Report on Bosnian Islamic web sites April 2004 BBC Monitoring research in English

Report on Bosnian Islamic web sites April 2004
BBC Monitoring research in English - May 6, 2004

The Bosnian Islamic web site www.Islambosna.ba regularly posts news related to the Islamic world. Each piece of news on Muslim losses, or those about the US, Israeli or other forces seen to be in conflict with the Muslim population is followed by the text: "Fight them. Allah will punish and humiliate them by your hands and will help you against them and heal the chest of the believer". After the news of the death of the Hamas leader Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantisi, a discussion was opened in the IslamBosna forum. Visitors bade their last farewells and prayed to Allah to award Rantisi. One visitor says: "All the leaders may be killed but Islam will again win".

The IslamBosna web site currently posts a text called: "The Facts about Israeli Nuclear Weapons". This text elaborates on the types of missiles "the Zionists" possess and says that "the Zionist creation receives assistance of 2.8 billion dollars a year from Washington".

A text by Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi: "On the Necessity of the Boycott of American and Israeli Products" is currently posted on this Bosnian Islamic web site. This text inspired the leaflet produced by IslamBosna in the summer of 2002, which listed all the companies that allegedly supported Israel.

IslamBosna conducts two polls. The first question asked is: "Do you take part in the Boycott Israel' campaign?" As of 3 May, a total of 184 visitors had voted and the results are as follows: 115 visitors (62.50 per cent) said that they surely did participate in the campaign; 38 (20.65 per cent) said that they sometimes took part in this campaign; 14 (7.61 per cent) thought there was no use in taking part, while a total of 17 visitors (9.24 per cent) said that they were not interested in the campaign. The second poll question is: "Has Iraq become another Vietnam?" As of 3 May, a total of 470 visitors had voted. A total of 250 (53.19 per cent) said "Yes, this is becoming more obvious every day", 106 (22.55 per cent) said "No", while 114 visitors (24.26 per cent) said that they were not interested.

The Bosnian Islamic web site www.dzemat.org posts a number of articles and reactions to world events related to Muslims. Friday prayers given by Nezim Halilovic Muderris (Bosnian scholar in Arabic studies, former commander of the 4th Glorious Muslim Brigade, currently hatib in Sarajevo mosque and member of the main board of the Bosnian Muslim Party of Democratic Action) in the Sarajevo King Fahd mosque on 19 March 2004 are posted on this site. In this sermon, Muderris recalls the events of the previous week. He says that there were "new victims in Palestine every day", that "12 Jews were killed in a new shehid operation", that a number of operations were performed in Chechnya. He adds that tens of Muslims were killed in the "alleged search for Al-Qa'idah" in the north of Pakistan and that "the future Spanish Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero has announced the withdrawal of Spanish soldiers from Iraq on 1 July of this year if the United Nations do not take over control in Iraq". At the end of the prayers, which were dedicated to the topic of the fear of God, he prays for help for mojahedin "wherever they are".

On 1 April 2004, Dzemat posts an article about a Croat hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river. It is stated in the article "the US government has sucked in an enormous number of former soldiers, police officers and special forces employed by private firms, in order to decrease the number of official victims. Who cares if some Bob from a Wisconsin farm gets killed? He was not a soldier, and the death of a civilian is not as humiliating as the murder of G. I. Joe". The Croat person is mentioned in this context in the article. "The information from Iraqi sources is constantly different from that given at US press conferences. The numbers of victims rarely matches. Now we know why. Four hirelings needed to be killed, two were hanged on the bridge and photographed for one to know why the numbers of killed soldiers are different."

On 9 April 2004, Dzemat posts an article against the deployment of Bosnian forces in Iraq. In this article, Sulejman Tihic, currently the Chairman of the Bosnia-Hercegovina Presidency, is criticized. According to the article, it should not surprise anyone if the following headline appeared in the Sarajevo Dnevni avaz daily: "Sulejman Tihic arrested for prostitution". "Namely, on 7 November last year (2003), Sulejman Tihic offered to the Americans to send Bosnian troops to Iraq. We know what kind of selling of one's soul that is from the point of view of Islam. But now, when even the Spanish, who had been used and to whom Islam is still foreign, have announced their departure from under the American duvet, this is truly shameful", the article says.

In a Dzemat article posted on 18 April 2004, MPRI (a US agency that engages in enhancing security, justice and well-being in the USA and abroad) is criticized for reaping the benefits first in Bosnia and then in Iraq. "Around 15,000 former soldiers, postmen, guys wanted for underaged pregnancies and similar scams, have now poured into the body of the Iraqi people. And they are all on the US administration's payroll."

On 20 April, Dzemat quotes a story in The Times-Picayune about a US soldier who made two illiterate Iraqi children hold up a board with the writing: "Lcpl name omitted killed my dad th(en) he knocked up my sister!" and smile for the camera together with him. The photograph is posted on the site.

On 21 April, Dzemat posts an article entitled: "Can it be any more obvious?" This is an article about US President Bush's statement after 11 September that he is on a "crusade" and his close ally, Marc Racicot, who allegedly praised Bush on 3 March 2004 in the election campaign saying that he "leads the global crusade' against terrorism", Dzemat reported, giving Reuters as the source of information.

On the same day, an article about raids on two mosques in the German town of Bochum, where Muslims were attending Friday prayers, is posted. According to the German police spokesperson and as reported by Dzemat, the raids were carried out due to information that one of the persons involved in the 11 September attacks prayed in one of the two mosques at that time. Dzemat ridicules this, saying: "Do not be surprised if the Austrian police besiege the Meldemannstrasse home for the homeless in Vienna one of these days (if that home still exists). The reason could be that Hitler lived there for some time since February 1910."

On 23 April 2004, Dzemat criticizes two Bosnian weeklies, Dani and Slobodna Bosna, for their alleged thirst for headlines about Bosnia being linked with terrorism. The story of Sanel Sjekirica, a Bosnian citizen who was apprehended and later on released by the Spanish police under suspicion that he had been involved in the Madrid attack, is included in this context. The web site comments on reports in the Croatian daily Jutarnji list about Spain searching for Sanel Sjekirica, and the reports in the Bosnian press: "The instinct of Croats to legitimize their massacres of the Bosnian Muslims using the same arguments as Serbs, their brothers by ideology ( we are protecting Europe from Islamic fundamentalism'), is understandable. But what kind of low motives can a person have to publish such texts in Bosnia under a Muslim name, texts that are read by tens of thousands of Muslims. This remains a case for the psychiatrists."

On the same day, Dzemat posts an article about the power of photographs and an American civilian working on a military base in Kuwait, who took photos of coffins of US soldiers. According to Dzemat, these pictures appeared in The Seattle Times (the link is given). "Knowing the potential power of a picture, Bush prevented the military bases in March last year from showing any photos of coffins covered with American flags", Dzemat says, and adds that "this way the wider public was shown visually what the press report, that is, that Americans do get killed".

On 28 April, Dzemat criticizes a reporter for the German weekly Der Spiegel for his exclusive on two online magazines written by Al-Qa'idah, "Muaskar al-Battar" and "Sawt-al Jihad", in which instructions for attacks are allegedly given. Dzemat claims that both magazines can be found, but on the pages of the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements conducted by the Israeli government.

On 29 April, Dzemat published an article about French Jews accusing the Pope of siding with Muslims after he turned down an invitation to visit an Italian Jewish synagogue to mark its 100th anniversary. "One of the numerous personalities who has, according to the Jews, become closer to anti-Semitism is the Pope. He has, as a sign of protest against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, refused to visit the Roman synagogue," Dzemat said, citing an article published on the web site IslamOnline.net. The head of the French Jewish community has allegedly accused the Pope of siding with "Islamic extremists". "What should be done then? Should the Israeli planes bomb the Vatican?" asked Dzemat.

"According to the standards currently imposed on Muslims to disassociate themselves from the Islamic terror', the Roman synagogue is linked to Israel, because they have never distanced themselves from the terror of the Israeli creation over the Palestinians," Dzemat comments.

The article is accompanied by a photograph of the Pope greeting Yasir Arafat.

On the same day, Dzemat comments on the detention and release of nine Moroccans, who were arrested in February in Rome under suspicion of attempting to poison the water of the US embassy. Dzemat asks whether these people were arrested only on the basis of their religion because the evidence was, allegedly, lacking from the beginning.

On 30 April, Dzemat refers to CBS News and reports on photographs of Iraqi prisoners being maltreated by US soldiers in the notorious prison Abu Ghurayb. Dzemat gives a link to the photographs.

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