Alleged Tunisian-Bosnian terrorist arrested in southern Italy, reports say

AP ^ | Sat Sep 28, 2:03 PM ET | AP

[knighthawk]

Shoot first, ask questions later.

[Angelus Errare]

Sorry this took so long.

Abu Zubaydah was sent by al-Qaeda (this was all prior to his promotion to becoming the group's operations chief) to the Balkans in the mid-90s with a contingent Arab fighters to begin training and supplying the Bosnian and ethnic Albanian militias, establishing the training camps I listed earlier in the thread. These camps, which are apparently still in operation, would basically indoctrinate young Muslims with al-Qaeda's ideology and then send them off to establish Muslim (or at least ethnic Albanian) rule in places like Kosovo and later Macedonia. Elements of Iranian intelligence apparently also coordinated with Zubaydah through Hezbollah, thus putting to lie the idea that there can't be any cooperation between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

Apparently, Zubaydah's success as an organizer and tactical planner for the Muslim rebels was enough help him rise through al-Qaeda's ranks in the late 90s to the point that he became the group's top recruiter and operations chief by December 1999.

Tarek (also spelled Tariq) Anwar helped to relocate the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (the Egyptian al-Qaeda) to northern Albania (and possibly Kosovo) in the aftermath of the 1997 Luxor Massacre. He left northern Albania for Afghanistan to join the Egyptian Islamic Jihad's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and was killed by US airstrikes during Operation Enduring Freedom. While in northern Albania he apparently directed thwarted attacks on the US Embassies in Tirana and Sarajevo.

Like I said, they weren't there for the scenery.

[Gael]

And Muhammed al-Zawahiri, Ayman's brother, was reportedly the head of the KLA's "elite forces".

[Angelus Errare]

I hadn't heard that, but I'm not really all that surprised. After the Egyptian Islamic Jihad was kicked out of Egypt following the Luxor massacre it basically concentrated in two regions, Central Asia and the Balkans. It'll be fascinating to read an actual history of the War on Terror in twenty years or so once everything's been declassified.