Posted on 05/22/2002 6:45:24 PM PDT by Spar
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.
"Yes we are barbarians, but the other country made us this way."
No wonder the Klintoons loved these people. Birds of a feather...
Haven't see you yet on the thread about the koran replacing the Bible in Britain.
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