Terrorist Training for an Islamic Bosnia: Documents detail what went on inside the terrorist camps

Documents obtained by TOL accuse former Bosniak Muslim intelligence officials of terrorism and detail what went on inside the Pogorelica terrorist training camps.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina-The Ministry of Interior of the Bosniak-Croat federation has brought criminal charges against three former police and intelligence officials for creating a clandestine terrorist operation--with the help of Iranian intelligence--that tried to strengthen Islamic influence in the country by liquidating opposition figures.

The three are former top officials of the Bosniak Muslim intelligence service, the Agency for Research and Documentation (AID).

The charges are being considered by the federation public prosecutor, who is to decide whether to order a judical investigation and issue arrest warrants. The submitted documents describe the terrorism training given to members of the now-disbanded Pogorelica camp, and the methods used to destroy the opposition. The details of the charges have not been made public yet, but TOL has obtained a copy of the documents the federation Interior Ministry handed over to the public prosecutor’s office on 11 April.

The suspects--Bakir Alispahic, the former AID director; Irfan Ljevakovic, former assistant to the AID director; and Enver Mujezinovic, former chief of Sarajevo district AID-- are suspected of involvement in terrorism, espionage, illegal possession of weapons and explosives, and falsification of documents. The charges were filed only a few days after the NATO-led peacekeeping Stabilization Force (SFOR) handed over to federation authorities documents that its predecessor, the Implementation Force (IFOR), confiscated from what has been described as an AID terrorist camp. IFOR raided and closed down the Pogorelica camp, some 50 kilometers west of Sarajevo, in early 1996.

The three suspects signed a joint public statement two days after the indictment was handed down, accusing the authorities of selling out to the West. “We don’t have any connection with terrorism. Behind our backs, new authorities are buying points in Western countries,” read the short statement.

On 15 February 1996, an American IFOR battalion raided the Pogorelica camp. The camp was named, "The Holy Warrior Irfan Ljubijankic," after the foreign minister in the (largely) Bosniak wartime administration who was killed when his helicopter was shot down while overflying a Serb-held part of Croatia in May 1995. IFOR arrested eight Bosniak intelligence officials and three officers of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), who were instructors at the camp. One of the Iranians, Mohammad Hossein Pour Salema, had a diplomatic passport and was released from custody. IFOR also confiscated a large cache of weapons and explosives, documents belonging to people undergoing training at the camp, as well as written tests that were given to the trainees. The police say that among the confiscated items was shower gel, which laboratory analysis proved to be an explosive.

At that time, the authorities claimed that their intelligence activities were aimed at gearing police officers up for the arrest of suspected war criminals who were freely walking the streets of Bosnia. Six years later, the number of war criminals arrested can be counted on one hand. But judging by the document that police submitted to the public prosecutor, it appears that the trainees were taught how to target forces and public figures who disagreed with the goal of strengthening the Islamic influence in the country.

Several exercise essays written by the students were also confiscated. They are, in fact, manifestos on how to deal with opposition figures. Damir Bilic and Amir Selimovic authored a report that said that the frightening and liquidation of opposition leaders should be an extremely precise art. “If they discover us, it could be harmful to the party in power … If it is necessary, we can threaten them by placing explosives in their headquarters … The most reliable methods are threatening them with arrest, threatening their families, and destroying their private property,” they wrote.

The students were trained in the arts of bomb-making, espionage and surveillance, breaking and entering, and martial arts. Student Adnan Dugonjic recorded the goal of his assignments in an essay. “Our job is assassinating important figures, blackmail, kidnapping, forgery of money, and the creation of ecological catastrophes in certain areas.”

At the close of their training, students were allowed to choose their own target for the final graduation assignment. Their written works detailed what they found to be the most successful methods of liquidation.

In an entry dated December 1995, student Nermin Cobasic wrote, “There is one journalist who, with his stories, is destroying the influence of the current authorities. We, as intelligence, are letting him know that we will either kill him or a member of his family.” Only 10 days after this was written, on Christmas Eve, Senad Avdic, editor of the independent weekly Slobodna Bosna, was severely beaten in downtown Sarajevo. More than once, Slobodna Bosna had reported on the Pogorelica camp, detailing the influence of Iranian intelligence on Bosnian intelligence, and exposing the illegal activities of intelligence authorities in the country.

Another student’s assignment, according to the document obtained by TOL, was to write about the liquidation or discreditation of Muhamed Filipovic, the leader of the opposition Liberal Bosniak Organization, and Bosnia’s then-ambassador to London. “We can use our media to discredit him and his party, so that during elections he will lose votes …” the student wrote. “The liquidation can be carried out by us, or by a hired person who is not a member of intelligence … I suggest liquidation by poisonous chemical placed in water or food or transferred by skin.”

In an interview with Slobodna Bosna, Filipovic said that he knew that some people close to the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA) were planning to kill him. “British intelligence told me that they had information that someone was preparing my assassination. I believe that is because at that time I was openly against some ideas of Party of Democratic Action leader Alija Izetbegovic, and because I am a very dangerous witness to the actions of some Bosnian leaders," Filipovic said. Referring to Europe’s most-wanted war crimes suspect, he added: "Anyway, it is sad that I am an enemy to them and not Radovan Karadzic.”

In an interview on Federal Television’s 60 Minutes political talk show on 22 April, Sarajevo lawyer Faruk Balijagic said that terrorists had tried to kill him at least twice. “Once I was at the Holiday Inn hotel in Sarajevo and I had information that people who wanted to kill me were in the hotel at the same time. I ran out of my room half-naked and 10 minutes later, a couple of them broke into my room,” he said. “Ten days before that I had spoken with President Izetbegovic about state terrorism and crime.” Balijagic said he strongly believes that Pogorelica terrorists were behind his attempted assassination.

Four people were in charge of the opening of the Pogorelica camp: Alispahic, Ljevakovic, Mujezinovic and AID Deputy Director Nedzad Ugljen, who was killed in September 1996 under suspicious circumstances and whose killers were never found. In mid-1995, the four men established contact and cooperation with members of Iranian intelligence, according to the federation police. They agreed that the Iranians would provide terrorist training to AID members in Pogorelica.

In 1994, AID had ownership of the camp’s residence--formerly a public hunting lodge--turned over for “official police work.” AID had the ownership documents registered as an “economic” project for the Bosnian police, where they would grow their own vegetables. But far from being used to grow potatoes for police officers, the camp was used to train people the police now call terrorists.

For years, Izetbegovic’s administration denied the existence of terrorist training camps on Bosnian territory. Only a few hours before IFOR forces stormed the camp in 1996, Izetbegovic was assuring U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher that such camps simply did not exist. “I am sure that they don’t exist, and I just spoke with my intelligence director, Bakir Alispahic, and he told me the same,” the president was quoted as telling Christopher. After the camp was closed, Izetbegovic conceded that Pogorelica was “our big mistake.”

The new federation government, which is dominated by moderate parties, has sought to distance itself from the Izetbegovic era. Since the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States, the government has cooperated closely with U.S. officials to uncover Islamic terrorist networks in Bosnia.

The documents confiscated by IFOR in 1996 showed how clandestine the recruiting operation was for the training camp. In the summer of 1995, Alispahic, Ugljen, Ljevakovic, and Mujezinovic ordered all regional intelligence heads to recruit a number of reliable and ambitious potential students and to send them to Sarajevo for a short “intelligence” course. The recruits themselves were unaware of where they were being sent or what they were being trained for. In all likelihood, most thought they were being taken for intelligence courses, not terrorism training. Once they gathered in Sarajevo, Mujezinovic personally took them to Pogorelica and then turned them over to the Iranian instructors, according the documents. The training lasted two months, and was conducted in groups of 12. Intelligence officials outside the circle of four were evidently kept in the dark about the clandestine operation.

After the authorities were given the documents from the Pogorelica camp, police and intelligence officials started to investigate the students. An earlier investigation was impossible, since all students were given new identities after completion of their training. Though some continued to work for the police or AID after they were revealed in the investigation, no charges are being brought against them.

Because the documents’ contents have not been fully released, politicians have not publicly reacted to the indictments. For the time being, political leaders are giving only vague comments about the global fight against terrorism. Local authorities insist they strongly support the fight, while the current Bosniak opposition SDA is denying that the party has or has ever had any connection with terrorist networks.

Even if the public prosecutor issues indictments and arrest warrants for the three AID officials, it is unlikely that this affair will have far-reaching international consequences, especially since the country has been linked to terrorism several times since the 11 September attacks on New York.

But one Bosnian lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous, told TOL that the case could have important local meaning. “This trial will give us an answer to many acts of terrorism that have gone unsolved since the end of the war," he said. "Among them is the beating of former opposition leaders, such as [current Foreign Minister] Zlatko Lagumdzija and his wife. We will also solve many terrorism cases, such as the assassination of Deputy Interior Minister Jozo Leutar in 1997, and the discovery of 27 kilograms of explosives under a Sarajevo bridge on the eve of the Pope’s visit that same year.”

But they still live there are are planning new strikes

Many mujahadeen in Bosnia are now located in what was the pre-war Serbian village
of Bocinja Donja. Today, a sign on the road into the town warns visitors to "be
afraid of Allah."

The village´s 600 residents include 60 to 100 former mujahadeen, Islamicist guerrillas
from the Middle East and elsewhere who came to help Bosnia´s Muslims during the
1992-95 civil war. Since the conflict ended, they and their families have organized
a community that stands apart from the rest of Bosnia, whose Muslim majority
largely follows a relaxed version of Islam. Bocinja Donja´s affairs, in contrast,
are governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Women must wear veils
and long black robes; men must have long beards. Smoking and drink is forbidden,
as well speaking to visitors.

Washington and its allies have complained periodically about the mujahadeen,
who were technically obligated by international treaty to leave the country in
1995. But Western complaints lacked urgency until late 1999, when U.S. law enforcement
authorities discovered that a handful of the men who have visited or lived in
this area were associated with a suspected terrorist plot to bomb targets in
the United States on New Year´s Day.

Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document
forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings. He is a former
roommate of Ahmet Ressemi, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December
1999 with a carload of explosives. Atmani has been a frequent visitor to Bosnia,
even after Ressmi´s arrest.

A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records--conducted at the
urging of the United States--revealed other former mujahadeen who are linked
to the same Algerian group or to other suspected terrorist groups and who have
lived in this area 60 miles north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years.

One man, a Palestinian named Khalil Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December
1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second
man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as
Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden.

A third suspect, an Algerian named Abu Mali who was regarded as a community leader
in Bocinja, was asked to leave the country with his family in spring of 1999
after Washington accumulated evidence that he worked for a terrorist organization.
Mehrez Amdouni, another former resident, was arrested by Turkish police in September
of 1999 in Istanbul, where he arrived with a Bosnian passport. Amdouni was charged
with counterfeiting and possessing stolen goods.

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