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AL QAIDA-Bosnia’s Linkages to Al-Qaeda

ext of report by Bosnian edition of Croatian daily Vecernji list, on 11 December Dzevad Galijasevic - a controversial politician, chairman of the New Democratic Party in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and former mayor of the Maglaj Municipality - recently presented in Belgrade his new book, "The Era of Terrorism in Bosnia and Hercegovina". This is the final book in a trilogy of sorts that talks about the arrival of mujahidin in Bosnia-Hercegovina, exposes the organizations that support them, and details illegal as well as legal activities they are involved in. Galijasevic holds the view that Alija Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration laid...

WASHINGTON -- John Schindler believes that Al-Qaeda was shaped as a modern terrorist organization during the war in Bosnia. Schindler, author of a book on terrorism, told CNN Al-Qaeda members were invited to Bosnia by that country’s leadership, where they set up training camps operational from 1992 until 1995. He claims Osama Bin Laden exploited the war in Bosnia for his own interests, and says there was “a worrying level of support� for the Mujahedin on the part of the U.S. administration of that time. RFE reported that the book looks into the way in which the Clinton administration cooperated...

Belgrade, 18 May (AKI) - A prominent Bosnian publicist and author has accused a Muslim member of the country's three-man state presidency, Haris Silajdzic, of fostering radical Islamism and of protecting Islamist terrorists connected with Al-Qaeda. Dzevad Galijasevic, author of a trilogy "Epitaph for Bosnia" and former mayor of central Bosnian town of Maglaj, said in an interview to Belgrade weekly NIN on Friday that Bosnia wasn't just a shelter, "but a base from which terrorists are being sent to western countries." Galijasevic, himself a Muslim, said the "Islamisation" of Bosnia didn't start during Bosnia's 1992-1995 civil war, when thousands...

Bosnia: Haven for Islamic radicals? By Nicholas Wood International Herald Tribune SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2005 SARAJEVO A police raid last month on an apartment near this city's airport uncovered evidence of an imminent suicide bombing, intensifying the fears of Western security services that Bosnia is becoming a haven for Islamic radicals. The raid, which was carried out after an extensive surveillance operation by the Bosnian police and Western intelligence services, turned up an arsenal of weapons in the apartment, including suicide vests, about 30 kilograms, or 65 pounds, of exploding bullets and high explosive, and a machine pistol. Investigators said...

Belgrade, 26 August (AKI) - The al-Qaeda terror network is active in Bosnia and the wider Balkans region, but is changing tactics and primarily fighting for the hearts and minds of the local Muslim population, according to a leading Serbian terrorism expert, Darko Trifunovic, a professor at Belgrade University's civil defence faculty. Training is now being conducted in small groups in elementary schools and sports halls, in the guise of social and sports activities, according to Trifunovic. “The greatest success of al-Qaeda in Bosnia is that it has managed to radicalise the local Muslim population and has even recruited several...

Banjaluka, 23 August (AKI) - Al-Qaeda is changing tactics, but is still operating disguised training camps in Bosnia, local daily Nezavisne novine alleged on Tuesday, quoting the American Cybercast News Service (CNS). Training camps that operated during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war had been closed down, but new ones have been opened under the cover of youth centres, the paper said. The new camps were operated by mujahadeen from Islamic countries with military experience, said Ivan Colman, an American expert on terrorism quoted by the paper. “They take young people to the hills and train them for Jihad,” said Colman. “Sounds...

The role of the Islamic religious Community in the war in former Yugoslavia The peculiarity of the war in former Yugoslavia (YU hereafter) cannot be understood without considering the role of the Islamic religious group in the period prior to it. However, the very mention of Islam can produce a confusing effect, because it is a very broad notion which implies many things and allows many different interpretations. It is a well-known that Muslims ruled parts of former YU and that some people, as a consequence, declared themselves members of that "nation" but later also stated publicly they were communist...

Evan Kohlmann's book on Al-Qaeda in Bosnia will, in all likelihood, become an unspoken taboo by the journalists and the media because it renders many of them idiots, particularly the ones who have invested a vast effort in manufacturing a romantic image of Bosnian Muslims struggling for "national" independence and, perhaps intentionally, ignoring the Bosnian hospitality to the al-Qaeda seeking to establish a stronghold in Europe. With only one brief big media mention, Kohlmann's Al-Qaeda's Jihad In Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network is already showing signs, much like the Cees Wiebes' book on spies in Bosnia, that any research on al-Qaeda...

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Hercegovina (AFP) - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is actively directing terrorist cells in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia, a top US terrorism analyst told a local daily. Yossef Bodansky, director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US Congress, told the Glas Srpske daily that terrorists responsible for the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad last year were trained near the central Bosnian town of Zenica. "There is a terrorist network in Bosnia, composed of several well-trained and connected groups, which are directly or indirectly responsible to...

LINKS BETWEEN 9/11 (MUHAMAED ATTA) AND THE AL-QAEDA NETWORK IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Al-Qaida Leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Bosnian Links Emerging

US Attacks Put Spotlight on Bosnia Muslim Community By Daria Sito-SucicGORNJA MAOCA, Bosnia (Reuters) - This idyllic Bosnian village seems a world away from the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But Muslims here say outsiders treat them with increased suspicion after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.``I have never fired a bullet, and they call me a terrorist,'' said Abdulah, a bearded 27-year-old who last year moved to the northern village of Gornja Maoca with his wife and three children for a life devoted to their religion.But some local people regard him and ...

US hunts Islamic militants in Bosnia By Harry de Quetteville in Sarajevo (Filed: 26/07/2004) American military intelligence and the CIA have deployed hundreds of officers in Bosnia to track suspected Islamic militants amid concern that the country has become a refuge, recruiting ground and cash conduit for international terrorism. Almost a decade after the end of the war in the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia has become a "one-stop shop" for Islamic militants heading from terrorist battlegrounds in Chechnya and Afghanistan to Iraq, according to European intelligence officials. With five months to go before European Union peacekeepers take over from Nato troops...

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Ground-Breaking Srebrenica Guilty Plea By Emir SuljagicInstitute for War and Peace ReportingMay 2, 2003 Key suspect provides unprecedented and chilling inside account of the Bosnian Serb atrocity. In a watershed confession on May 6, former Bosnian Serb security officer Momir Nikolic pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity for his role in the 1995 killing of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica. Dressed in a dark green suit, Nikolic appeared visibly disturbed as he appeared before the tribunal. He bit his lips in agitation as he offered his plea. In exchange for his admission of guilt, the prosecution...

<p>The Treasury Department said Monday that it would decline to provide the Senate with a list of Saudi individuals and organizations the federal government has investigated for possibly funding al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.</p> <p>The action was the second in two weeks to set the White House and Congress at odds over the Saudis and federal intelligence-gathering related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.</p>

<p>The Treasury Department rejected a request from senators Tuesday and refused to release a classified list of Saudi individuals or organizations suspected of financing terrorist groups.</p> <p>A Treasury spokesman, Rob Nichols, said a department official misspoke when he told senators last week the list was unclassified, which would mean it was not restricted information.</p>

May 21, 2003, 8:45 a.m. Trails Lead to SaudisA Virginia terror probe continues. By Matthew Epstein In March 2002, Federal terrorism investigators descended upon a group of Saudi-backed executives operating out of northern Virginia. The government hauled away truckloads of files and computer hard drives from the "SAAR Network," a web of dozens of related companies with interlocking officers, directors, and corporate headquarters. The Treasury Department suspected the group was laundering money for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Now over a year after the raids, many are asking whether the Justice Department will hand down indictments or clear the...

<p>Terrorists linked to the al Qaeda network are operating in Bosnia, according to the Croatian member of the country's tripartite presidency.</p> <p>"Al Qaeda cells are active in Bosnia," President Dragan Covic said in an interview with The Washington Times. "The Bush administration needs to deal aggressively with this problem. If nothing is done about this, Islamic extremist groups could in the future destabilize the entire region."</p>