...The build-up of new Islamist
units was completed in Bosnia- Herzegovina in the Spring of 1995. These
forces are closely associated with the Armed Islamist Movement (AIM) and
Islamist international terrorism, and include the first organized deployment
of MARTYRDOM FORCES (THAT IS, SUICIDE TERRORISTS), both veteran Arabs and
newly trained Bosnians.
These new activities were conducted
under the guidance of the new Islamist headquarters in Teheran and Karachi,
decided upon during the Popular Arab Islamic Conference (PAIC) convened
in Khartoum in the first days of April 1995. The Conference decided to
establish "new Islamist representative offices" for the international Islamist
movement. The new regional center in Tehran will be responsible for Islamist
activities (training, equipping, operational support, etc.) in Bosnia-Herzegovina
(as well as other politically-sensitive hot spots), while the comparably
new center in Karachi would be responsible for Islamist activities in Albania
(and Kosovo). Furthermore, this overall Islamist effort and build-up is
not just to cope with the situation in the Balkans, but also to be used
as A SOUND BASE FOR THE ISLAMISTS' ABILITY TO EXPAND OPERATIONS INTO WESTERN
EUROPE - mainly France, the UK and Germany...
Meanwhile, the leadership of
the Armed Islamic Movement (AIM) was formally notified in mid-May 1995
that the "Mujahedin Battalion is an officially-recognized army battalion
of the Bosnian army. It is comprised of non-Bosnian volunteers, called
ANSAR, along with Bosnian Mujahedin. The formal name of the unit is "Armija
Republike BiH, 3 Korpus, Odred el-Mujahedin". The commander, an Egyptian
"Afghan", was identified as "Ameer Kateebat al-Mujahedin Abu al-Ma'ali"
- a religious-military title and a nom the guerre. The Islamist force is
based in Travnik and Zenica areas in central Bosnia...
...The Khartoum, Sudan-based
National Islamic Front (NIF) - the political umbrella organization to which
AIM answers - did not take long to look for the appropriate solutions for
the challenges in Bosnia- Herzegovina...
...Being a theologically driven
movement, the NIF supreme leadership sought legal precedents to serve as
a guideline for the nature of jihad which they believe should be waged
in Bosnia, Palestine, and Kashmir. In mid-August 1995, Khartoum informed
the AIM senior officials in the front line - in such places as Sarajevo,
Muzzaffarabad (Pakistan), and Damascus - of the precedent found.
The NIF leadership pointed to
the text of "fatwa" originally issued by the Islamic Religious Conference
held in El-Obaeid, State of Kordofan (Sudan), on April 27, 1993. It is
presently used in Khartoum, at the highest levels of NIF, as the precedent-setting
text for legislating relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in areas
where the infadels are not willing to be simply subdued by the Muslim forces.
The following places - Palestine, Bosnia, and Kashmir - are stated explicitly
as areas to where the principles outlined by this fatwa are most applicable.
..."Therefore, the rebels who
are Muslims and are fighting against the "Muslim" state are
hereby declared kaffirs "infadels" who are standing up against
the efforts of preaching, proselytization, and spreading Islam into Africa.
However, Islam has justified the fighting and killing of both categories
without any hesitation whatsoever..." states the fatwa...
...Meanwhile, Sarajevo's apocalyptic
view of the future fits closely with the Islamists' growing anticipation
of "gloom and doom" in their relations with the West...
...The AIM senior officials in
Sarajevo reported in mid-May 1995 the completion of "a new camp called
Martyrs' Detachment", in order to absorb many newly-arriving Mujahedin.
These SUICIDE TERRORISTS, including at least a dozen Bosnian Muslims, graduated
from an intensive course in training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan
in the early Spring of 1995. These Bosnians along with Arab "Afghans" deployed
to Bosnia-Herzegovina for both operations in the Balkans as well as, should
the need arise, operations in Western Europe (specially France, the UK,
Italy, and Belgium). ("Afghan" is the term used to describe those fighters
trained and tested in the Afghanistan civil war. Most are of Arab, North
African or Pakistani origin).
High-level Arab sources in the
Middle East stressed that these Bosnia-based Mujahedin, especially the
suicide terrorists, are being organized as a new force, forming a center
for operations throughout Europe. Moreover, by the Summer of 1995, the
Islamist infrastructure in Bosnia-Herzegovina had already constituted the
core of a new training center for European Muslims.
The alarming terrorist build-up
was not lost on the European security forces. However, hampered by constraints
because of political sensitivities, efforts by West European security services
proved too little, too late. In early June 1995, Italian authorities arrested
a dozen Algerian Islamists, some of them "Afghans", who were running a
country-wide terrorism support network. This network was living of a sound
base in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The exposure of this Algerian Islamist network
was a major program which took a year to complete. In late June, the French
security authorities arrested more than 140 Islamist terrorists, mostly
Algerian and Tunisian. This network was planning to unleash a wave of terrorism
sponsored and controlled by Iranian intelligence that was to be presented
as Algerian-motivated. Paris hoped that a wave of Islamist terrorism was
prevented at the last minute because of these arrests.
But this was not to be. The new
cells of Bosnia-based Islamist terrorists deployed since the Spring of
1995 have kept away from the veteran European networks and were thus not
affected by the arrests. Instead, these terrorists operate in smaller networks
run by the Iranian service, VEVAK, which relies on combat-hardened and
thoroughly vetted Afghanistan and Bosnia veterans. The operatives themselves,
mostly European Muslims, deploy from Bosnia-Herzegovina at the last minute...
...Sarajevo is far from being
an unwilling party or even a passive player in this Islamist terrorist
offensive. Back in 1992, when the initial build-up of Islamist terrorist
infrastructure was completed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo was already
clarified its role in the endeavor. Sarajevo is convinced that the war
in Bosnia-Herzegovina is the primary catalyst of the Islamist JIHAD in
and against Western Europe...