/7 bombing, Scotland Yard’s investigation led to Sarajevo after it was discovered
that one of the bomber’s relatives and three other UK residents had gone to the King Fahd mosque. According to a
Bosnian police official, ‘Four British men were being watched in the UK and then we received word from British
police that they were coming to Sarajevo. One of them was the relative of one of the July 7 bombers. They spent
most of their time in the King Fahd Mosque, which is used by very extremist Muslims.’ Sarajevo’s King Fahd
mosque has reportedly become a popular destination for second-generation Pakistani and Afghan youths in the
UK. See Nick Pisa, “Terror Hunt for 7/7 Bomber’s Relative in Bosnian Mosque,” The Mail on Sunday (London),
12 February 2006, 23. (Original in the author’s archive.) Among Abu Hamza al Masri’s other acolytes were
would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, and 9/11 “20th Hijacker,” Zacarias Moussaoui.
380.See Evan Kohlmann, “Bosnia Suicide Bomb Plotters Found Guilty,” 10 January 2007, at http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/01/bosnia_suicide_bomb_plotters_f_1.php, accessed on 5 February 2014 at 2:16pm EST. A
raid on the apartment used by the plotters discovered suicide vests, 65 pounds of high explosives and explosive
bullets, a machine pistol, and martyrdom statements. A subsequent raid netted another 22 pounds of explosives
kept by an accomplice in a forest near the town of Hadžići, outside Sarajevo. See Nicholas Wood, “Police Raid
Raises Fears of Bosnia as Haven for Terrorists,” The New York Times, 3 December 2005, at http://www.nytimes.
com/2005/12/03/international/europe/03bosnia.html?ei=5099&en=e0e1466f0bb188f3&ex=1134190800&adxnnl=
1&partner=TOPIX&adxnnlx=1133586686-oKfynmL95HY2Roh6Wumt+w&_r=0, accessed on 13 February 2014
at 9:11am EST. Mirsad Bektašević has been reported to have “maintained close ties” with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. See William J. Kole, “Are Terrorists Recruiting ‘white Muslims’?”
Associated Press (Dateline Sarajevo), 18 April 2006, at http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2002936760_balkans18.html, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 9:39am EST.
381.On 12 February 2007, Bosnian émigré Sulejman Talović opened fire on shoppers in Salt Lake City’s Trolley
Square Mall, killing five people and wounding four others, including a pregnant woman. Police said he had a
backpack full of ammunition and his intention was “to kill as many people as possible.” During the attacks he
was wearing a necklace containing a miniature Quran. Three years earlier Talović’s school had already alerted
police that he was looking at weapons on the internet and boasting that his grandfather “was in the jihad.” The day
before the attack, Talović had told a friend that “tomorrow will be the happiest day of my life, but it will happen
only once.” Some witnesses claim to have heard Talović shouting “Allahu Akbar!” during the attack. See Paul
Sperry, “Could the Kenya Attack Happen Here? It Did.” The New York Post, 12 October 2013, at http://nypost.
com/2013/10/12/could-the-kenya-mall-attack-ever-happen-here-it-already-did/, accessed on 20 September 2014
at 11:12am EST. An FBI report on the Trolley Square Massacre found that Talović “may have thought about
committing a shooting attack for years,” and “held prejudicial beliefs against Serbs, homosexuals, and African
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Americans.” See Nate Carlisle, “FBI Found Talovic Had a History with Trolley Square,” The Salt Lake Tribune,
25 June 2009, at http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12382259, accessed on 20 September 2014 at 11:25am EST.
382.The Fort Dix Bomb Plot involved six Muslim men (three of whom were Albanians from Macedonia who had entered the U.S. illegally, and one Albanian from Kosovo) arrested for planning to kill military personnel at Fort Dix,
New Jersey. During the course of a 15-month investigation, the FBI “taped them training with automatic weapons
in rural Pennsylvania, conducting surveillance of military bases in the Northeast, watching videos of Osama bin
Laden and the 9/11 hijackers and trying to buy AK-47 assault rifles.” See David Kocieniewski, “6 Men Arrested
in a Terror Plot Against Fort Dix,” The New York Times, 9 May 2007, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/
us/09plot.html?pagewanted=all, accessed on 25 June 2014 at 8:57am EST; and Kareem Fahim and Andrea
Elliot, “Religion Guided 3 Held in Fort Dix Plot,” The New York Times, 10 May 20017, at http://www.nytimes.
com/2007/05/10/nyregion/10plot.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, accessed on 25 June 2014 at 8:51am EST; and
Kareem Fahim, “In Transcripts, Tough Talk by Terror Suspects, and Informant,” The New York Times, 31 March
2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/nyregion/31dix.html, accessed on 25 June 2014 at 10:06am EST.
383.On 1 October 2007, Asim Cejvanović, a Bosnian living in Austria, was arrested after he tried running through a
metal detector at the entrance to the US Embassy in Vienna with a backpack full of explosives and nails. At his trial, he claimed that Mehmed Djudjic, another Bosnian tied to the Wahhabi movement, had given him the backpack.
Cejvanović was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for illegal possession of explosives. See “Vienna‘Embassy
Bombing’ Foiled,” BBC News, 1 October 2007, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7022522.stm, accessed on
20 September 2014; Jeffrey Imm, “Attack on US Embassy in Vienna Foiled,” Counterterrorism Blog, 1 October
2007, at http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/10/vienna_attack_foiled.php , accessed on 20 September 2014 at
10:32am EST; and “Bosnia: Vienna Calling,” ISN Security Watch, 7 October 2007, at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/
Security-Watch/Articles/Detail/?ots591=4888caa0-b3db-1461-98b9-e20e7b9c13d4&lng=en&id=53864, accessed
on 12 July 2012 at 8:05pm EST; and Teri Blumenfeld, “Are Jihadists Crazy?” Middle East Quarterly (Spring
2012), 9.
384.A suspected plot to bomb the Catholic cathedral in Sarajevo, the Franciscan monastery of the Holy Spirit outside of the town of Fojnica, and to sabotage electricity supply stations to EUFOR bases in Bosnia and attack
EUFOR Liaison and Observation Teams in the country was disrupted in March 2008 with the arrest of the
above group. Among the items police discovered were explosives hidden in books (designed to explode when
they were opened). This group was particularly interested in attacking EUFOR teams whose members came
from countries with soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. One member of the group, Edis Velić, had
participated in jihad in Chechnya. See Damir Kaletovic and Anes Alic, “Terror Plot Thwarted in Bosnia,” ISN
Security Network (Zurich), 28 March 2008, at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail//?ots591=4888CAA0-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=52023, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 10:29am
EST.
385.In August 2008, an illegal Albanian émigré living in the UK, Krenar Lusha, was arrested after police raided his
home and discovered 72 liters of petrol, documents called “Ragnar’s Detonators” and “The Bomb Book,” and
videos entitled “Hezbollah Military Instructions Manual,” and “Mobile Detonators.” Also found in Lusha’s home
were fourteen mobile phones and videos of live beheadings by Islamist extremist groups. Lusha was in the process
of downloading other Hezbollah materials at the time the police raided his home, including a video on how to use
mobile phones as bomb detonators. During the trial the prosecutor revealed that the Hezbollah materials included
information on how to make missiles and suicide vests. Lusha had also claimed on dating websites that he was a
“terrorist” and a “sniper” and that he “loved” watching Americans and Jews get killed. Remarkably, despite being
an illegal alien in Britain, he had been given a 100% mortgage by a British bank. See “NatWest handed Al Qaeda
terrorist 100% mortgage to buy ₤93,000 he turned into a bomb factory,” The Daily Mail (UK), 16 December 2009,
at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236301/Bank-blasted-giving-Al-Qaeda-terrorist-100-mortgage.html,
accessed on 16 October 2014 at 1:22pm EST; and Duncan Gardham, “Albanian ‘terrorist’ caught with bomb-making materials in his home, court hears.” The Telegraph (UK), 17 November 2009, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6591313/Albanian-terrorist-caught-with-bomb-making-materials-in-his-homecourt-hears.html, accessed on 16 October 2014 at 1:28pm EST. Lusha was implicated in a larger plot involving
four other individuals who allegedly intended to assassinate UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former prime
minister Tony Blair. See “Fifth Man Facing Terror Charges,” BBC News, 9 September 2008, at http://news.bbc.
co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7606384.stm, accessed on 16 October 2014 at 1:32pm EST.
386.See “QI.L. 264.08. ZAKI-UR-REHMAN LAKHVI,” Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267
(1999) and 1989 (2011) concerning Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities” 9 March 2009, at http://
www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQI26408E.shtml, accessed on 10 February 2014 at 10:11am EST.
387.In July 2009, Bosnian native Enes Subašić and Kosovo native Hysen Sherifi were arrested as part of the “Raleigh
Group” suspected of being involved in a “multi-year conspiracy to murder persons abroad and provide material
support to terrorism.” Sherifi was also charged with planning to attack U.S. soldiers at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia. See “North Carolina Resident Anes Subasic Sentenced for Terrorism Violations,” http://www.fbi.gov/
charlotte/press-releases/2012/north-carolina-resident-anes-subasic-sentenced-for-terrorism-violations, accessed on
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15 September 2012 at 11:47am EST.
388.Bosnian émigré Adis Medunjanin was one of several conspirators planning attacks on the New York subway
system. According to prosecution documents, Medunjanin travelled to Pakistan along with other conspirators and
trained at Al Qaeda camps. The plot involved Medunjanin and two other terrorists strapping on backpacks and
carrying out suicide attacks on NYC subways. On the verge of being arrested, Medunjanin made a 911 call saying
“We love death more than you love life,” and proceeded to drive his car into another vehicle on the Whitestone
Bridge in a failed suicide attack attempt. In November 2012, Medunjanin was convicted of conspiring to use
weapons of mass destruction, to commit murder abroad, and of providing material support to Al Qaeda and receiving military training at an Al Qaeda camp. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 95 years. See Mosi Secret,
“Man Convicted of a Terrorist Plot to Bomb Subways is Sent to Prison for Life,” The New York Times, 12 November 2012, at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/nyregion/adis-medunjanin-convicted-of-subway-bomb-plot-getslife-sentence.html?_r=0, accessed on 17 November 2014 at 7:16pm EST; see also Tom Hays, “Medunjanin Got Al
Qaeda Training,” Associated Press, 9 January 2012.
389.“Tahir” was the alias of an U.S. military Vietnam veteran who became an Al Qaeda operative in both Bosnia and
Somalia. See J. M. Berger, “Al Qaeda and the U.S. Military,” Intelwire, 5 December 2011, at http://news.intelwire.
com/search/label/Bosnia, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 9:00am EST.
390.See Arbana Xharra, “Kosovo: radikaler Islam als “tickende Bombe,” Der Standard (Vienna), 28 January 2013, at
http://derstandard.at/1358304927258/Radikaler-Islam-als-tickende-Bombe-im-Kosovo, accessed on 5 February
2014 at 1:29pm EST.
391.See Esad Hećimović, “Gaza Flotilla Official Was Foreign Fighter in Bosnia War,” Intelwire 13 June 2010, at http://
news.intelwire.com/2010/06/gaza-flotilla-official-was-foreign.html, accessed on 13 February 2014 at 8:41am
EST. Atalay fought in Izetbegović’s “7th Muslim Brigade” (in which the mujahedin units were incorporated) from
1992-1994, after which he became head of the IHH office in Sarajevo. For more on how Islamic charitable organizations such as IHH provide logistical support to terrorist groups, see Marc Champion, “Aid Group, Israel Primed
for Clash, Flotilla Review Shows,” The Wall Street Journal, 7 July 2010, at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB
10001424052748704535004575349031510961398, accessed on 19 June 2014 at 8:03am EST.
392.On 27 June 2010, a bomb exploded in the police station of the central Bosnian town of Bugojno, killing a police officer
on duty and wounding six others. The subsequent investigation revealed that the perpetrators were a militant cell
of Wahhabi extremists including Haris Čaušević, who had a couple of years earlier been suspected of an arson
attack on the Orthodox church in Bugojno, and another Wahhabi extremist, Naser Palislamović, who also had a
significant criminal dossier, being earlier suspected of domestic violence, possessing explosives, and theft. The
attack was believed to be in retaliation for the earlier arrest of another Wahhabi militant Rijad Rustempašić, who
had been arrested on terrorism charges in 2008 in connection with the earlier plot to bomb Catholic churches in
Sarajevo (see above). See Anes Alic, “Police Targeted in Bugojno Terrorist Attack,” International Relations and
Security Network (Zurich), 12 June 2010, at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Detail/?id=118664
Accessed on 25 November 2013 at 11:32am EST; “’Terrorist Attack’ in Bosnia Kills One, Injures Six,” BalkanInsight, 27 June 2010, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/terrorist-attack-in-bosnia-kills-one-injuressix, accessed on 25 November 2013 at 11:35am EST; Anes Alic, “A New Generation of Extremists Threatens
Bosnia,” at http://eurasia.ro/?p=39758 Accessed on 25 November 2013 at 11:44am EST. Predictably, in October
2014 an appellate court in Bosnia dismissed the original court’s guilty verdict against Haris Čaušević and Naser
Palislamović. See “Ukinuta presuda Harisu Čauševiću osuđenom za teroristički napad u Bugojnu,” Oslobođenje
(Sarajevo), 21 October 2014, at http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/ukinuta-presuda-harisu-causevicu-osudjenom-za-teroristicki-napad-u-bugojnu, accessed on 28 October 2014 at 1:22pm EST, and “Optuženi saradnik
Harisa Čauševića, Naser Palislamović pravosnažno oslobođen,” Saff (Sarajevo), 23 October 2014, at http://saff.ba/
optuzeni-saradnik-harisa-causevica-naser-palislamovic-pravosnazno-osloboden/#.VE_S81eOqSo, accessed on 28
October 2014 at 1:34pm EST.
393.For an excellent analysis Mevlid Jašarević’s October 2011 attack on the US Embassy in Sarajevo, see Chris Deliso, “Attack on US Bosnia Embassy Not Seen as a Major Security Concern, Despite Precedents and International Links,”
Balkananalysis.com Special Report, 28 November 2011, at http://www.balkanalysis.com/bosnia/2011/11/28/
attack-on-us-bosnia-embassy-not-seen-as-a-major-security-concern-despite-precedents-and-international-links/
Accessed on 21 March 2014 at 10:30am EST. Jašarević’s companion on the day he attacked the US Embassy, Emrah
Fojnica, was killed in an abortive suicide bombing attempt in Iraq in August 2014.
394.In January 2012, Kosovo émigré Sami Osmakac was arrested by the FBI in Tampa, Florida, for planning attacks
in Tampa which were to include a car-bombing and hostage taking. Osmakac had already acquired an AK-47 and
what he believed to be actual explosives. He had told and FBI informant that “We all have to die, so why not die
the Islamic way?”, and in a martyrdom video he made shortly before his arrest he claimed he was acting out of
revenge for American “wrongs” towards Muslims. See “Kosovo Native Plotted Bombings, Bloodshed in Tampa,
Feds Say,” CNN, 9 January 2012, at http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/09/justice/florida-terror-arrest/ Accessed on 26
June 2012 at 10:17am EST. Osmakac had apparently become radicalized on visits to Kosovo, during which he met
with local Islamist extremists. See “Official: Fla. Bomb Suspect Met Radical Islamists in Kosovo,” USA Today,
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11 January 2012, at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/story/2012-01-11/kosovo-florida-bomb/52501430/1, accessed on 26 January 2014 at 10:29am EST. The FBI charges against Osmakac are available at “Florida Resident
Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa,” at http://www.fbi.gov/tampa/press-releases/2012/florida-resident-charged-with-plotting-to-bomb-locations-in-tampa, accessed on 26 June 2014 at 10:23am EST.
395.In February 2011, a native of Kosovo, Arid Uka, approached a group of US servicemen waiting at a bus terminal
at Frankfurt Airport, asked if they were going to Afghanistan, then began shouting “God is the Greatest,” and
shooting his weapon. During the attack Uka killed two US servicemen and wounded two others. He was about to
attack a fifth soldier when his gun jammed. See Souad Mekhennet, “Gunman in Germany Wanted ‘Revenge’ for
Afghanistan,” The New York Times, 4 March 2012, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/world/europe/05germany.html?ref=europe, accessed on 30 June 2014 at 2:22pm EST. At his trial, Uka claimed that he had been radicalized
by jihadi videos on the internet. See “Frankfurt Airport Gunmen Jailed for Life,” at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16984066, accessed on 30 June 2014 at 2:12pm EST.
396.On Orthodox Easter, April 2012, five ethnic Macedonians were murdered by a lake on the outskirts of Skopje.
Their bodies had been lined up and they appeared to have been killed execution style. In June 2104, six ethnic Albanians from Macedonia whom the police had alleged were members of an Islamist extremist cell were convicted
of the crime. See Sinisa Jakuv Marusic, “Six Albanians Jailed for Macedonia ‘Terror’ Murders,” BalkanInsight, 30
June 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-mass-murder-trial, accessed on 30 June 2014 at
1:35pm EST. Materials found on the computer of one of the defendants included videos that glorify jihad, promote
the establishment of an Islamic state, and call for the execution of Christians in “revenge killings.” See Sase
Dimovski, “Macedonian Ethnic Terrorism Motives Verdict Revealed,” BalkanInsight, 28 October 2014, at http://
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/macedonia-ethnic-terrorism-verdict-details-revealed, accessed on 28 October
2014 at 9:27am EST.
397.In the summer of 2012, Australian police investigated a radical group composed of émigré Bosnians in Melbourne.
Among those arrested was Adnan Karabegović, who was found to have been collecting the Al Qaeda magazine
Inspire, including an edition which recommended bombing the Sydney Opera House. The group was led by Harun
Mehičević, a radical cleric who had left the mainstream Bosnian Islamic community in Melbourne several years
earlier to form a more extreme Salafist group. See Cameron Stewart, “How Informer’s Fears Triggered Terror Raid,”
The Australian, 15 September 2012, available at http://alfurqan.com.au/home/307-how-informers-fears-triggeredterror-raids, accessed on 19 June 2014 at 8:18am EST. Upon his arrest, Karabegović was also in possession of
a USB stick that “contained a number of electronic document files titled “Plans”, including information on how
to construct a semi-automatic machine gun and grenade, how to make tear gas and knock-out drops, and a guide
on sniper weapons . . . During the search of Karabegovic’s home, police found a small piece of paper hidden in
the back of a picture frame with the words “Nitric acid 2 gal” and “Amoniem nitret 1.5t”, as well as handwritten
notes on sniper tactics, two imitation handguns, large hunting knives, a laptop computer and two USB devices.
Nitric acid and ammonium nitrate are both precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of explosives.” For more
on the circumstances surrounding Karabegović’s arrest, see Mark Russell, “Terror Accused had bomb-making
formula, court hears,” The Age (Victoria), 6 December 2012, at http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/terror-accused-had-bombmaking-formula-court-hears-20121206-2ax8s.html, accessed on 19 June 2014 at 8:26am EST. During the course of its
investigation into the Mehičević-Karabegović group, Austrialian police recorded the latter discussing preparations
for jihad, plans to poison water supplies, and making bombs to kill Australian non-Muslims. See Shannon Deery,
“Melbourne Man Accused of Terrorism-Related Charges, Including How to Make a Bomb to Spark a Bushfire,
Court Hears,” The Herald Sun, 8 April 2013, at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/south-east/melbourne-manin-court-accused-of-terrorism-related-charges-including-how-to-make-a-bomb-to-spark-a-bushfire/story-fngnvmhm-1226614962839, accessed on 19 June 2014 at 8:33am EST. Karabegović was also recorded discussing his
plans to go to Bosnia for training. See “Adnan Karabegović htio na obuku u BiH?”, Dnevni Avaz (Sarajevo), 8
April 2013, at http://www.avaz.ba/vijesti/iz-minute-u-minutu/adnan-karabegovic-htio-na-obuku-u-bih, accessed on
19 June 2014 at 8:49pm EST. In September 2014, Numan Haider, an Afghan émigré in Australia who had attended
lectures at Melbourne’s Al Furqan Mosque (run by Harun Mehičević), was killed after stabbing two police officers. See Emily Crane, “Teen Terrorist Suspect Shot Dead by Police Once Belonged to a Radical Muslim Group
Targeted by Police in 2012,” The Daily Mail (UK), 24 September 2014, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2767515/Teen-terrorist-suspect-shot-dead-police-belonged-radical-Muslim-group-targeted-terrorism-raids-2012.
html, accessed on 29 September 2014 at 6:02am EST.
398.See Nebi Qena, “Kosovo Police Arrest Six Terror Suspects,” Associated Press (Dateline Priština), 12 November
2013, at http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/kosovo-police-arrest-terror-suspects-20862708, accessed
on 13 November 2013 at 8:48 am EST; Linda Karadaku, “Kosovo Moves Against Islamic Extremists,” The
Southeast European Times, 13 November 2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/
setimes/features/2013/11/13/feature-01, accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:41pm EST; and Linda Karadaku,
“Facing a Threat, Kosovo Seeks More Information About Terrorist Group,” The Southeast European Times, 14
November 2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/11/14/
feature-02, accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:45pm EST; “Xhemati i Xhihadit” kërcënon me sulme Policinë e
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Kosovës” Koha Ditore (Priština), 12 November 2013, at http://www.koha.net/?page=1,13,165321, accessed on
13 November 2013 at 8:59am EST. A Bosnian translation of the group’s communiqué was released on the Put
Vjernika website; see “Džemat Džihada prijeti napadima Policiji Kosova,” at http://www.putvjernika.com/balkan/
dzemat-dzihada-prijeti-napadima-policiji-kosova.html, accessed on 13 November 2013 at 9:02am EST.
399.See Besar Likmeta, “Turkey Arrests Albanians after ‘Terror’ Attack,” BalkanInsight, 21 March 2014, at http://
www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/three-albanians-arrested-in-turkey-terror-attack, accessed on 21 March 2014 at
10:03am EST. The attack (which killed three people, including a police officer, a soldier, and a truck driver) involved two Albanian nationals and one from Kosovo. Initial reports suggest the individuals involved were Syrian
jihad veterans.
400.See “Kosovar Blerim iz Ferizaja (Uroševac) izveo samoubilački bombaški napad na iračku vojsku,” Saff (Sarajevo), 27 March 2014, at http://www.saff.ba/regija/1342-kosovar-blerim-iz-ferizaja-urosevac-izveo-samoubilacki-bombaski-napad-na-iracku-vojsku, accessed on 8 April 2014 at 12:07pm EST; “Sfarqa apelon kundër përfshirjes në konflikte, pas sulmit vetëvrasës së kosovarit,” Koha Ditore (Priština), 1 April 2014, at http://www.koha.
net/?id=27&l=4916, accessed on 8 April 2014 at 12:13pm EST; Petrit Collaku and Arijeta Lajka, “Iraq Bomber’s
Deeds Shake Kosovo Town,” BalkanInsight, 9 April 2014, at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/iraq-bomber-s-deeds-shake-kosovo-town, accessed on 9 April 2014 at 1:40pm EST.
401.On 7 August 2014, Bosnian extremist Emrah Fojnica was killed in a suicide-terrorism attack in Baghdad which
killed twenty-four people, including 11 women and six children. See Hajrudin Somun, “Balkan Jihadists Part of a
Global Menace,” Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 4 October 2014, at http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_balkan-jihadists-part-of-a-global-menace_360616.html, accessed on 6 October 2014 at 1:23pm EST.
402.As cited by Ahmetasevic, “Emissaries of Militant Islam Make Headway in Bosnia,“ op. cit.
403.See Ikanović’s statements in “Selefije u ‘svetom ratu’: eksluzivna ispovijest bh. džihad ratnika u Siriji,” op. cit.
404.See the statements by “Nermina” (pseudonym), a former Bosnian Wahhabi who left the movement, as quoted by
Ahmetasevic, “Emissaries of Militant Islam Make Headway in Bosnia,” op. cit.
405.See Xharra, “Kosovo: Radikaler Islam als ‘tickende bombe’,” op. cit., and Xharra, “Fissures in the Faith: Rise of
Conservative Islamists Alarms Kosovans,” op. cit.
406.See Stephen Schwartz, “Kosovo Radical Islamists In New Political Offensive,” t, 13 February 2013, at http://
www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kosovo-radical-islamists-new-political-offensive_701196.html?page=1, accessed
on 10 March 2013 at 11:30am EST.
407.See the comments by Krenar Gashi of the Institute for Development Policy in Priština in “Fear of Jihadis in Balkans Lacks Some Perspective,” Monitor Global Outlook, 25 November 2013, at http://monitorglobaloutlook.com/
news-story/fear-of-jihadis-in-balkans-lacks-some-perspective/, accessed on 30 June 2014 at 2:34pm EST.
408.“Vehabija sve više i u Makedoniji,” Nezavisne Novine (Banja Luka), 4 August 2010 at http://www.nezavisne.com/
novosti/ex-yu/Vehabija-sve-vise-i-u-Makedoniji-65294.html, accessed on 23 April 2013 at 11:46am EST.
409.See Misko Taleski, “Law Enforcement Re-examines Islamic Groups in the Balkans,” The Southeast European Times,
6 May 2013, at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/05/06/feature-02, accessed on 23 November 2013 at 6:36pm EST.
410.State Department cable entitled “Radical Islam in Montenegro,” op. cit., ftn. 87.
411.See Serbia’s Sandzak: Still Forgotten (Belgrade/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 8 April 2005), 24.
412.See The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics & Society, op. cit.
413.The World Factbook lists “Muslims” and the Sufi order of “Bektashis” as separate categories. For simplicity’s sake
they are aggregated in this calculation.
414.The World Factbook does not provide a breakdown of the religious demographics in Kosovo, so percentages are
taken from a Wikipedia article entitled “Demographics of Kosovo,” which cites information based on official census
data in Kosovo. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Kosovo
415.The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics & Society, op. cit., Q89, 216.
416.Ibid., Q92c, 220.
417.Ibid., Q92d, 221.
418.Ibid., Q92b, 219.
419.See Verfassungsschutzberiicht 2014 (Wien: Bundesamt fűr Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung, 2014), 36.
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JTF-GTMO Detainee Assessments (chronological order, by reference name)
-----“Abu Zubaydah.” Internment Serial Number (ISN) US9GZ-010016DP (S).
Date: 11 November 2008
----- “Tariq Mahmud Ahmad.” ISN US9EG-000535DP. Date: 30 September 2008
-----“Mustafa Ait Idr.” ISN US4AG-010004DP. Date: 30 June 2008.
-----“Ahmed Zeid Salem Zohair.” ISN US9SA—000669DP (S), 12 May 2008.
-----“Muhammad Ibn Arfad Shahin.” ISN US9TS-000168DP (S). Date: 4 November 2007.
----- “Abdullah Almatrafi.” ISN US9SA—0000005DP(S). Date: 25 October 2007.
-----“Abdu Ali Sharqawi.” ISN PK9YM-0001457DP. Date: 7 July 2008.
----- “Faha Sultan.” ISN US9SA-000130DP. Date: 21 April 2007.
-----“Khalid Shaikh Muhammed.” ISN US9KU-010024DP (S). Date: 8 December 2006
-----“Ramzi Abdullah Mohammed Bin al-Shihb.” ISN US9YM-010013DP (S). Date: 8 December 2006.
-----“Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammad Abdah al-Nashiri.” ISN US9SA-010015DP. Date:
8 December 2006.
----- “Jum’a Muhammad Abd al-Latif al-Dosari.” ISN US9BA-000261DP. Date: 28 July 2006
-----“Maji Afas Rahfaz Al-Shimri.” ISN US9SA000181DP. Date: 25 July 2005.
U.S. State Department Diplomatic Cables (in chronological order)
“Bosnia: BiH Federation Police Search Benevolence International.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No.
00934. Date: March 2002
“Bosnia: Terrorist Suspects will be Indicted at State Court.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 000732.
Date: 6 April 2006.
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“Bosnia: Wahhabism Threatens Traditional Bosnian Islam.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 000650.
Date: 23 March 2007.
“Bosnia: Sadovic Politicizes Ministry of Security.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 001071. Date:
17 May 2007.
“Macedonia: Macedonian Islamic Leaders on Wahhabism, Denationalization, and Fiscal Challenges.”
Embassy Skopje: Cable No. 000412. Date: 23 May 2007.
“Macedonia: A/S O’Brien Visit Highlights Terrorism Financing Issues.” Embassy Skopje: Cable
No. 000695. Date: 22 August 2007.
“Macedonia: Identifying ‘Credible Voices’ in Muslim Communities that Reject Violence.” Embassy
Skopje: Cable No. 000739. Date: 11 September 2007.
“Bosnia: YouTube, former Bosnian commander Delic, and the Mujahedeen.” Embassy Sarajevo:
Cable No. 001990. Date: 19 September 2007.
“Macedonia: Leadership Crisis in Islamic Community of Macedonia Quiets at Start of Ramadan.”
Embassy Skopje: Cable No. 000559. Date: 4 September 2008.
“Bosnia: Gaza Reaction Reveals Ugly Side.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 000040. Date: 12
January 2009.
“Bosnia: Reis’ing Toward Trouble.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 000226. Date: 24 February 2009.
“Bosnia: Reis Ceric Calls for ‘National Bosniak State.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 000507.
Date: 21 April 2009.
“Montenegro: Radical Islam in Montenegro.” Embassy Podgorica: Cable No. 00000171. Date: 10
July 2009.
“Bosnia: High-Profile Prisoner Disappears.” Embassy Sarajevo: Cable No. 000946. Date: 3 August 2009.
Documentaries/Recorded Sermons/Videos/YouTube Spots
Bosanski Lonac (“The Bosnian Kettle”). Belgrade: TV B92, 2009. Producer: Petar Ilić Ćiril. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAzcRjXGVWw
Bosnić, Bilal. Obračanje povodom vijesti o pogibiji mudzahide Usame Bin Ladena (“An Address
on the Occasion of the News of the Death of the Mudzhaid Osama Bin Laden”). Audiofile available at http://www.spasenaskupina.com/download/viewdownload/6-bilal-bosnic/20-bilal-bosnic-obracanje-povodom-vijesti-o-pogibiji-mudzahida-usame-bin-ladena
Kerameti Bosanskog Đzihada (“Miracles of the Bosnian Jihad”). Sarajevo: Studio FotoHile, 2014.
Producer: Čavčić, Hifzija. Narrated by Nezim Halilović-Muderis. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wumhr0RrzNw
Odred El-Mužahedin Bosna (Production: Unknown). Available at http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=kngioq0TK0I
Šejh Nusret Imamović i Bilal Bosnić—Lukavac (Video of a 2011 public seminar in Tuzla). Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPfn8PR3DCE
Teror vehabija u srednjoj Bosni (“The Terror of the Wahhabis in Central Bosnia”). Sarajevo:
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FTV 60 minuta episode, aired on 14 February 2009. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=s1XRXcCupYo
The Martyrs of Bosnia (The Jihad in Bosnia, 1992-1995). London: Azzam Productions, 2000.
Available at: http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f49/jihad-in-the-balkans-49119/
Sarajevo Ricochet. Oslo: Fenris Film, 2010. Directed by Ola Flyum and David Hebditch.
Treći Pohod (“The Third March”). Zagreb, Interfilm, 2010-2011. Producer: Višnja Starešina.
Vehabije (“Wahhabis”). Radio-Televizija Crne Gore: Emisija Pečat (date unspecified, but appears
to be November 2011). Reporter: Nataša Baranin. Author: Tanja Šuković. Available at http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw4qw9BSG8g
Vo Centar: Mudzahedini na Balknot. Skopje: Produkcija Eftov, 2013. Narrated by Vasko Eftov.
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Forthcoming SEERECON Special Reports
• The Energy Sector in Southeastern Europe (scheduled publication date June 2015)
• Russian Policy in Southeastern Europe, SEERECON Security and Intelligence Series Special
Report No. 2 (scheduled publication date December 2015)
• The Airline Industry in Southeastern Europe: Problems and Potentials (publication date June 2016)
• The Future of NATO in Southeastern Europe, SEERECON Security and Intelligence Series
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