The Balkan Islamic Jihad: A Pan-European calamity

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The Balkan Islamic Jihad: A Pan-European calamity
By Ioannis Michaletos
After the 9/11, a worldwide “War on terror” begun in order to disband and neutralize Islamic terrorist networks across the globe. The main focus of the largest anti-terrorist campaign in history is focused in the Middle East area, as well as in Afghanistan. The Balkan Peninsula is the European area where this campaign has also taken place, with numerous arrests and a continuous effort into riding the fundamentalist out of the area. The question arising though, is how did the extremists gain a foothold in South Eastern Europe in the first place, and what was the reaction of the international community over the previous years.
Ethnic Bosnian Muslim commander talks about Jihadist determination to kill "enemies of Allah" just before the attack on Pocjelovo. "It is a Jihad... and with even greater spark to kill Allah's enemies because today they are strong and pronounced as they have never been before." View Video
The presence of Islam in the Balkans dates back in the 13th century.
In order to create the much needed mercenary armies, against the then archenemy, the Francs, Byzantine Emperors allowed Muslim Turks into modern day Bulgaria. They were used mainly as cavalry forces due to their excellent techniques in that kind of war. Over the coming decades the antagonism between the Francs and the Vatican from one side and the Byzantium from the other, led to the final conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Gradually virtually the whole of the Balkans came under Muslim dominance and were included in the Dar al Islam territory stretching from the Hindu river and up to Gibraltar.
In Bosnia in particular the sect of Vogomils –Eastern Orthodox sect-, converted to Islam for a variety of societal and spiritual reasons. Since the Vogomils were the affluent class of the central Balkans they soon became the ruling class over millions of Christians of mostly Slavic descent.
In Albania the Islamic takeover had a dramatic effect and in a matter of 150 years 2/3rds of the population converted from the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholicism into Islam. The main reason for such a large proselytism in Albania had been the traditional adherence towards the stronger ruler that the mountainous Albanians have showed since their early history. During the Roman Empire times, the Albanians served as elite corps in the Armies of the Emperors Empires –i.e. Diocletian was of Albanian descent- and tended to absorb the cultural and religious norms of their regional superintendents. The same was the case in the more or less Greek dominated Byzantium. As soon as the “Eastern Roman Empire” waned in favor of the Western one; there was a mass conversion to Catholicism in the early 13th century. The historical collective path of the Albanian people can be compared with that of the mountainous Swiss that have eloquently absorbed influences and norms by the much larger and influential neighbors (Germany, France, and Italy).
It is against this historical background that the Islamic fundamentalist drama in the Balkans evolved in the 1990s.
So, the outbreak of the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 presented an unparalleled opportunity for the international Mujaheedin to storm Europe, establish safe havens in the area and thus initiate re-conquest of regions they previously ruled. The leader of Bosnia, Alia Izebegovic was eager to obtain as much assistance as possible and didn’t hesitate in providing the necessary framework by which the Islamic ties were forged. In the same year, a variety of Islamic mercenaries flocked into the Balkans in order to support the “Holy cause”, meaning the establishment of the first Islamic state in Europe. The end of the war in 1995 saw quite a few of those mujahedin, acquiring Bosnian citizenship and establishing the first Islamic community in the village of Bocinja Donja.
Western tolerance of Islamic radicals, however, was one of the gravest mistakes of modern times. Articles on Serbianna.com and in other information sources point to a massive handout of Bosnian passports to hundreds of potentially dangerous individuals of Middle Eastern descent. On top of that, a well organized criminal network has already been established in Sarajevo that in a large extent facilitates illegal immigration from Asia to Europe. That activity is coupled with the narcotics trade that is being supplemented by the infamous “Balkan Drug route”. It is illuminating to note that the areas from where this route is passing are under Muslim influence mostly.
Albanian factor
Albania was under the Communist rule during the Cold War, the most isolated country in Europe. The break of the Soviet Empire unleashed forces that were kept dormant in the society for decades, and resulted to some very interesting developments. In 1992 Albania becomes a member of the Islamic Conference, an international Islamic organization. The same year as well the government of Sali Berisha, currently also a Prime Minister, signed a military agreement with Turkey, thus enacting a series of discussions in the neighboring states, around the possibility of an Islamic arch from Istanbul to Sarajevo.
One of the main reasons the Albanian officials were eager to form strong ties with the Muslim world was the hope that large investments from the Gulf would ensure the uplifting of the decaying Albanian economy. Therefore the religious sentiment of the majority of Albanians, mostly in the North, was overplayed in order to gain capital from the Islamic world. Unfortunately no serious investment initiatives were undertaken; instead the Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, found another state to expand their illegal activities. Many different and respectable sources have indicated two visits by Bin Laden in Tirana that aimed into creating an Islamic platform for the country and the construction of terrorist networks within the territory.
An Albanian called Naseroudin Albani played an instrumental role in spreading extremist Islamic values into the Albanian society. He was a fugitive from Albania since 1963 and resided in Amman-Jordan. Sources from Albania point out that Albani organized radical Sunni sects back in the 70’s in the Middle East that became the nucleus of the modern day Mujahedin. Another Albanian, the then head of the Albania’s Secret service, SHIK, called Bashkim Gazidente assisted into implementing radical Islamic agenda in Albanian domestic policies. During the 1997 Albanian riots Gazidente fled from Albania and he is said to be an instrumental part in global Islamic networks. He presumably lives in a Middle Eastern country.
The Al Qaeda factor in Albania was consolidated by the creation of the Arabic-Albanian bank, in which Bin Laden allegedly invested the sum of 11.4 million USD. This financial institution acted as a front cover for the transfer of capital for Islamic activities within the country. Just before Berisha’s political overturn in 1997, another Islamic institution called “El Farouk”, acted as a recruitment agency for young Albanians, under the pretext of a charity. One of the most dramatic indicators of the degree of Islamic presence in Albania is the militant Islamic training camp just outside Tirana, the same camp on which Berisha relied in his unsuccessful 1998 coup of his rival Fatos Nano.
The Nairobi and Tanzania bombings of 1998 shocked the US administration into taking some action, for the first time, do dismantle terrorists networks. Soon, the pressure fell on Albania and in the October of the same month individuals of Middle Eastern origin were rounded up and deported. The head of SHIK, Fatos Clozi, admitted for the first the existence of extremists in Albania and promised the eradication of the terrorist nucleus. The 9/11 attacks proved to be a fatal blow for the radicals in Albania and the USA forces have more or less neutralize any remaining cells. The government of Albania, which is more than willing to become inducted in the Euro-Atlantic security framework, has ceased to seek Islamic assistance and the current Berisha’s administration has refaced its Islamic outlook into a modern European one.
Nevertheless, the Albanian-Islamic connection is now concentrated in Kosovo, the very same province NATO forces are stationed! There is an overwhelming variety of sources and reports that indicate a well established fundamentalist presence in that area. It is a common secret in the international community that the West kept a blind eye during the 1998-1999 Winter where hundreds of Mujahedin joined the UCK forces and helped it expand. At that period the means justified the end which was the disbandment of the Russian influence in the Balkans, as the Clinton administration viewed the Milocevic one. The result was a resurge of Islamic radical networks in the region, thus eliminating the beneficial results of previous actions against it. Moreover Russia managed to regroup and it is still viewed as a great player in South Eastern Europe.
The newly independent Montenegro nowadays faces a long term Islamic population bomb and it is certain that should current trends continue, in 2050 half of the population would be Muslim That is not of course a prelude of terrorism action per se, but the overall turbulent Balkan history and the existence of terror networks in nearby Kosovo do not assure a tranquil political future for the newest Balkan state. The FYR Macedonia is also another terrain where the delicate balance between radicalism and Muslim secularism is taking place. Back in 2001, an Albanian uprising nearly resulted in the disintegration of the state although nowadays there is an uneasy stability. However any negative developments in Kosovo will affect directly the country which is also the epicenter of the Balkans by a geopolitical point of view.
Lastly the Sanjak area in Southern Serbia is a territory to watch, where the Wahhabi strain of Islam has gained tremendous influence in the local Muslim population. Again Kosovo as the centre of radicalism in the Balkans could play the role of the powder keg for any developments in Sanjak, against the Serbian population in the region.
The EU strategists, whoever they may be, must become aware of the complicated Balkan reality: the region is a mostly secular one, but it has the peculiarity of hosting safe havens of terrorists and organized crime related Islamists. Most of these areas are under international protection a paradox that ridicules the entire Western anti terror campaign.
Only a coordinated pan European operation would be able to eradicate this perilous condition. The bombings in Madrid and in London had a Balkan flavor in them, namely the explosives used, according to many, came from those very same Muslim pockets in the Balkans that are protected by Western armies. For the future then, Islamic radicalism in the Balkans is an X factor. What is certain though is that this factor will not be used for the benefit of the West and the only way of neutralize it is by disrupting its logistic and financial base.
The only obstacle so far for the successful inaction of a “Balkan war on terror” are the careers in various world capitals, that are related on the perception of half truths and half lies about the West’s involvement in the Yugoslav wars and the use of the Islamic X factor on them. Political ambitious, international reputations and the all pervading political correctness, hinders the right actions to be taken. A great leader once said “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”. That surely sums up the mentality of the international officials around this Balkan “X factor”.
Sources for the article – readings 1) Paper on radical Islam in the Balkans
2) An article about the complex situation of the Islamic movement in the Balkans
3) A Bulgarian appraisal of Islam in the Balkans
4) An analysis of terrorism and Islam in the Balkans
5) An article about Islam in Bosnia
6) A paper by the Jamestown Foundation on Wahhabism in the Balkans
7) An article by Christofer Deliso on terrorism in the Balkans
8) An assessment of the terrorism in the Balkans during the 90’s by the USA Naval historical center.
9) A CRS report for the USA Congress for the Islamic terrorism in the Balkans
10) Presentation of a FAS paper on Islamic extremism in the Balkans.
11) An article on Mujahedins in Bosnia by the Foreign Military Studies Office Publications,USA.
12) Al-Qaida\'s Jihad in Europe The Afghan-Bosnian Network, By Evan F.
13) An analysis on the role of Mujahedins in the Bosnia conflict by the Federation Of American Scientists
14) A paper around Islamic terrorism in the Balkans by the South Asia Analysis Group
15) An analysis of the operational modus of the Mujahedin in the Balkans
16) A report on Islamic terrorism in the Balkans by GIS
17) A critique on the USA policy in Bosnia
18) A report published by FAS on connections between Albania and Islamic terrorism
19) An article on jihad in the Balkans
20) A report on Al-Qaeda links in the Balkans by the CFR.
21) An article around Western faults regarding Islamic fundamentalism in the Balkans by the Global Research Group
22) Analysis on the presence of Al-Qaeda on the Balkans by DEBKA
23) An article on Al-Qaeda in the Balkans by the Center for Peace in the Balkans
24) A paper by the University of Maryland on Islamic terrorism in the Balkans
25) A publication of the United Nations on the connection between organized crime and terrorism in the Balkans
26) A collection of resources on the mismanagement by the West of Islam in the Balkans
27) An Associated Press report on Jihadist links in the Balkans
28) An analysis on Balkan terrorism by Balkanalysis.com
29) A variety of articles on Balkans, Islam and terrorism by the Chronicles Magazine

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Obtained from http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370031.

Al-Qaeda's Recruitment Operations in the Balkans

By Anes Alic

The recent arrest and pending trial in Bosnia of three young men believed to have been plotting terrorist attacks on Western targets in the capital of Sarajevo has sparked fears that al-Qaeda is recruiting "white Muslims" in the country. Bosnia's porous borders and weak law enforcement institutions, coupled with the presence of hundreds of Islamic fighters who arrived from Arab countries during the 1992-1995 war, make this small war-torn country an easy meeting point for al-Qaeda networks.

During the pre-trial hearing on May 3 of Bosnia's first-ever terrorism case, three men—Mirsad Bektasevic, Cesur Abulkadir and Bajro Ikanovic—pleaded not guilty to charges of plotting a terrorist attack either in Bosnia or elsewhere. Two others—Senad Husanovic and Amir Bajric—who were charged with possession of explosives and believed to be heading up the alleged network's logistics, also pleaded not guilty and were released on bail.

The five men, four of whom are teenagers, were arrested in October and December last year in the Sarajevo suburbs of Butmir and Hadzici. Bektasevic and Abdulkadir were arrested in late October in Butmir's apartment owned by Bektasevic's cousin. They also rented two apartments in Sarajevo center, an anonymous high-ranking Bosnian police source told The Jamestown Foundation. While Bektasevic is a Bosnian Muslim national with Swedish and Serbian citizenship, and Ikanovic is a Turkish national with Danish residency, the remaining suspects were all Bosnians.

On October 20, 2005, agents found some 30 kilograms of explosives and dozens of guns in raids on three apartments used by the suspects. They also said that they found a suicide vest. Yet, the most significant piece of evidence discovered was a videotape showing the two men asking God for forgiveness for the sacrifice they were about to make. Two of the suspects—Bektasevic and Abdulkadir—were wearing face masks and had videotaped themselves making bombs, the police source said.

Nevertheless, the first months of the investigation failed to turn up enough concrete evidence that the alleged network was plotting a terrorist attack in Bosnia, so the local authorities turned to Scotland Yard and the FBI for forensic assistance. FBI forensic tests on the face masks determined that they had been worn by Bektasevic and Abdulkadir, while Scotland Yard confirmed that the voice on the videotape belonged to Bektasevic.

Faced with the new evidence, the two main suspects changed their original statements where they had denied plotting terrorist attacks, saying instead that they had intended to "warn" Bosnian and Western European authorities about Muslims suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also said they were plotting to "warn" the Bosnian government to withdraw its soldiers from Iraq. Bosnia recently sent some 30 soldiers there as part of a de-mining unit, the source said. He also said the alleged network was most likely plotting an attack on the European Forces (EUFOR) base in Sarajevo, located just 100 meters from the house where the two main suspects were arrested.

The investigation, however, has extended well beyond Bosnia, indicating the possibility of a "white al-Qaeda" network operating from Western to Southeastern Europe. Bektasevic operated under the code name Maximus and kept in touch with a group of at least three men in Britain, all of whom were arrested by British police in early November. The British police have not revealed details on the arrests. Days after the Sarajevo arrests, police in Copenhagen detained seven men and one woman, most of them Danish converts to Islam, on suspicion that they were planning suicide bombings somewhere in Europe. Four of the suspects arrested in Denmark have been released due to lack of evidence against them, while the other three have been released on bail. Evidence linked those arrested in Denmark to those arrested in Sarajevo (Slobodna Bosna, April 22).

In the meantime, however, the trial in Bosnia has been postponed for at least three months while prosecutors and investigators attempt to collect more solid evidence against the five. Some experts say that the Bosnian authorities moved too quickly to arrest the five, preventing authorities from learning the intended target of the alleged terrorist plot and revealing the extent of a wider "white Muslim" network in Europe. Bosnian security agencies allegedly discussed the repercussions of making the arrests too soon, but chose to move to thwart a possible terrorist attack before it was too late (Vecernji List, April 26).

While there is largely agreement that al-Qaeda is attempting to recruit white Muslims in Bosnia, there is some disagreement on the extent of these efforts. EUFOR says that it has no evidence that Bosnia and Herzegovina or the Balkans represent a bigger terrorist threat than any other country in Europe (Fena.ba, April 26). "We cannot exclude the existence of the threat in any country and that goes for BiH as well," EUFOR Commander Gian Marco Chiarini said. "However, at this moment EUFOR has no data that would lead us to the conclusion that the threat of terrorism and terrorist attacks is larger in BiH than elsewhere" (Dnevni Avaz, April 25).

The U.S. State Department's 2005 report on terrorism, however, warned that while Bosnian authorities had been highly cooperative in the war on terrorism, Bosnia could be an attractive locale for terrorists because of its weak state comprised of semi-autonomous power centers. Additionally, while secular Bosnia is no friend to Islamic extremism, several hundred Arab mujahideen warriors who arrived in Bosnia to fight on the Bosnian Muslim side during the war are likely to be sympathetic to al-Qaeda. According to the Bosnian Foreign Ministry, it is believed that as many as 6,000 Arab volunteers arrived during the war. After the war, up to 400 of them acquired local citizenship, many of them marrying local women. They came from a variety of locations in the Middle East and North Africa, but largely from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Algeria.

Perhaps most significantly, the pending terrorism trial has ignited a fierce debate about these naturalized citizens, prompting fears of a backlash. Bosnia-Herzegovina security agencies are actively investigating individuals and groups, including Al Hussein Imad, also known as Abu Hamza, the informal leader of naturalized Bosnian citizens, who recently warned that revoking citizenship from these Arab fighters could result in protests, blockades and other forms of unrest (Radio B92, May 26).

Anonymous EUFOR sources told The Jamestown Foundation that Abu Hamza was believed to have recently formed an organization called "Ansarija" to provide legal assistance to former mujahideen threatened with deportation to their home countries. Abu Hamza told Bosnian FTV's 60 Minutes political talk show on April 18 that those being targeted for deportation could not be legally expelled as they faced charges in their countries of origin. The Syrian-born Abu Hamza is among those who are facing deportation. He arrived in Bosnia in the early 1990s as a student. Investigators say he lied on his citizenship application.

Bosnian authorities have stepped up their investigation into how hundreds of Arabs obtained Bosnian citizenship. According to a high-ranking police source speaking to The Jamestown Foundation, 104 naturalized citizens are in the process of having their citizenship revoked. Yet, the whereabouts of 64 of those being targeted remain unknown. The Bosnian government believes that these people present a potential security threat, and Western intelligence agencies agree. Western agencies are cooperating with Bosnian authorities in the terrorism investigation and pressuring local officials to locate and conduct checks on the 64 naturalized citizens who remain unaccounted for—some of whom authorities believe may have been in touch with Bektasevic and the other suspects (Nezavisne Novine, May 25).

Most of these naturalized citizens are believed to live in Sarajevo and the central Bosnian towns of Zenica, Tuzla and Travnik. Since late last year, police have conducted several raids in the mountains surrounding those towns, suspecting that militants have training camps there and caches of weapons and explosives. Thus far, however, nothing has turned up.

Without a significant amount of technical and other assistance from Western intelligence and security forces, Bosnia is ill-equipped to prevent terrorist infiltration. Recent police reforms—including one significant reform that created a state-level police agency replacing the two separate Bosniak-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska agencies—are only embryonic and untested, as is cooperation between the present three agencies.

Although Islamic extremism is not nearly as prevalent in Bosnia as it is in many Western European countries, the threat must also be measured against its security forces' counter-terrorism capabilities, which in this case are starting from ground zero. Furthermore, while secular Bosnia is far from being a sympathetic haven for Islamic extremist activities, its institutional weaknesses and its wartime history of having been "saved" in part by Arab mujahideen could make it an easy and symbolic meeting and recruitment point for a new, white al-Qaeda network.

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A younger, savvier global terror cell

Photos.comBy Anes Alic in Sarajevo for ISN Security Watch (06/07/06)


Since October last year, 40 teenagers, several of whom met each other face-to-face or via the internet, have been arrested worldwide and indicted on terror charges in a case in which prosecutors are trying to prove that all suspects were linked in a European terrorism cell.

Though none of the suspects have been connected to any previous terror attacks, prosecutors believe that the group, if indeed it is proved to be a group, was preparing suicide attacks in countries in which they lived.

Prior to their arrests, there is evidence showing that many of the suspects had made contact with each other either face to face or using the internet.

Moroccan national Younis Tsouli, a 22-year-old computer expert, was arrested in October in London. Authorities believe he is the central figure in a cyber-terrorist network that reaches from Europe to North America.

Investigators say they have found in Tsouli's computer files an internet trail linking some of the 39 other terror suspects arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Denmark, the US and Bangladesh over the past eight months.

An international investigation was launched in late 2004 when the suspects were discussing the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq and the situation of Muslims around the world in a chatroom under surveillance by the FBI and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). According to intelligence reports, the suspects were expressing radical anti-western sentiments.

Prosecutors in each country are trying to prove that the suspects belong to a widely dispersed group of radicalized Islamic militants, most of them very young, who are doing their own recruiting, indoctrination and training - a new breed of terrorists, and a new European cell that prosecutors have since dubbed the "Internet al-Qaida Network."

Prosecutors also believe the investigation into the alleged cell could shed some light on how the 2004 Madrid terrorist attack and the bombing of London's transport system last year were planned and implemented.

In both of attacks, local extremists appear to have managed their own affairs, from recruitment to arming.

From Sarajevo to Toronto
Indeed, on 24 June, FBI director Robert Mueller stated that homegrown terrorists could emerge as a greater threat than groups like al-Qaida. "We have already seen this new face of terrorism on a global scale in Madrid, in London and in Toronto. We have also witnessed this so-called self-radicalization here at home," Mueller was quoted as saying.

In a videotape confiscated during an arrest in Sarajevo, the message was clear: “These brothers are ready to attack and, God willing, they will attack the infidels who are killing our brothers and Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan. This weapon will be used against Europe, against those whose forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Forensic evidence later proved the voice on the tape to be that of Mirsad Bektasevic, a Bosnian national with Swedish citizenship who was living with a family in Bosnia at the time of his arrest.

On 19 October, anti-terrorism police in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina arrested Bektasevic and Cesur Abdulkadir, a Turk national with Danish residence, in a Sarajevo apartment that belonged to the former's cousin. This was the beginning of what is now believed to be an international investigation into a new terrorism cell stretching from Bosnia to Canada.

Some 30 kilograms of explosives, dozens of guns, a suicide bombers' vest and a videotaped last will and testament were confiscated in raids on the three apartments being rented by the suspects in Sarajevo and the surrounding suburbs.

The videotape, a key piece evidence in the case, shows the two men asking God for forgiveness for the sacrifice they were about to make. The two suspects are also shown making bombs, including one planted in a lemon and another planted in a tennis ball.

Though prosecutors have been unable to prove the alleged cell's intended target in Bosnia was, a high-ranking police source close to the investigation has told ISN Security Watch that the targets were believed to be US and British embassies in Sarajevo, or, more likely, the European Union Force (EUFOR) military base in the Sarajevo suburb of Butmir, just 100 meters from the apartment in which the first two suspects were arrested.

Bektasevic and Abdulkadir have denied plotting terrorist attacks, though they were unable to explain the weapons found in their apartment.

Weeks after the arrest, Bosnian police arrested three more people connected to Bektasevic and Abdulkadir. Two of them, indicted for possession of explosives, were later released on bail after agreeing to be key witnesses for the prosecution.

The third, Bajro Ikanovic, a former soldier of the El-Mujaheed unit, which fought against Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-1995 war, was also indicted for terrorism. Ikanovic was charged as the main supplier of explosives for Bektasevic and Abdulkadir. They all pleaded not guilty, and the trial is expected to start on 20 July.

While in Sarajevo, Bektasevic was in contact with a militant imam in Denmark named Abdul Basit, who is facing terrorism charges in Denmark, according to ISN Security Watch's Bosnian police source .

In the intercepted telephone conversation on 7 October, Bektasevic asked Basit to send him money for the goods they received - goods police believe were the explosives found during the investigation.

"Try to see if we can get more money, because I, thank God, my brother, found some really good stuff, you know," Bektasevic said during the telephone conversation.

Amir Bajric and Senad Hasanovic, charged with selling explosives and released on bail, confirmed to investigators that they had not been paid for the explosives and guns they sold to Bektasevic and Abdulkadir.

Bektasevic is also suspected of being the jihadist recruiter who used the on-line name Maximus. US media reported that Maximus communicated with other key jihadist operatives on the internet, including Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, the late al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, who was recently killed by US and Iraqi forces.

Further boosting the idea that the 40 arrests since October are connected, Bektasevic has been interrogated by half a dozen international intelligence agencies since he was arrested.

On 26 June, during Bektasevic's latest court hearing, his lawyer, Idriz Kamenica, complained that his client had been visited for long periods at a time by officials from Canada, the US, Britain, Sweden and Denmark.

A spokesman for the Bosnian Prosecutor's Office, Boris Grubesic, told local media that during the investigation into suspected terrorist activities last year the office had contacted officials from many countries.

Two days after the Sarajevo arrests, a London raid resulted in terrorism related charges against Tsouli, Waseem Mughal and Tariq al-Daour, whose trials are expected to begin in January.

Officials believe Tsouli was using one of his chat rooms to communicate with radical recruits in Toronto and Atlanta. They also believe his cyber code name was "Irhabi007" (Arabic for "Terrorist007").

According to the Bosnian indictment, Tsouli was in possession of Swedish and Bosnian telephone numbers, Bektasevic's numbers. In the London raid, police discovered both Bektasevic’s Bosnian and Swedish phone numbers.

Tsouli was not indicted for any involvement in actual terror attacks. His reputation came entirely from his alleged role as one of al-Qaida's most effective computer hackers and propagandists. He is said to have helped distribute online weapons manuals and videotapes of bombings and beheadings and taught seminars on how to operate undetected on the web and hack into vulnerable web sites.

His seized computer is alleged to contain a presentation on how to make car bombs, various bomb-making manuals, and a digital video clip of Washington monuments. According to British authorities, Tsouli was also allegedly in contact with the Toronto area group.

Soon after the Toronto arrests, British authorities moved to arrest six more locals linked to each other, including one who had recently visited Canada.

Only days later after the London and Sarajevo arrests late last year, police in Denmark arrested six teenagers believed to be linked to those arrested in Bosnia. Denmark police also arrested 21 others, relatives and friends of six arrested, but they were released soon afterwards.

Police said they raided the suspects' homes in the Copenhagen area, seizing computers, computer discs, radical literature, and mobile phones. The identities of the arrested and other details have not been revealed an the investigation is ongoing.

In March and April this year, two young Georgian Muslims, Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadeeque, were arrested and charged with materially supporting terrorism.

Sadequee was arrested on 17 April at the request of the FBI in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, where his family claims he went to get married. He was extradited to the US later that month.

Just a few months earlier, FBI agents reportedly had interviewed him after finding two suspicious compact discs in his luggage as he was flying out of the US. He told agents he had recently been to Toronto to see his aunt.

He is now charged with lying to the FBI, which says he traveled to Toronto and then Pakistan to learn how to become a terrorist.

According to US prosecutors, in March last year, Ahmed and Sadeeque, traveled to Canada to meet several men who were the target of an ongoing US government investigation.

Ahmed was taken into custody at Atlanta's Hartsfield airport upon his return from Pakistan, where the FBI claims he had gone for terrorist training. Ahmad’s family said he had visited Pakistan to attend a religious school.

According to court documents cited by western media, the men discussed attacks against oil refineries and military bases and planned to travel to Pakistan for military training at a terrorist camp.

Ahmed was arrested on charges that he videotaped the Capitol building in Washington and several Atlanta targets. US media reports said it was the same footage found on Tsouli’s computer – but those reports have not been independently confirmed.

The most recent arrests believed to be connected to the alleged new cell took place on 2 June in Canada, when 17 suspects were apprehended. A core group of six men have been charged with conspiracy to explode a series of truck bombs in the center of Toronto.

Their targets allegedly included the Toronto stock exchange and the local CSIS headquarters, and prosecutors also say plans were under way to storm the parliament building in Ottawa and to behead the prime minister, Stephen Harper, if he failed to order Canadian troops home from Afghanistan.

Members of the Toronto cell were under close surveillance since at least November 2004, when some of them were identified by Canadian agents monitoring websites sympathetic to al-Qaida.

The alleged ringleader, 21-year-old Fahim Ahmad, is said to have been in contact with other suspects in Britain, Pakistan,and the US, who had visited Toronto last year.

In June 2005, two Somali Canadians, Yasin Abdi Mohamed and Ali Mohamed Dirie, were arrested in Fort Erie, Ontario, and convicted of smuggling three handguns purchased in the US. The investigation showed they had used a car rented by Ahmad.

Following the Canada arrests, the FBI's Meuller praised the operation, saying it was the result of "high-level co-ordination, co-ordination between international law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Canada, United States, Denmark, Britain, Bosnia, Bangladesh and in other countries."


Anes Alic is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent and analyst in the Balkans.

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FYROM paper on Iraqi group reportedly setting up "Balkan Muslim army"
March 25, 2003
Text of report by Hristo Ivanovski: "Former Iraqi officers on a covert mission in FYROM?", by FYROM newspaper Dnevnik on 25 March

Some 400 officers of the Iraqi army have apparently been deployed in the countries of the Balkans to carry out attacks on US and UK facilities and diplomats. Dnevnik has learnt that it has not been ruled out that other countries that are part of the coalition against Saddam Husayn might also be targets of their interest. According to reports from the US State Department and the British Foreign Office, their embassies in Skopje were closed as they received "serious threats" of attacks. According to these sources, there is a group of six Iraqis that is preparing terrorist actions. Yesterday the US embassy resumed its regular activities, while the UK embassy is expected to reopen today after its closure on Thursday [20 March].
Yesterday the Interior Ministry neither confirmed nor denied this report of the presence of an Iraqi terrorist group in the country.

The report of the presence of such a group is still merely speculation and the Interior Ministry is unable to confirm it or deny it. The ministry has taken certain security measures and has tightened the security outside certain embassies, while it is also engaged in activities of heightened alert and monitoring, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Mirjana Kontevska said.

The police have enhanced the protection of the US and UK embassies and of some other countries' diplomatic offices. Border control and inland security have also been tightened, especially the control of foreign nationals.

Dnevnik has learnt that former officers of the Iraqi army have been operating in FYROM, Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo already for several months together with members of Al-Qa'idah, terrorists from Saudi Arabia, and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Pazdaran, which has even set up a logistics office in Skopje. Western sources have indicated that the Iraqi officers, who were once trained in the former Yugoslav Army, and Al-Qa'idah terrorists are working on a project for the formation of a "Balkan Muslim army", which has already been joined by around 20,000 fighters, veterans, and "fresh blood". Their activities in FYROM are supported by Albanians and are carried out in strict secrecy as clandestine actions, mainly under the veil of mosque activities. It is in mosques that the prospective fighters of this Muslim army, which is financed by Saudi Arabia, are recruited, primarily young boys at the age of 15 or 16. As soon as they complete their first training course, they receive wages of 500 to 700 dollars a month.

According to security sources, the Iraqi officers are responsible for military training, and the Al-Qa'idah members for terrorist activities. The sources have indicated that the young members of the "Balkan Jihad" have already joined schools for military pilots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

[Crvena zvezda]

A Balkan Base for Al Qaeda?



By Julia Gorin

FrontPageMagazine.com | March 20, 2006

The War on Terror suffered a major blow three years before it was ever announced. It happened when the people of this democracy were misled into attacking the sovereign, emerging post-Communist democracy of Yugoslavia--over rumors of genocide and ethnic cleansing that proved false. In so doing, we put the final touch on delivering the Balkans to al Qaeda.

Today we are being asked to seal that historical blunder, whose repercussions seven years later are only escalating as those we "rescued" turn their weapons against UN and NATO forces. While NATO spends most of its time rooting out terror cells in Kosovo and Bosnia—which served as the logistics bases for the London and Madrid bombings--the 2006 deadline to complete our eagerly forgotten debacle and determine the province’s final status is fast approaching. To persuade the international community that only one final status will be acceptable, our Albanian "rescuees" have been stepping up the violence, a message to the West that it has only one possible exit strategy: grant unconditional independence--without border compromises with Serbia and without protection guarantees for what’s left of the non-Albanian minorities.

If we allow this to happen, the peacekeepers will have to leave, and with them our eyes and ears in this terror haven and thruway. Still, congressional, State Department and UN sentiment seems to be tilting toward self-determination and the logic that if you’ve dug yourself into a hole, keep digging.

Here is the size of that hole so far: In November, 2001, what should have been an explosive article appeared in the European edition of the Wall St. Journal. Headlined "Al Qaeda’s Balkan Links," it read: "For the past 10 years" Ayman al-Zawahiri [bin Laden’s second in command] has operated terrorist training camps [and] weapons of mass destruction factories throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia... Though the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia, little was done to follow through….�

Nor did a December 2003 article in Britain’s Sunday Mirror register a blip: "Posing as members of the Real IRA, we" made our deal in Kosovo, a breeding ground for fanatics with al-Qaeda links. Our contact was the deputy commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army Niam Behljulji, known as Hulji-Hulji is said to supply terrorists across Europe and has been accused of massacring Serbian women and children during the war. He even posed grinning for a photograph, holding the severed head of one of his victims...Hulji said: ‘The plastics (Semtex) is the old type. No metal strips inside. It cannot be detected at airports.’�

Hulji, according to the December issue of London's Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy journal, is the man who supplied the Semtex-like explosives used in the London and Madrid attacks.

But to perpetuate the version of events we were sold from the beginning, all these connections have gone purposefully unmade by our nation’s "journalists," who were gung-ho supporters of our 1999 offensive against a historical ally and the culmination of our pro-terror policies in 1990s Yugoslavia. How many Americans know that the terrorists who carried out a spate of suicide attacks in Iraq in August 2004 were trained in Bosnia, or that al Qaeda’s top Balkans operative, al-Zawahiri’s brother Mohammed, had a high position with our terrorist KLA "allies"? And who wants to bring up what former Canadian ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bissett has--that in Bosnia we'd fought alongside at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. The American public certainly won't hear that Bosnian charities have been raided for funding terrorism or that in 1992 Bosnia issued passports to Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. We’ll never know that Bosnia today is the European "one-stop shop" for all the terrorism needs--weapons, money, shelter, documents--of Chechen and Afghani fighters passing through Europe before heading to Iraq. Or that at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, troops recovered one Albanian Kosovar’s application, reading, “I have Kosovo Liberation Army combat experience against Serb and American forces. ...I recommend operations against parks like Disney.�

Only Britain's Sky News has caught on, in December airing a segment entitled "The Hidden Army of Radical Islam," about Bosnia, where there is "growing radicalization" and a base for Al Qaeda: "In the heart of Europe, thousands of Arab fighters. Zenica [Bosnia], 1995. They come to wage holy war in support of the Bosnian Army. [Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic shown welcoming the mujahadeen.] ...They committed many atrocities; the tapes Sky News has obtained include beheadings and signs of torture. "This isn’t just about history; it's about now. Western intelligence agencies are now pressing the Bosnians to look into exactly where these people are and what they are doing, and asking have any of these men been in contact with the three young Bosnian Muslims arrested last month on terrorism charges. ...In Sarajevo now the influence of Saudi ideas can be found all over the city. ...Radical Islam is attempting to plant deep roots in the community. "The seeds for change were planted back in 1995."

We see footage of Bosnian Muslim forces destroying an Orthodox Christian church; of a Bosnian Serb being brutalized (we're spared the skull crushing that follows); and a mujahadeen persuading his Bosnian colleagues to let him kill Serb prisoners, who are soon led off and executed. Though there is ample supply of tortured-Serb footage, it doesn’t enjoy the wide circulation that the video of a Bosnian-Serb paramilitary unit killing six Bosnian Muslims got last summer. The narration continues: "There were some serious players sent to Bosnia, among them the man who planned 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed...The mujahadeen video shows their flag planted in Bosnia and speaks of spreading their jihad. ...Bosnia is a useful place to hide, plan and move. It's why some stay on." The segment opens with the sentence, "Hundreds of radical Islamic holy warriors [are] hiding in Bosnia, a decade after the end of the war." That statement underscores the West's big miscalculaton in the Balkans--that Bosnia was a self-contained war that had an end, rather than an early front in a war that was just unfolding.

A similar picture began to emerge in Kosovo, where the late Wall St. Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was uncovering that "Ethnic-Albanian militants, humanitarian organizations, NATO and the news media fed off each other to give genocide rumors credibility." The anti-Serb propaganda which misled Americans throughout the 90s and which Daniel Pearl was debunking continues to guide our perceptions and foreign policy in the Balkans today. But despite the media’s blackout on the subject of Balkans terror--including by Pearl's own Wall St. Journal--more and more Americans have been scratching their heads, wondering why we forcibly precluded the Serbs from doing in their own backyard what we’ve gone halfway around the globe to do.

Our Balkans interventions are not like our unholy alliances of the past, wherein we strategically chose the lesser of two evils (e.g. allying ourselves with mujahideen against a clear and present Soviet enemy). By 1999, our government knew that the KLA was supported by Islamic nations and bin Laden, against whom the U.S. already had issued two indictments.

The Islamists were by then a known entity, specifically as our main post-Cold War threat, and Serbia wasn't an enemy.

For the past four years, the Hague's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has been finding what multiple international forensic teams have found--that claims of Serb "atrocities" were exaggerated and often invented. It turns out we confused an attempt to create an Islamic "Greater Albania" with one to create a "Greater Serbia." Surely if the latter were Slobodan Milosevic’s goal, he would have started by ethnically cleansing the nearly 300,000 Muslims of Serbia. Though he built his career in whatever dirty ways Tito's Yugoslavia allowed, he was the least of the Balkans' villains. For most Serbs, he was not a hero until he was called upon to defend an entire nation at the Hague.

Now that Milosevic is dead, we are spared the worldwide riots that would have ensued had the tribunal mustered the courage to issue a verdict based on the evidence. And we can all sleep comfortably as the disproved charges are accepted as history.

"If you break it, you fix it." We’ve heard much of that refrain throughout our Iraq debates - including from the selfsame architects of the Kosovo offensive: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Wesley Clark. Their prescription for fixing what they broke? Bury it.

Clark warned that "a violent collision may occur by year-end" if we don’t do what the Albanians want - and this four-star general advocated doing just that. After all, "unrest" in the region shines an unwelcome spotlight on his "successful war." Clark even suggested pummeling the Serbs again if Belgrade got in the way; it’s easier than fighting his terrorist Albanian campaign donors.

So far this year we are not witnessing the Albanian pogroms against Kosovo's remaining Serbs, which marked the March madness of 2004. For these tribal and holy warriors know that Kosovo is almost theirs, as the exasperated UN mission is ready to hand the reins over to local Albanian authorities--who are of course controlled by and include the KLA.

As UN human rights observer Jiri Dienstbier notes, "If NATO and the UN can't defeat terrorism in an area the size of one-eighth of the Czech Republic, how do they expect to confront global terrorism?" Balkans author Vojin Joksimovich seconds the question: "Although the intelligence community is fully aware of the threat, political leaders are denying it and the media are silent. Given this cover-up, it's fair to ask whether we are able to prevent yet another major terrorist act." Indeed, can you fight terror with one hand while abetting it with the other?

In early 2001, German TV broadcast a report titled "It Began with a Lie," which publicized the findings of the observer force Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that no genocide had taken place in Kosovo. The revelations set off a huge public debate in Germany, a member of the NATO coalition, after the public realized their country had been party to a hoax, and they held the responsible politicians’ feet to the fire.

It’s long past time that we also set the record straight on what we "achieved" in the Balkans -- and change course. As the world closes in on the Serbs again this year, we must stop bin Laden from establishing a terror state in Europe. We know from Madrid and London that we’ll pay for it with our own blood. In fact, we already have.

[Crvena zvezda]

Serbian expert says new "terrorist group" came from Kosovo to Sandzak, Bosnia
April 28, 2004
BIH, YU
Text of report by Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA

Banja Luka, 28 April: An expert on international law and terrorism, [University of Belgrade's] Darko Trifunovic, has claimed that a new Islamist terrorist group, headed by Emir Hajzi, recently came from Kosovo-Metohija to Raska (Sandzak). Trifunovic said that parts of this group had also transferred to Bosnia-Hercegovina, to Sarajevo and Tesanj areas.
Trifunovic told SRNA that this group aimed to acquire explosive devices and portable missile systems in order to attack Sfor [NATO-led Stabilization Force] troops in Bosnia-Hercegovina and organize new terrorist attacks against targets in Great Britain, which, as he put it, was "only a matter of time, following the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq".

He was startled by the fact that [UN] High Representative in Bosnia-Hercegovina Paddy Ashdown "deals exclusively with war crime issues but not terrorism" which, as he noted, "threatens Europe, and it is a well-known fact that both of these issues fall into the category of international criminal law".

"There are substantial objections within expert circles to the slips Ashdown made in fighting terrorism in Bosnia-Hercegovina, on which a debate will be held in UN Security Council and US Congress," Trifunovic said.

He said that Al-Qa'idah cells were present in Bosnia-Hercegovina in Sarajevo, Zenica, Tuzla, Maglaj and Travnik areas, noting that the probability of controlling Bosnia-Hercegovina terrorists' activities was not high because they had managed to infiltrate power structures and the international community is incapable to deal with such terrorism.

Trifunovic was the first secretary of Bosnia-Hercegovina's mission to the UN Security Council in New York.

[Crvena zvezda]

Al- Qaeda plans to infiltrate Balkans
7 September 2006 | 14:21 | Source: B92
LJUBLJANA -- Al-Qaeda plans to establish terrorist camps in the Balkans.

US Congressional Advisor Joseph Bodanowski claims that the terrorist organization has come up with a plan entitled, “Balkans 2020”, Slovenian Finance reports. The plan includes establishment of terrorist camps in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Sandžak, from where terrorist attacks would be launched against the rest of Europe.

According to Bodanowski, at least five intelligence agencies are currently working to prevent the “Balkans 2020” plan, tracking people and arms arriving from the Arab countries, with the aim of preventing the establishment of terror groups in the Balkans.

[Crvena zvezda]

Radical Islamic group busted in Bulgaria
February 21, 2007
BG

A former mufti and three others were arrested for propagating radical Islam and inciting religious hatred and intolerance, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry said on Tuesday (February 20th). The group used two websites to promote their ideas and called for the replacement of the constitutionally established political order by a Muslim Sheria state.
After two weeks of surveillance, the arrests were made in Sofia and near the town of Blagoevgrad in southwestern Bulgaria, as part of a joint operation by the National Security Service (NSS), the special unit for fighting organised crime, and the Sofia Investigation Service (SIS).
Those arrested were linked to the Union of Bulgarian Muslims, founded in 2006 and used by the group to disguise its activities.
The leader of the group was identified as a 51-year-old Ali Kheiriddine, a former Sofia mufti. He had contacts with a Jordanian, Ahmad Mohammad Moussa, who was expelled from Bulgaria in 2000 for establishing a local branch of the Muslim Brothers, a radical Islam organisation.
Moussa headed an Islamic relief agency involved in extremist Islamic actions, said Yavor Kolev, the head of the unit for fighting organised crime, at a press conference Tuesday in Sofia.
One of the other three detainees, identified only by the initials A.D., was described by the authorities as Kheiriddine's spiritual wife. Investigators say her task was to download material from Chechen websites, translate it into Bulgarian, and then publish it on one of the two websites.
The two others arrested also were identified by their initials. The first was the administrator of one of the websites. The other woman, who recently converted to Islam, created the second website, promoting Wahhabism -- an ideology of modern terrorism and the ideological foundations of the al-Qaeda network.
According to the interior ministry, the group used the internet to propagate a radical form of jihad and urged Muslims across the globe to support the holy war by providing money, arms and manpower.
The group reportedly maintained contacts with fundamentalist organisations in Western Europe and the Arab world, receiving financing for its websites from a group in another country, Sofia's Standart newspaper quoted SIS deputy head Svetoslav Vassilev as saying on Tuesday.
The SIS has launched an investigation into the case, which could lead to further arrests.
One of the detainees was released on bail Tuesday, while the other three remain in custody for 72 hours. All four could face a prison sentence up to three years or a fine of about 300 euros.
The Interior Ministry says the NSS and the special unit fighting organised crimes are keeping a tight watch on the Bulgarian internet, to ensure it is free from material promoting terrorist ideas, inciting religious hatred or other activities aimed at disturbing ethnic peace and religious tolerance.