Posted on 02/21/2003 8:23:13 AM PST by Destro
Serbian Orthodox suffer
At least 110 Serb Christian sites (churches, monasteries, graveyards etc.) have been damaged or destroyed in Kosovo since the United Nations took control in June 1999.
Most recently, a church building in the village of Ljubovo was completely destroyed by an explosion in the early hours of 17 November last.
A second explosion damaged another church in the town of Djurakovac. The bombings came on the eve of a visit to Kosovo by UN General Secretary Kofi Annan.
Church leaders and Orthodox worshippers also face violence and hostility from ethnic Albanians, especially where UN checkpoints in the vicinity of churches have been withdrawn in recent months.
Ethnic Albanian Muslim extremists regard churches as symbols of Serbian domination and see them as legitimate targets.
I'm an Eastern traditional myself. But I know my history. And I know what I saw. The four Cs come from the famous Serb poem on Kosovo Polje: "Only Unity can Save the Serbs." And just as the Nazi swastika used to be a neutral decoration used by American Indians and Orthodox mystics, it took on a whole different meaning after 1933. So the Four-Cs. Very, very bad juju from what I saw, since every time I saw one I was in or near places where very bad things happened, once upon a time, at Serb hands. Alas.
As for nationality, I'm Russian....and what eastern tradition do you belong to?
homeagain balkansvet wrote:
"Matter of fact, yes. Very nice, very clean, very well kept. The dead are respectfully buried with headstones. None of them are wrapped in plastic and waiting in a refrigerated morgue complex. Unlike some dead I could name."
Not a single word about by Muslim Dshihad Mudshas slaughtered Serbian civilians. Why not?
Another side of Srebrenica
by David Jan Godfroid, 29 November 2002
Serbian cousins Aco and Darko are butchering pigs for winter in the village of Fakovici, along the banks of the River Drina in Eastern Bosnia. The two cousins are the men of the house; ten years ago, when they were still kids, their fathers were killed by Muslims from Srebrenica. The attack happened near this very spot.
The drama of Srebrenica, one of the darkest chapters of the Bosnian civil war, is a story often told in simple terms. Bosnian Serb troops surround the town, isolate it for years, then finally capture it and slaughter 7000 men and boys, mainly Muslims. But the reality is far more complex.
There was a lot of violence here before the siege of Srebrenica began. Serbs attacked Muslim villages in the surroundings, torched the houses and killed the villagers. And Muslims did the same. From September 1992 until January 1993, dozens of Serbian villages fell prey to Muslim sorties from Srebrenica. Hundreds of Serbs, mainly civilians, were killed.
Destructive raiders
The village of Skelani nestles in the mountains on the eastern border of Bosnia. During the war, a Muslim army unit from Srebrenica often raided the Serbian villages in this area, under the command of Naser Oric. After ten years, you can still see the results. Birches grow out of a demolished house. Down the road, there's a group of partly destroyed houses; three of them are abandoned, two others are inhabited again, but only the ground floor has been provisionally repaired.
Naser Oric was the local commander of the Bosnian Muslim army in Srebrenica. Just the mention of his name causes outrage among Serbs in this region. A man who goes by the pseudonym of Petar Jovanovic remembers Oric from the days when they both worked on the Srebrenica police force.
'Oric came to Srebrenica on orders to organise a Muslim army and prepare them for war. He knew nothing about religion. Oric told me this himself. He was willing to fight for whoever made him the best offer. He was 25 or 26 years old and he wanted only three things: money, fancy cars and women.'
Memories of death
In the village of Fakovici, Aco and Darko don't feel like talking about the attack ten years ago, but they think about the deaths of their fathers and other relatives every day. They still live in the house where the slaughter occurred. 'Look,' says Aco, 'That's where we found grandfather ... his hands were tied and his skull was crushed.'
Sitting on the very spot where that man was killed is Mica, one of the few defenders of Fakovici. Mica, who himself was injured in the assault, is still furious with his own people:
'If only one person had tried to defend our villages, the Muslims would never have attacked us. We had enough arms and men at our disposal, but one paramilitary group after another came to tell us that we were under their command. And when the Muslims finally attacked, our commanders were across the border in Serbia, and our defenders went picking walnuts in the forest or fishing, three kilometres up the river Drina. We had less than 15 men to defend the village against over 200 attackers. It was one big confusion.'
Animal response
Twenty-four people were killed in Fakovici, including Darko's parents and Aco's father and grandfather. Mica is one of the few Serbs who think Muslims are not to blame.
'First we chased them out of their villages. And a man who has been forced to leave his house and live in the forest becomes an animal. They had no choice but to respond. First they were chased away, then they organized themselves and they attacked. Of course.'
From the graveyard of Bajina Basta, just across the River Drina in Serbia, you can see the mountains of Bosnia, where the war started ten years ago. Many of those who died in those mountains in 1992-93 lie buried here in a Serbian grave.
There are dozens of them. All of the victims are from the villages across the river. Fakovici, Skelani ... small villages, often no more then a couple of houses. The civilians who lived in such places were killed by the attackers from Srebrenica.font>
Hari has just visited the grave of a good friend. He looks at the other side of the river Drina, his eyes filled with tears.
"It hurts, because I know how many young people lost their lives there. You can rebuild a house or a village. You can replant fields and orchards. But a lost life, a young life ... that hurts most."
Radio Netherlands, "Another side of Srebrenica",
Source: http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/bos021129.html (<- click)
After you have counted the Serbian civilian victims at the Serbian graveyards in Bratunac slaughtered by you, Bosnian Muslim Dshihad SS Divisions, you can continue counting another hundreds of Serbian victims at the Serbian graveyards in the Serbian villages Bajina Basta, Skelani Fakovici, done by you, Bosnian Muslim massmurderer in 1992. You see there is not a single evidence that mass murderer and Dshihad Muslim Nasir Oric has killed a serious number of Serbian Civilians. And if he has exterminated some, Mr. SS Dshihad homeagain balkansvet said, that is all right, well done by muslim Dshihad-Fascist! Go to your SS Handshar Jihad Division and chop of Serbian Civilian heads.
Thank you @Destro for your post, the Christian Orthodox Serbs fought the worst war criminals in the Bosnian war - the Bosnian Muslim Mudshahedin in Srebrenica.
Karadjordje
The NWO-ICTY has no evidence of crimes against Serbian Civilians, Dshihad fascist?
I don't think so (you got a really nice Mudshahedin fantasy world in your brain):
"Call that safe?
[...] 'Safe' Srebrenica was supposed to be demilitarised but this did not stop Mr Oric's soldiers raiding nearby Serb villages. A recent raid, occuring soon after the collapse of the heavy-weapons exclusion zone around Sarajevo, plus the slow gathering of the West's reaction force, gave General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander, the reasons he needed for extracting the thorn of Srebrenica from the Bosnian Serbs' eastern side. But Mr Oric escaped. [...] "
http://www.balkanpeace.org/cib/bos/boss/boss09.shtml (<- click)
The Economist, "Call that safe?", 15-21 July 1995
You see again - lack of evidence...
Karadjordje
President of Bosnia, father of the Bosnian mess and author of the Islamic Declaration: A program for the Islamization of the Muslims and the Muslim Peoples (Sarajevo, 1990).
In this treatise Izetbegovic offers his "vision" for Bosnia and the Muslim world. Here I will selectively quote few passages from the 1990 edition (which he never renounced) on issues that the western press choose to ignore, perhaps fearing that the American people might understand why the Serbs fight on.
"The Islamic movement," Izetbegovic assured us, "can and should take over power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough to be able to overturn not only the existing non-Islamic government [of Bosnia] but also to build a new Islamic one." (p. 56). For the Serbs this meant that when Muslims reach 51% percent of the population in Bosnia in short six years, given their birth rate and other means. The Islamic order which would follow this overturn is defined as " a unity of religion and law, upbringing and power, ideal and interest." (p. 26). In this new order citizenship, too, is given an Islamic bend. "In the Muslim world," Izetbegovic admonishes, "there is no patriotism without Islam." (p. 64) In short, in this ideal state, the only way left for the Serbs to be considered full citizens and "patriots" would have been conversion to Islam. That is what their ancestors did in 16th century to please the Sultan and earn the right to own Orthodox Christian serfs and append the suffix "-bey" to their last names. Finally, in Izetbegovic's "Islamic order" separation of doctrine and faith from politics has no place. "There can be neither peace nor co-existance between the Islamic religion and the non-Islamic social and political institutions." (p. 30)
Alija Izetbegovic: his background and philosophies BALKAN RESEARCH CENTRE MEMBERS BRIEF A briefing paper produced for Members for the 1992/3 Session of the British Parliament Monday 21 December 1992
The Islamic Declaration
Alija Izetbegovic is a dictator: His presidential term expired in December 1990. Then he broke the (valid until 1995) constitution of Bosnia according to which President of Presidency changes after one year, with longest term beeing two years.
BBC correspondent Misha Glenny about Srebrenica in 1993:
"Wherever they could, the Muslims used the considerable sympathy which they enjoyed in the outside world as a cover to undertake military operations. In December and early January [1993], they launched an intensive offensive from Srebrenica with the aim of regaining control of Bratunac, to the east on the river Drina. The Serbs were caught unawares by the attack and the Muslims moved swiftly through Serbian villages, slaughtering a large number of civilians on the way. Because the atrocities were being perpetrated by the Muslims, they received relatively little attention in the world media. They also provoked a fearsome counter-attack by the Serbs who had soon driven the Muslims back to Srebrenica. Politicians and journalists were quick to condemn the Serbs for this operation but they entirely neglected to point out that it had been provoked by the original Muslim offensive."
Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (New York: Penguin, 1993), p. 221.
ZERO evidence that Dshiahd Mudhsahedin Oric troops slaughtered large numbers of Serbian Civilians - because NWO ICTY said this and because NWO ICTY was always fair to the Serbs...
Karadjordje
After you have visited the Serbian graveyards at Bratunac, Bajina Basta, Skelani Fakovici, visit the Serb village VISNJICA, Dshihad Fascist - to see the lack of evidence in 1995:
"GOVERNMENT TROOPS ATTACK BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE Stephen Kinzer
N.Y. Times News Service, 06/26/95
VISNJICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina In a raid before dawn that again illustrated the weakness of U.N. forces here, Bosnian government soldiers apparently slipped past U.N. posts on Monday and attacked this isolated Bosnian Serb village, burning several houses, stealing livestock, and leaving a dozen families homeless, a Bosnian Serb spokesman said.
Although the assault had no great military significance, it reflected both the growing frustration of government troops and the inadequacy of U.N. peacekeepers who have pledged to prevent them from leaving supposedly demilitarized enclaves in eastern Bosnia.
Visnjica is a miserable settlement perched on a mountainside a few miles from Srebrenica, one of the Muslim towns in eastern Bosnia which the United Nations has designated as demilitarized 'protected areas.' But Monday's raid was apparently launched by troops based inside Srebrenica, leading Bosnian Serb officers to denounce the United Nations for failing to comply with its promise to keep the town free of soldiers and weapons.
'There have been a number of incidents like this in the last 15 to 20 days,' said Lt. Col. Milovan Milutinovic, chief spokesman for the Bosnian Serb army. 'The Muslim soldiers who carried out this attack crossed lines patrolled by Dutch U.N. troops whose job it is to prevent just this kind of action. We therefore conclude that the U.N. forces are aligning themselves with the Muslim army.'
Milutinovic's assertion was the mirror image of accusations that the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government has been making for months. It has been denouncing the peacekeepers for their failure to prevent Bosnian Serbs from bombarding the enclaves, and asserting that this failure constitutes de facto support for the Serbs.
Attempts to reach the U.N. headquarters in Srebrenica for comment on today's raid were unsuccessful.
(U.N. officials in Sarajevo reported only that the Bosnian Serbs had shelled Srebrenica and Goradze, The Associated Press reported. It was unclear whether the Serbian shelling was in retaliation for the Bosnian government attack on Visnjica.)
Several of the impoverished farmers who live in Visnjica said they had assumed they were safe here because of U.N. pledges.
'We thought that no one could attack us from Srebrenica because the town was demilitarized and surrounded by U.N. soldiers,' said Ljubomir Vukovic, 67, as he stood in the smoldering ruins of the house he shared with two other families. 'But they came from right over that hill.'
Vukovic pointed toward a peak separating his village from Srebrenica. A U.N. post there is supposed to prevent soldiers from passing in either direction.
Villagers here said they were awakened at 4:30 on Monday morning by the sound of small-arms fire. They fled into the surrounding forest, watching helplessly as their homes were set afire and their cattle driven away, evidently to feed government units.
Asked why he and his neighbors had been targeted, one villager, Savo Madzarevic, paused to reflect for a moment and then replied: 'I suppose it is because we are Serbs.'
'We lived so well here,' Madzarevic lamented. 'We had two beds and a table. Now we will have to become refugees somewhere.'
Visnjica is one of hundreds of Serbian towns and villages in Bosnia that are among the principal prizes in this war. The Muslim- dominated government is determined to assert control over them, insisting that they are integral parts of its internationally recognized territory. But Serbs whose ancestors have lived in these places for generations pledge to hold them at all costs, and vow never to allow them to be governed by non-Serbs.
Monday's attackers may have chosen Visnjica as a target because it is isolated and undefended. When Serb soldiers arrived to repel them, they withdrew in the direction of Srebrenica, killing one Serb soldier and wounding three civilians but making no attempt to hold the village.
Government troops and their nominal Croat allies have been engaged in an offensive for more than a month, trying to break through Serb lines in various parts of the country. They have not made any substantial progress, and their principal goal, ending the Serb siege of Sarajevo, has eluded them. But as Monday's raid showed, they are still able to strike fear into the hearts of Serb villagers.
Their goal may be to terrorize these villagers into abandoning their homes, thus leaving formerly Serb areas uninhabited.
With both government forces and rebel Serbs losing confidence in the ability of U.N. peacekeepers to protect them, the fighting here seems likely to increase. The recent arrival of a U.N.-backed 'rapid-reaction force' has done little to calm either Muslim or Serb fears, and has in fact led to assertions that the force is plotting to help one side or the other.
'It doesn't do any good to obey the rules of the U.N.,' said a Serb soldier who was among those who drove off Monday's attackers in Visnjica. 'There's a war going on here, and each side has to do what it has to do. Right now there is no peace to keep. Maybe it's time for the peacekeepers to go home and let us fight this out among ourselves.'"
N.Y. Times News Service, "GOVERNMENT TROOPS ATTACK BOSNIAN SERB VILLAGE", Juny 26, 1995
http://www.4cbiz.net/kosta/tar/srebrenica/Srebrenica.95.01.html (<- click)
Karadjordje
I showed you reports about happenings in Srebrenica in 1992, happenings in 1993, happenings in 1995, here is a Washington Post article, that is from 1994:
"Nasir Oric's war trophies don't line the wall of his comfortable apartment. They're on videocassette tape: burned serb houses and headless serb men, bodies crumpled in a pathetic heap. [...] We had to use cold weapons that night,' Oric explains as scenes of dead men sliced by knives roll over his 21-inch Sony [...] Reclining on an overstuffed couch, clothed head to toe in camouflage fatigues, U.S. Army patch proudly displayed over his heart [...] the Muslim commander [Nasir Oric] is the toughest guy in this town, which the U.N. Security Council has declared a protected 'safe area.'"
Do you - as a Dshihad Muslim Mudsha - know what he does mean with "We had to use cold weapons that night"? Can you explain me thats?
Karadjordje
Here again in 1994 is no evidence about SS Mudshahedin massmurderer Nasir Oric's masskillings of Serbian Civilains, Dshihad Fascist, because NWO-Carla-Muslim-B... Del Ponte said that!
"[...] Oric, as blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield, escaped Srebrenica before it fell. Some believe he may be leading the Bosnian Muslim forces in the nearby enclaves of Zepa and Gorazde. Last night these forces seized armored personnel carriers and other weapons from U.N. peacekeepers in order to better protect themselves.
Oric is a fearsome man, and proud of it.
I [Bill Schiller from Toronto Star] met him in January, 1994, in his own home in Serb-surrounded Srebrenica.
On a cold and snowy night, I sat in his living room watching a shocking video version of what might have been called Nasir Oric's Greatest Hits.
There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing.
Oric grinned throughout, admiring his handiwork.
'We ambushed them,' he said when a number of dead Serbs appeared on the screen.
The next sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: 'We launched those guys to the moon,' he boasted.
When footage of a bullet-marked ghost town appeared without any visible bodies, Oric hastened to announce: 'We killed 114 Serbs there.'
Later there were celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting his praises.
These video reminiscences, apparently, were from what Muslims regard as Oric's glory days. That was before most of eastern Bosnia fell and Srebrenica became a 'safe zone' with U.N. peacekeepers inside - and Serbs on the outside.
Lately, however, Oric increased his hit-and-run attacks at night. And in Mladic's view, it was far too successful for a community that was supposed to be suppressed. [...]"
The Toronto Star, "Fearsome Muslim warlord eludes Bosnian Serb forces", July 16, 1995
Just in one of Oric 's video tapes you can watch 114 Serb bodies in a single ghost town. Dshiad, I heard you can buy this tapes in Arabia?
Karadjordje
December 15, 2001 Saturday Final EDITION
SECTION: SATURDAY OBSERVER, Pg. B3 Scott Taylor in Skopje, Macedonia
HEADLINE: Bin Laden's Balkan connections: Al-Qaeda fighters have been quietly infiltrating the ranks of ethnic Albanian guerrilla forces in Macedonia Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo for years.
BYLINE: Scott Taylor
As the U.S. manhunt for Osama bin Laden and his followers intensifies in the wake of the Taliban's fall, the Americans will turn their attention to other countries suspected of harbouring terrorists -- Sudan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and areas under Palestinian control.
Foremost among these trouble spots will be the Balkans, where al-Qaeda fighters have been quietly infiltrating the ranks of ethnic Albanian forces in Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo for years.
Macedonian intelligence officials say mujahedeen, or Islamic freedom fighters, especially Mr. bin Laden's followers, form the veteran core of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla army known as the National Liberation Army, or UCK, which has mounted a successful military offensive against Macedonian security forces from their base in Kosovo since last March: By the time a shaky peace was brokered in September, the UCK controlled nearly 30 per cent of Macedonian territory. Macedonian security forces attribute the success of the UCK, which was initially inexperienced and ill-equipped, to the support of as many as 120 mujahedeen among them.
On Nov. 20, when extremists from around the world were volunteering to join the ranks of the Taliban, Pakistani police apprehended five Muslim 'fighters' carrying Macedonian passports at the Afghan border -- further proof, Macedonian authorities say, of Mr. bin Laden's Balkan connection.
Nikola, a senior director with Macedonian intelligence services, confirmed that, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his agency 'supplied a substantive dossier to the CIA,' outlining the activities of Mr. bin Laden's followers in the Balkans. The information included accounts by Macedonian civilians who had been held hostage by mujahedeen, along with photos and videos captured from Albanian guerrillas.
Ljubo Boskovski, the Macedonian minister of interior, is anxious for his police forces to return to areas controlled by the Albanian guerrillas to uncover more evidence of mujahedeen involvement. Since Nov. 13, Macedonian security forces have been exhuming a mass grave outside the ethnic Albanian village of Trebos. To date, the police have unearthed the bodies of six Macedonians (in all, 21 civilians in the area disappeared following UCK attacks). Intelligence officer Nikola believes mujahedeen perpetrated the Trebos massacre 'because of the manner in which the bodies were cut up and scattered.'
He also suspects Islamic extremists were behind a brutal ambush of security forces last April, in which eight policemen were shot outside the village of Vejce, and their bodies dismembered to provide the victors with grisly trophies.
The Macedonian authorities are not the only ones who suspect the mujahedeen in the Vejce atrocities. During the summer offensive around Tetovo, Albanian guerrillas admitted they had gained combat experience in previous conflicts. Twenty-three-year-old Commander 'Jimmy' claimed he was a veteran of Chechnya and Kosovo, while 'Snake' Arifaq bragged of service in Bosnia and displayed a scar he had received during the fighting in Croatia. The two Albanians acknowledged 'volunteers' from Afghanistan and other Arab countries had helped train members of the UCK. As for the Vejce incident, Commander Jimmy said such an atrocity could 'only have been committed by the foreigners because Albanians do not cut up bodies.'
When the Albanian insurrection began, the Macedonian government hastily acquired a fleet of six Ukrainian helicopter gunships. 'Shortly after that, our pilots reported being tracked by sophisticated (U.S.-made) Stinger missiles' said Nikola, adding that, according to Macedonian Intelligence, 'the UCK received these Stingers from their mujahedeen connections in Afghanistan.'
Since Sept. 11 the Macedonians have noted a shift in U.S. foreign policy. 'The CIA have been much more receptive to our reports about the al-Qaeda,' said Nikola. 'Particularly after they discovered that one of the suicide hijackers had been active in both Kosovo and Macedonia.'
Macedonian police have been working closely with their Yugoslavian counterparts to neutralize the Albanian terrorists. More importantly, as part of the U.S.-led global initiative to combat terror, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been reinstated in Interpol -- after a 10-year banishment. Intelligence officers from the Yugoslavian Army have supplied a wealth of information outlining mujahedeen activity in both Bosnia and Kosovo. Yugoslav intelligence officers believe at least 50 of the 150 mujahedeen who fought in Kosovo remain active members of the UCK.
Even before they got the information from Yugoslavia, Interpol had been tracking al-Qaeda's activities in the Balkans. On Oct. 23 this year, the agency released a report outlining Mr. bin Laden's personal links to the Albanian Mafia. Interpol alleges that a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant had been the commander of an elite UCK unit in Kosovo during the fighting in 1999, when NATO intervened to support the ethnic Albanians, largely at the urging of the U.S.
The CIA was aware of Mr. bin Laden's Albanian connections well before NATO's commitment in Kosovo, numerous media reports clearly show.
On Jan. 17, 1999, an alleged massacre of 45 Albanian Kosovars in the village of Racak made headlines around the world. Pointing to this incident (later proved by UN pathologists to have been an Albanian hoax), former U.S. president Bill Clinton proclaimed the West could no longer overlook 'Serbian atrocities,' setting the wheels in motion for NATO's confrontation with Yugoslavia.
That same day, Greek media outlets revealed that Taliban members were pouring into Albania, at the invitation of ex-president Sali Berisa and former head of intelligence Bashkim Gazidede. According to The Tribune, an Athens daily paper, Albanian security official Fatos Klozi confirmed that 'bin Laden was one of those who had organized and sent groups to fight in Kosovo. There were Egyptians, Saudis, Algerians, Tunisians, Sudanese and Kuwaitis from different organizations among the (UCK) mercenaries.'
Ten days later, on Jan. 27, 1999, the Arab-language news service Al Hayat reported that an Albanian commander in Kosovo, code-named Monia, was directly connected to Osama bin Laden. The piece also reported that 'at least 100 Muslim mujahedeen' were serving with Monia's force in Kosovo.
In August 1998, the Washington Post reported that the CIA was not only aware of Mr. bin Laden's association with the Albanian regime, but that U.S. operatives had been 'prominent' in the arrest of four al-Qaeda agents in Tirana. At the time, U.S. State Department officials even speculated that the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania might have been Mr. bin Laden's revenge for the Tirana arrests.
The al-Qaeda suspects detained by the CIA in Albania had been operating the Islamic Revival Foundation, 'a charitable organization that official sources say provided a useful cover for the (suspects') efforts on behalf of bin Laden,' the Washington Post reported.
In February 1998, the U.S. State Department had removed the UCK from their list of terrorist organizations. However later that same year, the CIA and their Albanian SHIK intelligence counterparts successfully shut down an Islamic terrorist cell operating with the help of Albanians in Kosovo.
Some of the most revealing links between Albanian fighters and Mr. bin Laden surfaced in December 1998, when al-Qaeda agent Claude Sheik Abdel-Kader was arrested in Tirana for the murder of his Albanian translator. During his trial, Mr. Abdel-Kader confessed to being a senior commander in Mr. bin Laden's network, and claimed he had recruited a force of some 300 mujahedeen to fight in Kosovo.
European media covering the trial reported his revelation that Osama bin Laden -- although a wanted terrorist -- had travelled freely to Tirana in 1994 and 1998 to meet with senior Albanian officials. Mr. Abdel-Kader also confessed that when the Albanian regime of Sali Berisa collapsed into anarchy in 1997, state armouries and government offices were looted. According to Mr. Abdel-Kader, many of the 10,000 heavy weapons and 100,000 passports that went missing fell into the hands of al-Qaeda members.
Osama bin Laden -- stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 -- is alleged to have retained the Bosnian passport he was issued in Vienna in 1993. According to a Sept. 1999 report in Dani, a Bosnian Muslim weekly paper, Alija Izetbegovic, then president of Bosnia, granted Mr. bin Laden a passport in recognition of his followers' contributions to Mr. Izetbegovic's quest to create a 'fundamentalist Islamic republic' in the Balkans.
Dani also reported that al-Qaeda terrorist Mehrez Aodouni had been arrested in Istanbul while carrying a Bosnian passport. Like Mr. bin Laden, his citizenship had been granted 'because he was a member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army.'
Canadian soldiers serving with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were among the first to report the presence of mujahedeen among the Bosnian Muslims as early as 1992.
The Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal reported that, in 1993, Mr. bin Laden had appointed Sheik Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda's second-in-command, to direct his operations in the Balkans.
While no exact numbers exist, it is estimated that between 1,500 and 3,500 Arab volunteers participated in the Bosnian civil war. Their main area of operation was the region of Zenica, with most serving in a brigade under Gen. Sakib Mahmuljin, nicknamed 'the Guerrillas.' Identified by red and green 'Rambo' bandannas emblazoned with a crest that read, 'our road is Jihad,' this unit quickly gained a reputation for brutality.
On June 27, 1993, the Sunday Times reported that even Bosnian Muslim officers had reservations about the mujahedeen volunteers. Col. Stjepan Siber, then deputy commander of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army, admitted to the Times that 'It was a mistake to let (the mujahedeen) in here. They commit most of the atrocities and work against the interests of the Muslim people. They have been killing, looting and stealing.'
According to reports, it was the mujahedeen who committed some of the worst atrocities of the war, under Gen. Nasir Oric in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. Beheadings of Serbian civilians were commonplace, and in some villages the mujahedeen would dynamite homes with the inhabitants trapped inside.
No attempt was made to hide such atrocities. In fact, Gen. Oric would often address the media at the site of the massacres. On one such occasion, while standing in front of mujahedeen displaying decapitated human heads as trophies, Gen. Oric pointed to a smouldering building in ruins and proudly announced to reporters, 'We blew those Serbs to the moon.'
Alija Izetbegovic was also proud to display the fighting prowess of his mujahedeen volunteers. Following a successful attack against Serbian positions around Vozuce on Sept. 10, 1995, the Bosnian president held a televised medal presentation. Mujahedeen warriors had served as the vanguard of the assault force, and were awarded 11 decorations for valour, including the Golden Crescent, Bosnia's highest honour.
Yugoslav intelligence estimates that citizenship was granted to more than 1,500 mujahedeen, including al-Qaeda members, following the Dayton Peace Accord in 1995. Most of those soldiers are believed to have settled in the Zenica region.
According to Miroslav Lazanski, author of the new book, Osama bin Laden Against America, al-Qaeda members still maintain two bases in Bosnia, one of them reserved for top fighters.
Following the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI and CIA agents uncovered evidence that two of the suicide hijackers had originated from this Bosnian camp. The commander of the camp, an Algerian named Abu Mali, was subsequently arrested while travelling in Istanbul on a Bosnian passport.
The U.S. military has taken a keen interest in mujahedeen activities in the Balkans since Sept. 11. Late last month, U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers visited NATO troops in Bosnia to warn them against a possible al-Qaeda retaliation attack. And on Dec. 4, the White House added two Albanian terrorist groups operating in Macedonia and Kosovo to its list of outlawed organizations.
And so, Mr. Clinton's dubious decisions in the Balkan conflagration two years ago have come back to haunt the U.S."
The Ottawa Citizen, "Bin Laden's Balkan connections", December 15, 2001
But again, no evidence that Bosnian Muslim Mudshas beheaded Serbian Civilians.
Karadjordje
"The example of Srebrenica illustrates the kind of mistaken conclusions about this conflict which result. In the spring of 1993, Bosnian Serb units brutally besieged this Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia. For days moving reports testified to the brutality of the attackers and the suffering of the civilian population. When the first UN convoys entered Srebrenica, General Morillon was hailed as the great liberator, and the cameras showed how angry Serbian women on the outskirts of Srebrenica spat on the lorries carrying UN troops. Not a single German journalist asked these Serbian women why they were so angry.
BBC Balkans correspondent Misha Glenny and British journalist Joan Hoey both carried out independent research into the previous history of Srebrenica, about which the media at that time was keeping silent. The Serbian siege of this town had been preceded by a large-scale Muslim offensive, in which fifty Serbian villages in the neighbouring communes of Srebrenica and Bratunac were razed to the ground. On that occasion, more than 1,200 Serbian women, children and old people were massacred, and there were more than 3,000 wounded. The Serbian women, who ostensibly behaved so inhumanely when they showered curses on the aid convoys, had in fact themselves been victims, but with no cameras present, and therefore without receiving the sympathy of the world public. This is a mechanism which continues to incite an obvious bias in favour of one of the warring sides."
Mira Beham, "THE MEDIA FAN THE FLAMES", Berlin, July 1994 (<- click)
Karadjordje
Bosnian currency? Military gear or uniforms? Hmm.
So where this morgue is located and from were those bodies came? What was the evidence that they did not die in the battle? Please provide the official links.
I can spot silence a mile away. You will notice that nothing in this description states that they were CIVILIANS. That silence speaks volumes. He was killing soldiers, and he was damned good at it. Just like, oh, what was the name of that guerrilla leader from Bijeljina? The one you Serbs bumped off a couple years back? Mauzer? And don't even STARTED on Arkan's Tigers....
And you calling ME "jihadi boy" is akin to a Nazi calling a Nuremberg prosecutor "Jew." It reflects far more on you than it does on me.
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