Reports Indicate Terrorist Teams Moves From Bosnia to US, European Target Areas

Reports Indicate Terrorist Teams Moves From Bosnia to US, European Target Areas
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis - April 19, 2006, Wednesday

Exclusive. From GIS Station Sarajevo. Highly reliable sources from within the Islamist movements in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) said that a group of jihadists had left BiH in late March 2006 for the United States, and that it was assumed -- from the tenor of preparations -- that their purpose was to stage a terrorist attack in the US "by the end of April [2006]". The information came in reports which detailed a wide variety of activities in, or involving, terrorism linked to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The group which was dispatched to the US had been the subject of a major meeting of Islamists and jihadists at the King Fahd Mosque in the Mojmilo area of Sarajevo in December 2005, a meeting attended by known associates of al-Qaida, Wahhabist religious figures based in BiH, Hodza Nezim Halilovic (extremist Wahhabist in charge of the King Fahd Mosque, and former commander of Fourth Muslim Brigade in the civil war), Ekrem Abdiju (Kosovo Albanian, long associated with jihadist operations), leaders of the Islamic college in the BiH city of Zenica, members of the terrorist group Kvadrat, AID [Agencija za Istrazivanje i Dokumentaciju BiH : Agency for Documentation and Investigation, the Bosnian Muslim intelligence service), OSA (domestic security; the Intelligence & Security Agency of BiH: Obavjestajno Sigurnosne / Bezbjednosne Agencije BiH ), and SIPA (State-level intelligence; the BiH State Investigation and Protection Agency, heavily dominated by Islamists).

The sources said that they believed that the meeting agreed on an attack plan for targets in Europe and the US, as well as agreeing on plans to infiltrate "foreign services" [eg: possibly Iranian intelligence officials and others] into the Bosnian Serb republic, Republika Srpska (RS), within BiH, in order to accuse the RS Government and the ruling SDS party of collaborating with terrorists.

Part of the long-term objectives agreed at the King Fahd Mosque meeting were that:

Most trained terrorists to be sent to France, Italy and Germany;

Those men should marry local women and have as many children as possible; and

All extremists would be under the age of 30 and "look normal".

Local al-Qaida -linked groups and the Wahhabis were already working on the implementation of this plan, the GIS sources confirmed.

AID and ISA were, according to the sources, already infiltrating their cadres into the DGS [BiH State Border Service] to facilitate smuggling of men and materiel across the borders. One of the AID employees in the DGS is Mehmed "Meho" Mehic, a former lieutenant of Bosnian Muslim warlord Naser Oric.

[Oric was described by Toronto Star reporter Bill Schiller "as bloodthirsty a warrior who ever crossed a battlefield". See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, June 17, 2005: Srebrenica and the Politics of War Crimes .]

Meanwhile, the sources noted that Wabhabis from Sjenica, Novi Pazar and Tutin in the Raska region of Serbia were closely cooperating with the Wahhabis and al-Qaida in BiH. At the same time, the sources noted that one of the main terrorist camps in BiH, funded by HAMAS, was near Bihac, and that instructors at the camp were all foreigners, veterans of wars from the BiH civil war to Chechnya. More significantly, the sources reported that trained jihadist suicide bombers were now present in BiH and Serbia, and that the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (VEVAK) was running three-man hit squads in BiH.

The information takes on a growing significance as cooperation between Iran, al-Qaida-related groups, and HAMAS intensifies during the current Iranian confrontation with the US and the West generally.

The sources said that during the BiH civil war in the mid-1990s, 700 lightly-injured fighters were sent from BiH to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), and were listed as dead; in fact they underwent terrorist training and were transferred to Europe. Iranian intelligence assisted with this transfer. They formed part of al-Qaida and related Wahhabist operations for the creation of an "Islamic Europe", codenamed Catapult and Europe 3000 .

The sources said that as part of this, they had gained information on "the top al-Qaida operative in Germany", a man known as "Boxer", who reportedly worked with cars and owns a car scrapyard. "Boxer" came originally from the Republika Srpska town of Bijeljina to Germany in 1994. He reportedly had courier connections with Maoca (not far from Brcko, and the site of an al-Qaida -linked terrorist training camp), Bocinja (site of a major terrorist training facility, near Maglaj), and Cazin (also in Bosnia), helping al-Qaida and the Wahhabis in BiH. The jihadist terrorists frequently travel to Germany - and Europe in general - either through Croatia, or through Sandzak (Raska) area of southern Serbia (the region which links Kosovo to Bosnia's Gorazde Corridor area). Most extremists and terrorist/subversion instructors who infiltrate into BiH come transit the border illegally in Brcko, or via Sandzak (Raska). Many Bosnian Muslim emigres in Germany and other European states send financial contributions to al-Qaida and the Wahhabis, with couriers bringing those funds to BiH.

Many enterprises in BiH are also helping al-Qaida and the Wahhabis, including many so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Kvadrat and Red Rose. These groups have members in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and other countries, supposedly working there but in fact recruiting aid and members. all funds come to BiH through Croatia.

The sources said that, from information obtained in BiH, they named the top al-Qaida members in Germany as:

Jarrah Zuki Samir;

Budiman Agas;

Belfas Mohamed;

Abu Mohamed.

Top officials from the ruling Bosnian SDA party and the Government were involved in terrorist trafficking during the war in the 1990s, including: Sulejman Tihic (currently the Muslim member of the BiH Presidency), Ejup Ganic (a former Raska Serbian Muslim who served in the unelected post of Vice-President of BiH during the war, under Islamist leader Alija Izetbegovic), Sejfudin Tokic, Adil Zulfirkapasic (one of the co-founders of SDA), Zlatko Lagundzija, Hasan Cengic, Hase Tirlic, and Effendi Ceric, the head mufti . Sulejman Tihic was in Germany throughout the war and helped bringing in terrorists, providing them ID papers and other support.