EVIDENCE IS PILING UP FOR WAR CRIMES BY THE MUJAHEDINS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: ABDUL AZIZ'S BUTCHERS

EVIDENCE IS PILING UP FOR WAR CRIMES BY THE MUJAHEDINS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: ABDUL AZIZ'S BUTCHERS
Glas Srpske - September 2005

Among those suspected of war crimes is the founder of the detachment "El Mujahedin," Mahmud Abu Abdul Aziz al-Muntesiba, known as Red Beard. From B and H he went to Kosmet, and from there to Saudi Arabia.

CRIMES of the mujahedins against Serbian civilians and soldiers, according to a statement by the police of the Serbian Republic, should not go unpunished.

The police have already prepared a statement about 1,743 volunteers from Islamic countries who, as soldiers of the infamous detachment "El Mujahedin," the unit that was part of the Third Corps of the Bosnian Army of B and H, left bloody traces across the entire B and H.

Among them, we have learned, one of the commanders and those executing the orders of the monstrous war crimes against the imprisoned Serbian soldiers and civilians, was the founder and spiritual leader of the detachment "El Mujahedin"-Sheik Mahmud Abu Abdul Aziz al-Muntesiba, known also by the nickname Barbarous (Red Beard).

Because of his warring across B and H, our paper's source affirms, the Prosecutor's office of B and H should get involved. In the report which was given to the Prosecutor's office of B and H, Barbarous was accused of having the responsibility for ordering the crimes of the mujahedins, committed in the years 1992 and 1993 in the area of Donja Bioca, Crni Vrh, Teslic, and Podvelezje. From Crni Vrh there are unforgettable pictures of mujahedins with the severed heads of Brana Djuric, Nenad Petkovic, and Blagoje Blagojevic.

MEETING IN ZAGREB

That Mahmud Abu Abdul Aziz al-Muntesiba, known as Barbarous, was a man trusted by Osama Bin Laden was confirmed by the sometime key member of "Al-Qaeda" from Sudan, Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl. In his book, "Al-Qaeda's Jihad in Europe-the Afghanistan-Bosnian Network," the American expert on terrorism Ivan Coleman mentions him. Coleman states that in the fall of 1992 Al-Fadl received an order from Osama Bin Laden to travel to Zagreb and there to talk with "Al-Qaeda's" emissaries in B and H. The first among them was Barbarous, then the so-called humanitarian Enam Arnaut, and Osama's relative Abu Zubair Al-Madani.

Aside from that, the case against Barbarous is only a small piece of the proven material which will be sent to the Hague tribunal for the requirements of the legal proceedings against wartime commanders of the army of B and H, Sefer Halilovic and Rasim Delic, and also for the special announcement of the criminal charges against the sometime commander of the Third Corps, General Sakib Mahmuljin. His predecessor in the position of commander of the Third Corps of the Army of B and H, General Enver Hadjihasanovic, is already a Hague defendant.

According to the statements of foreign intelligence services and sources close to the American investigative agencies, Barbarous came to B and H at the end of August 1992, and that at the direction of the number one man in the most powerful terrorist network of our times, "Al Qaeda"-Osama Bin Laden. Abu Abdul Aziz, then in his fifties, established the first Mujahedin camp in B and H, and that was in the vicinity of the municipal school in the village of Mehurici, which is in the foothills of Vlasic near Travnik.

The trail of war of Barbarous is described in the book "Under the Banner of Jihad," by the author Nenad Cvjetkovic, who said of Red Beard that he was one of the most faithful disciples of Dr. Abduhal Aziz, one of the spiritual leaders of modern Islamic fundamentalism.

His trip to B and H, states Cvjetkovic, was blessed by the influential Wahabi interpreters of Islam, Sheiks Nasir Al Din Al-Albani, Abdel Aziz Bin Baza, and Muhammed Bin Otheimin. Barbarous was supposed, by word and deed, to show Bosnian Muslims that "jihad is the highest peak of Islam"; and how, except for jihad and dava (missionary work), there are no higher obligations for the true Muslim.

Speaking about his missionary trip to the Balkans, Abu Abdul Aziz or Barbarous, in his interviews published in "Al-Sirat" and the "Sunday Times," stated that he met with the then president of the wartime presidential council of B and H, Alija Izetbegovic, and that after that he visited the front and got down to business.

And that business was-jihad. So Nenad Cvjetkovic writes in his book that Barbarous arrived in the "rebellious" Mehurici in plastic sandals and multicolored priestly robe, in a black Nissan with a silver pistol. To those gathered around he spoke about his involvement in holy wars across Africa, Kashmir, the Philippines and Afghanistan, and that he had arrived in B and H in the name of Islamic proselytism. Barbarous then promised that other Muslim brothers would arrive in B and H, mujahedin warriors from the Islamic world.

What kind of traces they left behind is well known. Moreover, ritual head cuttings and perfidious killings of prisoners, rapes, desecration of religious objects, and other crimes were neatly recorded on promotional videocassettes which were used as a special invitation to new jihad warriors to join their Muslim brothers in B and H.

Barbarous, according to intelligence circles, did not wait for the end of the war in B and H, because in the meantime he received a new task-Kosovo and Metohia. According to the Americans, Abu Abdul Aziz or Red Beard, went from Kosmet to Saudi Arabia, where he was even arrested during 1996 on suspicion that he participated in the attack on the base "Dhahran," where nineteen people were killed.

After he was released from prison, Red Beard allegedly went to Afghanistan, where his refuge was secured by the then ruling Taliban regime. According to the latest unofficial information, Abu Abdul Aziz Al-Muntesiba returned to Saudi Arabia, where he is even to this day, reportedly behind bars.

D.M.