Europe’s bridge to terrorism

Imagine a land of Wahhabi mosques, radical imams, Islamist charities and former Mujahedeen fighters. You could be mistaken for thinking of Saudi Arabia or another country on the Arabian Peninsula or perhaps even Pakistan or Afghanistan. However, the land in question on this occasion is situated in Europe with a Muslim population slowly becoming radicalised under the noses of the European Union and the United States government.

The common perception in many Western countries is that Bosnia is a secular and tolerant country whose politicians and people identify themselves with Western principles of democracy. That notion, created and perpetuated by politicians, media outlets and PR firms principally in the US to justify the support that Washington gave to the Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian civil-war, is nothing but a façade.

Today, Islamic extremists, through their presence in Bosnia, have a strategically important base from which to plan and carry out terrorist attacks in Europe and beyond. The fact that Bosnia has become a base for Islamism should not only be a wake-up call for the West but it should also serve as a chilling reminder as to what can happen when governments, ignorant of a region and its history, use proxies in war to achieve objectives.

The civil-war which engulfed Bosnia from 1992-1995 was ignited as a result of the US encouraging and then recognising Bosnian independence. American policy-makers viewed the prospect of an independent Bosnia as yielding geopolitical benefits for US global power. Supporting the emergence of such a country would also allow Washington to counter any future Russian influence in the region-Russia is the traditional ally of the Serbs.

Bosnia’s Serb community, which constituted a third of the region's population at the outbreak of the conflict, having first settled on these lands in the seventh century, was quickly portrayed by American PR firms working on behalf of the Bosnian Muslim government, such as Ruder Finn, as an invading army of genocidal maniacs. That enabled President Bill Clinton to justify his administration’s support for the Bosnian Muslims to the US public.

Commenting on the Western media's portrayal of the war in Bosnia, Lewis MacKenzie, the former UN protection force general in former Yugoslavia and commander of the Sarajevo sector, said: “Those of us who served as UN commanders in Bosnia realised the majority of the media reports were biased, to say the least.”

What followed during the course of the Bosnian war laid the foundation for what Bosnia has become today: a base for international Islamic terrorists.

The US unofficially permitted the arrival into Bosnia of thousands of Mujahedeen fighters from the Middle East and Afghanistan-who had been invited by the Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic. These Islamic fighters brought with them a hatred of non-Muslims, a loathing of the West and, naturally, a desire to see the annihilation of Jews. Many were also followers of Wahhabism-a puritanical and extremist form of Islam-which is the official religious ideology of Saudi Arabia.

Washington also turned a blind eye to arms shipments-which broke the UN arms embargo on Bosnia-and the deployment of Islamic fighters from Iran to Bosnia, specifically to Tuzla.

Following the end of the Bosnian war, many of the Mujahedeen fighters remained in Bosnia-contravening the Dayton Peace Accord-and blended into Bosnian Muslim society. Some were given passports by Sarajevo, including, allegedly, Osama bin Laden, who was seen in Sarajevo by a Der Spiegel correspondent in 1994.

Saudi influence is today very noticeable in Bosnia. Wahhabi mosques, financed by Riyadh, can be found across the Muslim part of Bosnia. The largest is the King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo, a magnet for radical Muslims who listen to violently anti-Semitic sermons from its chief imam, Nezim Halilovic. Furthermore, according to a survey, over 3 per cent of Bosnian Muslims today are adherents of Wahhabism while 10 per cent express sympathy to the creed.

Links between Saudi Arabia and terrorism in Bosnia have been highlighted by Professor John R. Schindler, of the US Naval War College, who wrote that the CIA concluded that one-third of Saudi charities working in Bosnia, including the International Islamic Relief Organisation, had “facilitated the activities of Islamic groups that engage in terrorism.”

Al-Qaida’s links to Bosnia are today clear; the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, fought in Bosnia as well Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the 9/11 hijackers.

Bosnia’s connection to Islamic extremism is an enormous embarrassment to Washington and Brussels. Nonetheless, both must now afford serious attention to this part of Europe. There is little point in fighting (justifiably) against terrorism in Afghanistan while at the same time neglecting a region in Europe itself which has become a fifth column for Islamism.

As the professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo, Resid Hafizovic, has said: Wahhabism constitutes a “potentially deadly virus” for Bosnia.