Ex-Bosnian officials arrested for terrorisim and espionage walk free

Ex-Bosnian officials arrested for terrorisim and espionage walk free, AFP, October1st, 2002.

SARAJEVO, Sept 30 (AFP) - Five former Bosnian Muslim officials arrested on suspicion of terrorism and espionage were released Monday but they remain under investigation, a lawyer said.

The five, arrested in May, include Bakir Alispahic, a former interior minister and former head of the Muslim-led intelligence service (AID), two other former AID officials and two senior police officers.

Alispahic's lawyer, Namik Silajdzic, told AFP all five had been released Monday by the supreme court of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat part.

Silajdzic added that they remained under investigation and that there was no legal deadline for the proceedings to end.

Court officials, who could not produce an indictment after five months of investigation, were not available for comment.

Investigators came under public pressure as Muslim civic associations requested the five to be released, claiming the accusations against them were unfounded.

The Muslim nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA) also called for their release and accused the ruling moderate alliance led by the Social democrats of reprisals against former officials.

The court ruling comes as the elections campaign in Bosnia intensifies, less than a week before the vote.

The five former Muslim officials, close to SDA, were suspected of setting up a camp that may have trained and armed terrorists.

The Pogorelica camp, near Fojnica, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Sarajevo, offered military training by Iranian secret service instructors for Bosnian Muslim students.

The NATO-led force deployed in Bosnia since the end of the 1992-95 war, raided the camp in 1996, on suspicion that it was being used as a terrorist training base.

Eight Muslim intelligence officers and three Iranian instructors were arrested during the raid and stocks of arms and booby-trapped children's toys were seized.

NATO raids 'terrorist' camp in Bosnia

February 16, 1996

Web posted at: 7 p.m. EST (2400 GMT)

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- The United States said it has "extremely disturbing reports" of the possible complicity of Bosnian government officials in what NATO forces say is a terrorist camp it raided in a Sarajevo suburb.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Friday the United States is seeking more information from the Bosnian government after receiving reports that government officials may have been involved in activities at the facility.

NATO commanders said they may have prevented terrorist attacks on NATO troops when they arrested 11 men at the home, which a NATO official described as a "terrorist training school." But the Bosnian government said it never posed a threat to IFOR.

No shots were fired in the raid and no one was hurt.

Pentagon sources said three Iranians and eight Bosnian Muslims were taken into custody. Two of the Iranians were said to hold diplomatic passports or papers.

The house is in Bosnian government territory near the town of Fojnica.

NATO said it contained an "extensive armory" of handguns, explosives and rocket-launchers. Pictures taken during the raid show ammunition and weapons stores and explosives hidden in children's toys.

Also found were diagrams of buildings in Sarajevo, and training manuals written in Farsi, according to sources.

Pentagon sources said there was "clear circumstantial evidence" the group was planning possible attacks on NATO forces.

U.S. Adm. Leighton Smith, who heads the NATO-led IFOR peace forces operation in Bosnia, said he was "very disappointed" that such a camp existed and with the activities of the men who have been taken into custody.

"I think it's an abomination ... clearly terrorist training activities," Smith said. He cited a child's toy with plastic explosives in a detonator inserted in it. He said the device he was designed to "blow a child's foot off" when stepped on.

Reacting angrily to both NATO's raid and the implications of the weapons and explosives discovery, the Bosnian government said the building housed a legitimate anti-terrorist facility, but admitted that it was run by Iranians.

Under the Dayton peace accord, all "foreign" soldiers were to have left Bosnia by January 19, and the Bosnian government had given IFOR some assurance that no more Iranian mujahadeen soldiers remained inside Bosnian territory.

Yet after the raid, one Pentagon official said, "You have to assume the Bosnian government was aware of this operation."

Pentagon sources said French forces had been keeping the house, described as a "hunting lodge," under surveillance for weeks. When the French troops were discovered by Bosnian government forces, it was decided the surveillance had been compromised, and orders were given to move in and apprehend the suspected terrorists.

The spokesman said NATO "will not tolerate any such behavior as bomb-making factories or terrorist training camps."

Pentagon officials said they don't know how many Islamic fighters from Iran and other countries are still in Bosnia, in violation of the Dayton peace agreement. One Pentagon estimate puts the number at about 100 Islamic mujahadeen, and between 100 and 200 Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

But I thought that the Shi'ites (Iran) and the Sunni (al-Qaeda) hate each other, so any cooperation was impossible. After all, that's why we KNOW al-Qaeda hasn't allied itself with Hezbollah.

In any case, al-Qaeda has a great deal of infrastructure in the Balkans and sent troops there to fight against the Serbs. These are the same people, BTW, who managed to invade Macedonia from Kosovo after the latter territory was declared a UN protectorate. Bin Laden himself briefly visited Bosnia in 1994 to inspect the status of his shadow army there while on his way to Sudan.

Additionally, there are terrorist training camps in northern Albania that are still active post-9/11 and formenting all kinds of discord in Macedonia.

However, as I have explained several times before, one of al-Qaeda's favorite strategies is to "hijack" what most people would consider legitimate struggles (like stopping Serb genocide) and then radicalize the Muslim combatants with Osama's pipe dream of a restored Caliphate spanning from Spain to Indonesia. Because al-Qaeda and Iran was about the only source of aid for the Bosnian Muslim paramilitaries, this strategy worked fairly successfully.

The Serbian actions in Bosnia simply cannot be excused, IMO. The fact that some Bosnians were (and are) al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda affiliates doesn't justify the kind of genocide-lite the Serbs were organizing. It'd be the equivalent of Israel leveling whole cities just to get one suicide bomber.

Regarding al-Qaeda connections in Croatia (and they did have an office in Zagreb under the name of a front organization that served as a logistical command center), you may want to remember that when most of this was going on most major intelligence agencies didn't have a clue who or what al-Qaeda was. Hell, bin Laden's big debut was in 1998, long after the Bosnian crisis was over. So when making accusations against the Croatians you want to remember a couple of things:

1. The US didn't know what al-Qaeda was or what it was up to until 1998. If the CIA didn't, I highly doubt the Croatians did.

2. The office in question was set up to allegedly handle legitimate business and charity activities.

3. The office has long since been closed.

4. The Croatian government in no way sanctioned al-Qaeda's activities.

BTW, isn't "Za Dom Spremni" Croat for "Ready for the Fatherland?"

But I thought that the Shi'ites (Iran) and the Sunni (al-Qaeda) hate each other, so any cooperation was impossible. After all, that's why we KNOW al-Qaeda hasn't allied itself with Hezbollah.

Then why has Shi-ite Iran helped Sunni Muslim Bosnians? In fact your entire statement above is ignorant of the facts Such a union is logical. Despite their religious incompatibility — Hezbollah, an Iranian invention, is Shiite, while bin Laden and al Qaeda are Sunni — practical coordination between the two terror outfits has gone on for years. As long ago as 1994, the Lebanese militia was already providing explosives training to members of al Qaeda and Egypt's affiliated al-Jihad group, according to the federal testimony of one bin Laden lieutenant. Bin Laden himself is also known to have had at least one meeting with Imad Mughniyeh, the shadowy head of Hezbollah's military wing who is widely known to be Iran's man in Lebanon, during the mid-1990s.

Genocide-lite. What a winning new term for Bosnian Muslim apologists whose lies about a true genocide have long been exposed as false. No Christian in the Balkans could ever live under Muslims, especially Muslims and Croats that had once killed them using SS uniforms.

Regarding al-Qaeda connections in Croatia (and they did have an office in Zagreb under the name of a front organization that served as a logistical command center

From Stars & Stripes: West feeling the fallout of efforts to aid Bosnian Muslims a decade ago

Bin Laden, who was living in Sudan at the time of the Bosnian war, is a member of the Sunni sect of Islam and had a hand in bringing the fighters into Bosnia along with funding the embargo-breaking arms pipeline, wrote bin Laden expert Peter L. Bergen in "Holy War Inc.," a book about the al-Qaida.

"Al-Qaida trained Mujahedeen to go and fight in Bosnia during the early ’90s, and bin Laden’s Services Office also maintained an office in neighboring Croatia’s capital, Zagreb."

The Mujahedeen came into Bosnia from Croatia, the colonel said. "They came into Croatia at the ports of Split and Rijeka. Those were big centers."

Along with the fighters, the arms pipeline came through Croatia and was funded by Third World Relief Agency, the Washington Post reported in a September 1996 story. The wartime Bosnian government depended on the Third World Relief Agency, which obtained and paid for weapons from Iran and other countries along with supplying fighters, the Post reported.

The following brought belly laughs from me: you may want to remember that when most of this was going on most major intelligence agencies didn't have a clue who or what al-Qaeda was. Hell, bin Laden's big debut was in 1998, long after the Bosnian crisis was over. So when making accusations against the Croatians you want to remember a couple of things:1. The US didn't know what al-Qaeda was or what it was up to until 1998. If the CIA didn't, I highly doubt the Croatians did.

Only 1998, eh? Those wacky CIA boys must have been using their home grown acid stash back then to explain that intel-hole.

Western Intel Knew bin Laden's Plan Since 1995 - German Paper

BERLIN (AFP) - Western secret services knew as far back as 1995 that suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden planned to attack civilian sites using commercial passenger planes, German newspaper Die Welt said Friday.

Quoting sources close to western intelligence services, Die Welt said that authorities did not take seriously the threat of the plan, known as Project Bojinka.

The plan was discovered in January 1995 by Philippine police who were investigating a possible attack against Pope John Paul II on a visit to Manila.

They found details of the plan in a computer seized in an apartment used by three men who were part of Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

It provided for 11 planes to be exploded simultaneously by bombs placed on board, but also in an alternative form for several planes flying to the United States to be hijacked and flown into civilian targets.

Among targets mentioned was the World Trade Center in New York, which was destroyed in the September 11 terror attacks in the United States that killed thousands.

Other targets mentioned were CIA offices in Virginia and the Sears Tower in Chicago, Die Welt said.

The plot re-surfaced during the trial in New York in 1997 of Pakistani Ramsi Youssef, the mastermind of the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Die Welt said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and CIA would have known about the plan at the latest at this time.

If those ignorant Croats and their CIA buddies did not know, they should have asked the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Following are excerpts from an interview with the Dutch publication, De Standaard on 16 October 1995 by Axel Buyse in Banja Luca: We will no longer protect Europe against Islamic terrorism. Let them go, to Europe [the Bosnian Muslims]. They look like Europeans. And they take pride in the fact that with their European appearance they are exceptionally efficient terrorists. Europe wanted an Islamic country here. Let them have it!" And "let them have it," we did! Bosnia has become al-Qaeda's and Bin Laden's corridor into Europe.

Yea, no one knew in the CIA knew that the "Bojinka" in Project Bojinka is a Serbo-Croatian word. The CIA must have too busy looking the other way while the Iranians were using Croatia's good offices to transport jihadists and weapons to the Bosnian Muslims to make a connection in 1993 and again in 1995 why an Arab terrorists with plots to blow up airplanes and the World Trade Center was using a Bosnian (i.e Serbo-Croatian) word as the code word for his plots?

Nice attempt at a white-wash, Angelus Errare.

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