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.
1990s early : (HIZBALLAH & AL QAEDA STILL LINKED) Testimony in the East Africa embassy bombings trial, concluded last year (2001), lays out connections between al-Qaida and the Iranian government, an unidentified senior Iranian religious leader and Iran’s most favored terrorist group, the Hizballah, during the early 1990s. - MSNBC
1990s early and mid : (AL QAEDA & IRANIAN OFFICIALS MEET) Specifically, the transcript of the trial shows that as early as 1998 the United States was aware that on “various” occasions during the early to mid-1990s, high-ranking al-Qaida members met with Iranian officials and that bin Laden himself met with the leader of its terrorist surrogate, the Hizballah, to “cooperate against the perceived common enemy,” the United States. Among the prosecutors’ revelations at the embassy bombing trials was that Iran and Hizballah provided weapons and weapons training to al-Qaida and its ally, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and that “Osama bin Laden and other ranking members of al-Qaida, stated privately ... al-Qaida should put aside its differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including the government of Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hizballah, to cooperate” against the United States. Moreover, there was testimony that bin Laden met with Imad Mugniyeh, the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks that took more than 300 American lives in Beirut during the 1980s.- MSNBC
1992 - 1996 : (AL QAEDA'S SALIM, IRANIAN CLERIC, AL QAEDA, NATIONAL ISLAMIC FRONT OF SUDAN, IRANINA GOVERNMENT) The meetings between al-Qaida and the unidentified Iranian religious leader took place in Sudan with Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, bin Laden’s former financial manager, representing al-Qaida. They took place at “various times” between 1992 and 1996, according to prosecutors. All the meetings apparently took place in Sudan. According to U.S. prosecutors, “At various times between in or about 1992 and in or about 1996, the defendant Mamdouh Mahmud Salim met with an Iranian religious official in Khartoum as part of an overall effort to arrange a tripartite agreement between al-Qaida, the National Islamic Front of Sudan and elements of the government of Iran to work together against the United States, Israel and other Western countries.” Salim goes on trial in New York early next year, and it is expected that details of those dealings will be made public.
1994 : (BIN LADEN & IMAD MUGNIYAH MEET) The bin Laden meeting with Mugniyeh, the military chief of Hizballah, was held in 1994. The meeting apparently took place in Sudan.
1996 : (MOGADISHU TERRORIST 'SUMMIT,' HIZBALLAH, BIN LADEN) According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers.
1990s late : (AL QAEDA & TALIBAN ATTACK IRANIANS) But there is also significant evidence that al-Qaida worked with the Taliban in anti-Iran operations in the late 1990s and in at least one case, even before that.
1999 (RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IRAN AND AL QAEDA APPEAR TO DETERIORATE) Historically, there appear to have been exploratory talks and some action involving Iranian officials and al-Qaida years ago, but there also is evidence of a deterioration and outright hostility between the two sides by the end of 1999.