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Assoc. Prof. Vladislav B. Sotirovic, Ph.D.
There are many American journalists and political analysts
who severely criticizing U.S. policy in the Balkans during the last 15 years
because the Pentagon backed Muslim radical extremists in Bosnia, Kosovo and
Macedonia; the radicals who allowed the creation of the strong Osama bin
Laden’s “Al Queda” Islamic extremist network in the Balkans. Such U.S. foreign
policy in the Balkans decreased the real chances for any comprehensive struggle
to combat international terrorism.
The critique is put on the fact that from 1992 (the
beginning of the Bosnian civil war) to 1999 (end of Kosovo crises) Osama bin
Laden and Pentagon supported the same Islamic extremists in Bosnia, Kosovo,
Albania and Western Macedonia (Bosnian government, Kosovo Liberation Army,
Albanian government and Liberation National Army of Albanians in Macedonia).
The result of such policy is that the Balkans became one of the strongest “Al
Queda”’s stronghold in the World – in fact one of the most important centers
where from Osama bin Laden is planning the terrorist actions against the West.
Undoubtedly, terrorist Islamic extremist organization “Al
Queda” has been expanding its own network of operatives in the Muslim
controlled Balkan territories in the last decade. This fact suggests to Western
media to conclude that Pentagon policy in the Balkans finally failed because in
Bosnia, Kosovo,
Albania and Western
Macedonia there is a big danger that Osama bin Laden and his like-minded
Islamic fanatics already fomenting Iran’s Khomeini-style Islamic
revolution. They, moreover, have a strong financial support to organize small
groups of Islamic radicals intent on provoking general instability or inciting
terror actions not only in the region but in the U.S.
and West Europe as well.
In the last decade the Osama bin Laden’s “Al Queda” Islamic
terrorist organization forging strong ties with indigenous Muslim activists,
such as the Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović and radical military groups as
Kosovo Liberation Army and its brench in West Macedonia.
According to American Gordon N. Bardos, assistant director
of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, the U.S. provided significant
financial, military (in the form of arms, training, and intelligence) and
political support to the Islamic army forces commanded by Bosnian president
Alija Izetbegović. In 1992 the U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on
Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare report stated that this Muslim Bosnian
wartime leader was best known for his activities as an Islamic radical
dissident (who signed the “Islamic Declaration” in 1970 according to it “there
is no peace or co-existence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and
political institutions”) and was jailed twice in former Yugoslavia for his
Islamic radicalism, links with other Islamic militant movements, such as those
affiliated with the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. During the Bosnian civil war
(1992-1995) Izetbegović’s government invited radical Muslim fighters
(“mujahedins”) from Afghanistan,
Algeria, Egypt, Iran
and Jordan
to fight against Croats and Serbs. These radical Islamic fighters, among them
there were and members of “Al Queda”, were organized within the “7th Muslim
Brigade” (of Bosnian Army) that numbered some 7,000 soldiers. In the course of
the ware this “mujahedin”’s Bosnian army fought in the central Bosnia and became accused by the International
War Crime Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague of some of the most extreme war
crimes committed by Izetbegović’s military forces. Today is well known that
Osama bin Laden was the main organizers and financial sponsors of
transportation of several thousands of the radical Islamic fighters from Arabic
states to Bosnia (and later
to Kosovo and West Macedonia). According the
Yugoslav government’s sources, majority of those “mujahedins” from Bosnia after the Dayton Peace Agreement was
signed (on November 21st 1995) went to Kosovo and West Macedonia, but some
1,500 of them still are in the central Bosnia’s military training camps.
Yugoslav government stated recently that there are 3000 Islamic military
fanatic soldiers in Kosovo’s training camps and that only in American zone in
Kosovo there are 50 “Al Queda” members.
The elite Islamic extremist military unite established in Bosnia was “El Mujahid” (founded in city of Zenica in August 1993).
There is even a video tape on which Bosnian Muslim General Mahmuljin is stating
that the soldiers of bin Laden’s “Al Queda” gave 28 Serb soldiers’ heads to
Alija Izetbegović and 28 Serb soldiers heads sent as a gift to Iran. The same
video tape, on which is shown how “Al Queda” soldiers are killing Serb
prisoners of war and how Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović is saluting the
“mujahedin”’s soldiers, can be taken from any bigger video tape shop in central
Bosnia.
Osama bin Laden was a prominent supporter of the
Izetbegović’s regime, and, according to the Bosnian writer Senad Pećanin,
Bosnian Muslim government had provided in 1993 passports of Republic of Bosnia
and Hercegovina to bin Laden and several of his associates. German journalists,
Erich Follath and Günther Latsch (in Der Spiegel, September 15th, 2001) claimed
that Bin Laden visited Sarajevo (capital of Bosnia) in 1993
and showed his Bosnian passport to the foreign reporters. Radio Free Europe (on
September 22nd, 1999) gave information that Bosnian government was issuing
Bosnian passports to the members of “Al Queda” as late as 1997. American
Central Intelligence Agency became informed that Turkish secret police arrested
one Laden’s associate in 1999 who had traveled with Bosnian passport on the
charge for terrorist activities (according Agence France-Press he was one of
the most important bin Laden’s aide) and that Ahmet Ressemi, a member of “Al
Queda” was arrested with Bosnian passport as well on December 14th, 1999 on the
U.S.-Canadian border in a car carrying nitroglycerin and other bomb-making
materials (A. Ressemi became as well accused for preparation of the explosion
on the Los Angeles International Airport in 1996. The information that bin
Laden build strong network of his terrorist organization in central Bosnia was signal for the NATO troops in Bosnia to occupy one of the several terrorist
camps in this country which was located in vicinity of the city of Fojnica. New York Times
reported on June 26th, 1997 that some of the Islamic radical terrorists
arrested for the 1996 attack on the Khober Towers building in the capital of
Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) when 19 U.S. military personnel were killed, belonged to
the “Al Queda” organization fighting in Bosnia on the side of Izetbegović’s
military forces (green berets). Finally, New York Magazine on February 6th,
2000 uncovered three plots by “Al Queda” branch of Bosnian Islamic extremists
to attack in 1999 several civil targets in Western Europe.
Bin Laden continued to spread his organizational network in Bosnia what compelled UN (NATO) peace keeping
troops in this region to force local Bosnian police forces to arrest 3 Laden’s
associates in July 2001 in Sarajevo.
However, regardless that after the attacks on September 11th, 2001 on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon dozen of “Al Queda” and other Islamic militant
terrorist have been arrested in Bosnia by NATO troops, the members of bin
Laden’s secret terrorist organization still consider Bosnia as a safe territory
for their activities. This is confirmed by Bosnian minister of interior
affairs, Muhamed Bešić, who stated that around 70 members of “Al Queda”
organization were attempting to come from Afghanistan to Bosnia after U.S.
destroyed the main bin Laden’s refuge in military air-strike campaign after the
September 11th, 2001.
However, there are three factors that limiting the threat
posed by bin Laden and other Islamic extremists in Bosnia: 1) Bosnian Muslim
population is secular, at least in comparison to Muslim populations in some
Arab countries, and for that bin Laden’s extremist Islam is of little
attraction; 2) the existence of an active oriented civil society among the
native Muslim inhabitants; and 3) the presence of the NATO troops in
Bosnia.
© 2006 Vladislav B. Sotirovic. All rights reserved
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