THE BALKANS: Al Qaeda Looking for Blond Recruits

strategypage.com ^ | January 20, 2004 | Q & D Headlines

[Destro]

THE BALKANS: Al Qaeda Looking for Blond Recruits

January 20, 2004: Al Qaeda continues to show up in Bosnia. A Bosnian government official issued a statement asserting that Al Qaeda is looking for young Bosniak Muslims to enlist in a so-called “white Al Qaeda.” Here’s the telling quote, as reported by western sources from a Bosnian Serb newspaper: "Reports by international intelligence services saying that future terrorists will be blue-eyed and blond indicate that Al Qaeda is recruiting in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo. This is why the authorities should prevent radical Islamists from paying young and poor men to go to battlefields and to die there." The “recruiting” is allegedly done by “non-governmental aid organizations” funded by Islamists.

January 13, 2004: Several sources are once again reporting active Al Qaeda recruitment in Bosnia. These sources run from speculation in the Bosnian press to “unofficial” statements by SFOR. The specific targets of Al Qaeda recruiters are Bosniak Muslims who have become Wahabi (the conservative form of Islam from Saudi Arabia). The Al Qaeda recruiters are identified as Islamist mujahadeen fighters who came to Bosnia for the war against Serbia, married Bosnian women, and have “stayed on” in Bosnia. One report had Bosnian recruits fighting in Chechnya. As Europeans, it is assumed Al Qaeda believes the Bosnians are better able to slip through police and transportation security checks.

[vooch]

Jones

then please contact the Carla at the ICTY for you have evidence that she needs...........despite her almost $100mm annual budget, she hasn't discovered what you have 'seen with your very own eyes'.

[Wraith]

Vooch, Mr. Bone in hand does not know what the hell he is talking about. The bone in hand man should first of all acknowledge that their were Bosnian Serbs that come from you guessed it Bosnia and then their are Serbs from Serbia and lets not forget the Serbs from the former Krajina. Hey bone man if you where in Bihac what was the main crossing that took you to Croatia from Bosnia and the name of the town where it was located? An experienced vet like yourself who somehow had the time to count so many bodies should have no problem answering this. This town that I am referring to has an interesting past. Balls in your court Mr. BONE IN HAND.

[vooch]

precisely..........Mr. Jones says he saw a list of grafetti first hand in BiH.........when in fact it is a list of grafetti lifted verbatim from Misha gellny's book

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

I was never IN Bihac. I was in Tuzla and the Drina Valley. Bihac was/is in the Brit/Canadian sector; I never went there.

I admit I have the balls in question. Serbonazis who shoot prisoners with their hands tied behind their back have none. They like their victims helpless.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

So tell me, how did Misha Whateverthehellhisnameis see 'We Hate//Love American Soldiers" in Zvornik (not to mention "Osama etc")? I know that psychic phenomena are common in Bosnia, but that would be positively prophetic.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

As Vooch covers Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer"...

"Lie la lie
"Lie la lie lie lie la lie lie la lie
"Lie la lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie...."

There are, what, about 80 Serb war criminals in jail serving sentences in the Netherlands? I'd call that money well spent. (PS. Their budget ain't no $100 mil, babycakes)

[Wraith]

Great now that you have admitted that you were not in Bihac you can continue to tell the truth by saying you were never in Srebrenica, Bosnia. If you were I'm sure you have some personal pictures to post on FR. Every vet has those. So show the photos of the dead thousands you claim to have seen. You opened the door....

[getoffmylawn]

At first this Ronly character just came across as plain rude. He obviously has some burning hatred of Serbians. But now I view him sorta like that movie "Behind Enemy Lines". I brace myself in anticipation of being pissed off, but I just end up rolling around laughing at every scene. Mel Brooks would be proud. It's so over the top, it's entertaining - just like Ronly.

Great job calling him out on the Glenny book, vooch.

[getoffmylawn]

So show the photos of the dead thousands you claim to have seen.

He's been asked to do that before. He claims he doesn't want to post "pornography" on the web. See what I mean? He's funny! :-D

[joan]

But now I view him sorta like that movie "Behind Enemy Lines".

I never saw that movie, but I did see the movie "Savior" with Dennis Quaid about the Balkans. People who've seen both say that "Behind Enemy Lines" stole footage from "Savior". They stole the scene towards the end where the Croats massacred Muslims and the one Serbian woman at the edge of the lake. They say that the HVO insignia is obvious, but "Behind Enemy Lines" presents that stolen footage as a Serb-led massacre of Muslims.

[joan]

Here's a discussion by those who've noticed the stolen scene:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120070/board/thread/5307026

by - Ljiljia :

I have watched Savior several times and Behind Enemy Lines just as many, but I noticed something that struck me. There are some moments from the bus scene at the end (when the Croat Ustashe takes Vera and the others off to kill) that are also in Behind Enemy Lines. In BEL, these appear when Owen Wilson's character is hiding in the mass grave and there's a flashback to a massacre of Muslims.

The boy that appears ever so quickly in BEL is the one who clued me in. He was simply too familiar to ignore and so was the look on his face - eerie and haunting and impossible to forget. If you watch this scene (frame by frame) in both movies, you'll this see boy and Vera along with the others on the beach.

Surprisingly, the DVD of BEL failed to mention how this footage was included in their film. I checked out the credits and I didn't notice anyone who worked on both films or anything in the Trivia section.

Does anyone else know about this?? Am I the only one who noticed?

*****

by - combatreview :

No, Ljiljia, you're not the only one - several fans of Savior have pointed this out. Like you say, it was that shot of the boy's face that really struck me and made me notice the re-use of the scenes in BEL.

Personally this irritates the hell out of me, as somebody clearly decided that the audience for Behind Enemy Lines would see any footage of mass-murderers as being of Serbs, even if they were wearing Croat insignia. I'm not saying anything about the history and the reality these films were based on, it's just that it looks kind of... well, ignorant. You wouldn't get away with a film showing Stalin's Russians in the Katyn Forest shooting Poles and expecting your audience to see them as Nazis, after all.

*****

by - StevanRolfe :

Yes it is quite an outrage, since the purpose of Savoir was to show that all sides of the war in Balkans committed bad crimes against humanity, but the usual hollywood fantasy of Behind Enemy Lines made the serbs the bad guys, and used the footage from a movie that was showing that both sides committed crimes in a movie that was clearly against the serbs. I dont know how the writers of Savior alloud it? maybe they didnt? does anyone know if they did?

[getoffmylawn]

I've seen both movies. I really liked "Savior".

I expected to HATE "Behind Enemy Lines" and I'm sure it will leave many Serbs fuming when they see it.

I dunno. Maybe I've grown a thick skin after over 10 years of "anti-serbitism" but I couldn't help but laugh my way through that mess of a movie. It helps if you imagine Owen Wilson as the same character he played in "Bottle Rocket". Ten years ago I would have probably flung my television out the window in anger.

[joan]

Did you notice the stolen scene?

[getoffmylawn]

Thanks a ton for the link, joan. I love the imdb. This is pretty interesting stuff. I'm gonna have to check out both movies side by side to see if it's the same footage.

It's one thing to print photos of dead Serbs in Newsweek and tell the world that they're Croatians killed by Serbs. Using footage of actors PLAYING the victims of actors killed by actors PLAYING Croatians and then relabeling the killers as Serbs is just surreal.

[Eva]

The “recruiting” is allegedly done by “non-governmental aid organizations” funded by Islamists.

The Ford Foundation

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Notify the media. We agree on something. Behind Enemy Lines was sheer crapulosity.

Now I'm a big fan of "No Man's Land" which I expect you ALL to hate.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Got lots of pictures, but won't post any on line. Frankly, I am not all that internet savvy when it comes to HTML and stuff like that.

Howzabout this?

There's a little gas station at Konjevic Polje, at the end of the road in the Suceska Valley to Bratunac, and beyond that, Srebrenica. I forget what brand name the gas station is, but there's a half-built Serb Orthodox church across the street on the foundation of a demolished mosque. Beyond the church is a white two story ruin (used to be a hotel or something) spraypainted SSJ ARKAN.

As you drive into Bratunac, you pass what used to be the Vuk Karadzic School, since renamed. Infamous as a concentration camp during the early days of the war, its 600 victims (local, male Muslims involved in the community, the communist party, high school teachers, soccer coaches, etc) were almost all massacred, except for one, a former junior high school teacher who is now deputy mayor of the town.

Driving south from Bratunac you pass through some open fields, down a road that passes the Battery Factory (former UN headquarters) to your left, and a huge cemetery on the right, where the victims of the Srebrenica massacre are now laid out.

I helped plan that cemetery.

Across the field from the cemetery is a soccer field that is used for mass memorial ceremonies and soemtimes as a landing pad for SFOR helicopters.

You then pass the high school on your left, which still has a large shell hole in the middle of the basketball court. The shell that made it killed about twenty high school boys during the seige. Don't worry, their fathers don't mourn their deaths any more. Their fathers were very likely killed during the fall of the city which followed about 3 months later.

Continuing past, you enter into the town where you pass a huge Serb cemetery filled with glittery marble headstones. Straight ahead you see a huge pile of uninhabitable rubble (the former Srebrenica department store). To the right, the cultural center, used for community meetings even though 90% of its windows hadn't been replaced as of 2002. The TV station there was taken down by SFOR orders in 2001.

Take a sharp left at the wrecked shopping mall, up a small hill, and you're at a small hotel which was UN/SFOR HQ for Srebrenica until it was turned into a DP waystation right before I left.

Convinced?

If not, kiss my grits.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Every vet has those. So show the photos of the dead thousands you claim to have seen. You opened the door>>

Even if I was internet savvy about posting pics, I wouldn't. I don't post war porn.

[getoffmylawn]

I actually liked "No Man's Land", although it pales in comparison to "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame".

[Wraith]

When were you in Srebrenica/Bratunac area Mr. Bones? I was in the area of Bihac i.e. the Serbian Krajina back in 1992. From what I gather you were in Serbrenica sometime after 1995?