Sinister Depths of Wahhabism Borba

Sinister Depths of Wahhabism
Borba - February 7, 2004

Serbia, as a key Balkan country, is in all likelihood a target of Al-Qa'idah strategic planners. A recent statement made by Col Momir Stojanovic, the director of the Military Security Agency (VBA), on the basis of analyses of domestic and foreign intelligence services that we can expect Al-Qa'idah members to infiltrate the Balkans, that is Serbia-Montenegro, has disquieted the domestic public. Stojanovic's claim that our security structures are ready to neutralize terrorist threats as well as that they operatively cover the top of the terrorist pyramid in Kosovo and the Vranje valley have had a soothing effect but make one seriously think about the targets and extent of radical Islamists' operations on our territory.

Arrest of extremists

Several scores of Albanians, leaders of the banned "Albanian National Army" ANA , have recently been arrested in a series of well-coordinated police operations across Europe. Rizvan Rashiti, Hidayet Beciri, and Gafur Adili are a few of the Albanian chauvinists who have created and developed that organization's logistical network. Their sworn objective is the unification into a single state of all parts of the Balkans that are populated by Albanians. It needs to be emphasized that the director of the Military Security Agency also said that the extremist organizations Wahhabia, Red Rose and Tarikat were operating in the Raska-Polimlje region and Al-Qa'idah groups in Kosovo and northern Albania.

Serbia's neuralgic south is an ideal milieu for the activities of radical Islamists. Back in 1995, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the second man in Al-Qa'idah's chain of command, had underlined during a stay in Bulgaria the indispensability of the creation of a powerful and efficacious terrorist intelligence network, as well as of top-notch trained combat units in Kosovo.

Resorting to pressure, blackmail and bribes and not shunning murders, Bin-Ladin's emissaries from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have cunningly woven a web of fear and insecurity, which has had the tragic outcome of the exodus of the native Serbian population. Passage omitted

There is no denying that young men from Kosovo Kosovar Albanians were personally visited in military camps in northern Albania more than once by Usamah Bin-Ladin.

Belgrade faces latent threat

One of the undoubtedly exceptionally neuralgic regions in Serbia and the Balkans, as a whole, is the Raska-Polimlje region. Many young Muslims fought in the civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina B-H on the side of the federal army. Al-Qa'idah followers in the region propagate the Wahhabite school of Islam, known for its exclusiveness and forcible imposition of Shari'ah Islamic Law , which practically means a violation of 188th verse of the Koran which gives full freedom of faith and also of the 263d verse that says that "Allah is wealthy and gentle". Aggressive and unscrupulous individuals, who have fallen prey to the fiery rhetoric of the extremists' circles, have recently caused several serious inter-ethnic incidents, including the triggering of ethnic, religious and racial hatred at the Novi Pazar vs. Rad soccer match in Belgrade.

Experts on the security situation in the Balkans are saying that Belgrade, as an important economic, political and transportation centre, faces a latent threat. The Al-Qa'idah leadership has no doubt included in its plans some state institutions, military, public gathering places and sports facilities (movie theatres, restaurants and stadiums) on the territory of our capital. The recent arrest (December 2003) of two Afghanis in Pancevo has proven that the fears of our security structures were founded. The two admitted that they were headed for Bulgaria disguised as fans of the Norwegian Rosenborg soccer club in order to stage in advance planned terrorist operations in that country. The position of foreign security experts that the territory of Serbia-Montenegro greatly "attracts" Al-Qa'idah planners has been backed by Israeli Secret Service chief Medir Dagan, who in November 2003 communicated to the Bulgarian police his experiences in combating suicide bombers.

Shaykh Azam's concept

The Federation of B-H is surely a "black hole" of the present anti-global terrorist coalition. The three-year civil war was for a good part inspired by Islamic fanatics from abroad. The Seventh Corps of the B-H Army had a special mujahidin unit. The villages of Bakotici and Bocinja (Mt. Maglaj), as well as the village of Nemili (Zenica), were "meccas" of Al-Qa'idah mujahidin. Passage omitted

Of the 400 suspected members of Al-Qa'idah who have been arrested, 20 have been sentenced and the others were released due to lack of evidence. Leaflets with texts that were glorifying the Islamic Declaration of the late Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic and the teaching of the International Front for Battle against Jews and Crusaders (especially Russians and Serbs), which was founded by Bin-Ladin in February 1998 in cooperation with extremist groups from Egypt, Pakistan, Kashmir and Bangladesh, were distributed en masse in B-H.

SOURCE: Borba, Belgrade, in Serbian 7 Feb 04