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At a meeting Tuesday with Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned that the worldwide jihad had set its sites on the area of the Balkans as its next target. Quoting Israeli intelligence sources, Lieberman said that Islamic fundamentalists were planning to take advantage of the tension between Muslim and Christian populations in the region. Fundamentalists were being funded by Iran and radical elements in Saudi Arabia, and had recruited Bosnians and Albanians for terror training camps. The new terrorists would be sent home to stir up trouble, in the hopes that an Islamic revolution could be...

The wars in the former Yugoslavia are not a field of study known for having spawned objective and dispassionate literature. Perhaps no topic is more controversial than the role of Al Qaeda in the Balkans in the 1990s. This much is known: Several thousand foreign mujahedin from the wider Islamic world fought on the Bosnian Army’s side during the 1992-1995 war, and Al Qaeda was closely involved in their transport and activities there. Almost everything else is highly contested. Sensational claims have been made that the Bosnian government itself was closely linked to Al Qaeda, and that Bosnia’s wartime president,...

Posted on Sat, May. 31, 2008 Special Report By Chris Mondics INQUIRER STAFF WRITER DOBOJ, Bosnia - For years, Saudi Arabia flatly denied it had provided money and logistical support for Islamist militant groups that attacked Western targets. But that assertion is disputed by a former al-Qaeda commander who testified in a United Nations war-crimes trial that his unit was funded by the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a government charity. Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad, the former al-Qaeda fighter, gave the same account to The Inquirer in an interview in this struggling city in the central...

America’s war on terror has come full circle. By pledging his support of Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia, President George W. Bush has sanctioned the genocide of thousands of Serbian Christians in the Balkans and the creation, thanks to al Qaeda, of a radical Muslim state at the doorway to Europe. After announcing their independence from Serbia on February 16, thousands of ethnic Albanians (Muslims) took to the streets waving American flags and singing patriotic songs. While the national press provided glowing coverage of these demonstrations as proof that the “Kosovars” were adamantly pro-America, few media outlets took notice...

Today, one day after Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, the United States and the major European countries rushed to recognize Kosovo’s independence. George Bush hailed Kosovo’s “bold and historic bid for statehood.” Five years ago, Mr Bush invaded Iraq and began “operation Iraqi freedom.” He toppled Saddam Hussein in order to get rid of a rogue regime, one of the members of the “axis of evil.” Five years later, Mr Bush is saddling Europe with a new rogue state. Surely, Mr Bush knows that al-Qa’eda fighters were involved in driving the Serbs from Kosovo in the late 1990s. The Jerusalem...

Novi Pazar, Serbia, 7 July (AKI) - Although still a small group, Wahabis, followers of a fundamentalist school of Islam, are increasingly seen by officials and observers as a growing threat to the Balkans. Tensions between Wahabis and mainstream Muslims have been simmering for the past 18 months as Wahabis seek to gain influence in Bosnia-Heregovina and also in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. In the past months, seven suspected militants were arrested in southern Serbia and a radical Islamist training camp and weapons cache uncovered. Evidence, the Serbian interior ministry says, that Wahabis are trying to recruit potential terrorists and...

Sarajevo, 5 Sept. (AKI) - The Bosnian authorities have revoked the citizenship of 50 foreigners, mainly from Asian and African countries who are suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, a Bosnian official said on Tuesday. Out of the 400 cases processed so far, 50 individuals have been stripped of their citizenship and are to be deported, said Vjekoslav Vukovic, the president of a state commission which has been reviewing the citizenship granted to foreigners during Bosnia’s bloody 1992-1995 civil war. "Among them are people who are on the United Nations list as supporters of Al-Qaeda, as well...

BELGRADE, SERBIA - A hidden alliance between terror networks and organized crime gangs that control heavily used smuggling routes in the Balkans is making it easier for terrorists to infiltrate Western Europe, according to law enforcement officials and intelligence experts. In addition, prosecutors in Serbia believe that in some cases the money earned by people traffickers is used to support terrorist activities in Europe, which has been hit by several major terrorist attacks in the last two years, with many others prevented by police raids. ... "This is a paradise for al-Qaida," said Marko Nicovic, former police chief in the...

In particular, Islamic radicals are looking to create cells of so-called white al Qaeda, non-Arab members who can evade racial profiling used by police forces to watch for potential terrorists. "They want to look European to carry out operations in Europe," said a Western intelligence agent in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, adjacent to Bosnia. "It's yet another evolution in the tools used by terrorists." ... n addition, Serbian police accidentally came across a key suspect in the March 2004 bombings of Madrid commuter trains while he was traveling through the country by train. He arrived in the...

What took so long for it to become obvious that Bosnia and other parts of the Balkans are the launching pad for terrorist attacks in Europe? The Washington Post writes on 1 December, "Terrorist Cells Find Foothold in Balkans." What a revelation! The fact is, Bosnia became a launching pad as far back as 1992 when the Bosnian Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic - the government that was supported by the Clinton administration - issued a passport to Osama bin Laden which he used to visit Bosnia and Kosovo on several occasions. More and more newspapers are finally beginning to...

Bosnia: Haven for Islamic radicals? By Nicholas Wood International Herald Tribune SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2005 SARAJEVO A police raid last month on an apartment near this city's airport uncovered evidence of an imminent suicide bombing, intensifying the fears of Western security services that Bosnia is becoming a haven for Islamic radicals. The raid, which was carried out after an extensive surveillance operation by the Bosnian police and Western intelligence services, turned up an arsenal of weapons in the apartment, including suicide vests, about 30 kilograms, or 65 pounds, of exploding bullets and high explosive, and a machine pistol. Investigators said...

Islamist terrorists organizing in Bosnia Al-Qaida may have an intact terror network operating in the Balkans, German security officials say. Sources within Germany's Bundesnachrichsiendienst, or Federal Intelligence Service (BND) told the German news agency DDP that both the Madrid terrorists, and some of those who perpetrated the London bombings, had "contacts with Bosnia," DDP reported Monday. The BND sources told DDP that European intelligence services had "vague indications that another terror cell controlled from Bosnia is preparing a new attack on London". Muslim terror targets Europe Muslim terror groups have targeted Europe as "the domain of war", the EU's...

Russian authorities said today a Kuwaiti militant who was an al Qaida emissary to Chechnya has been killed by security forces in a neighbouring region, the second statement in as many days linking foreigners to Chechen rebels. The alleged militant, who went by the single name Jarah, was killed on Tuesday evening along with another suspect during an operation near the Chechen border in Dagestan, said Major General Ilya Shabalkin, the spokesman for the Russian campaign against rebels in Chechnya and surrounding areas. In a statement, Shabalkin said Jarah was an al Qaida emissary in Chechnya and has close connections...

Russian authorities said today a Kuwaiti militant who was an al Qaida emissary to Chechnya has been killed by security forces in a neighbouring region, the second statement in as many days linking foreigners to Chechen rebels. The alleged militant, who went by the single name Jarah, was killed on Tuesday evening along with another suspect during an operation near the Chechen border in Dagestan, said Major General Ilya Shabalkin, the spokesman for the Russian campaign against rebels in Chechnya and surrounding areas. In a statement, Shabalkin said Jarah was an al Qaida emissary in Chechnya and has close connections...

TERRORISM: AL-QAEDA THREATENS EUROPE FROM BALKANS, SAY EXPERTS Belgrade, 28 April (AKI) – A group of prominent right-wing American analysts, supported by several Serbian academics, have claimed that the greatest terrorist threat to Europe comes from the Balkans, particularly from Bosnia and Kosovo which still maintain links to al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organisations. The experts were delegates at a two day conference, sponsored by the Belgrade University, that attracted terrorism specialists from the region, the United States and Europe. Yosef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Conventional Warfare in Washington, said that the Balkans...

Terrorism has been with us since the beginning of recorded history, both as a form of intimidation and as asymmetric warfare. Nonetheless, few people listened to the comprehensive analysis offered by Yossef Bodansky, whose 1999 book, "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," sold modestly before the 9/11 attacks. After it was too late, another 400,000 copies went into print. It was only then that U.S. government officials took the time to fully understand the complexities associated with the threat of Islamic terrorism. The same is true for the U.S. media. In the aftermath of 9/11, families of...

AL QAEDA IN THE BALKANS Who in the Balkans wants to destroy America? By Miroljub Jevtic, Ph.D. The news that a group of mujahadeens headed for Osama bin Laden’s jihad were captured on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan would be nothing new, had the Pakistani authorities not announced that one of them was an Albanian citizen. Clearly, Clinton’s cooperation with Balkan Islamists in the 1990s is only now turning like a boomerang against the US. While the official affront is that Bosnian Muslims and Albanians are American allies in the war on terror, the US forces are tied up...

PARIS, April 4 (AFP) - A haul of some 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of Semtex explosives seized at the weekend by French police in the northern town of Hazebrouck came from Bosnia and was destined for the criminal underground, justice officials said Monday. Five people were detained after the Czech-made explosives, along with a stock of detonators, were found on Saturday concealed in a lorry containing metal parts bound for a company in the area. Three were arrested at the scene and two others -- the suspected purchasers of the Semtex -- were detained later in Paris. The ring-leader was...

The news that a group of mujahadeens headed for Osama bin Laden’s jihad were captured on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan would be nothing new, had the Pakistani authorities not announced that one of them was an Albanian citizen. Clearly, Clinton’s cooperation with Balkan Islamists in the 1990s is only now turning like a boomerang against the US. While the official affront is that Bosnian Muslims and Albanians are American allies in the war on terror, the US forces are tied up in Bosnia monitoring and chasing the jihadists who have made Bosnia and Albanian inhabited areas in the...

A recent interview with European terror expert Claude Moniquet – which states that parts of Macedonia are currently being used by Al Qaeda-linked terrorist “sleeper” cells – is remarkable, in that it is one of the only such admissions to have ever been made by a spokesman for the “international community” in Macedonia’s modern history. It is certainly the most sensational. Moniquet’s organization, the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center in Brussels, was set up at about the same time NATO Spokesman Mark Laity was mocking the Macedonians, saying “…I am slightly concerned because a Mujahedin has just entered the...