Wahhabis blamed for several incidents in Bosnia

Wahhabis blamed for several incidents in Bosnia
BBC Monitoring Europe - Political - May 30, 2005, Monday

Text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA

Banja Luka, 29 May: The police in the northern Bosnian district of Brcko on Sunday [29 May] reported an incident that occurred last Thursday in Maoca near Brcko, when a local Muslim man, in an attempt to protect two Serb girls from members of a radical Islamic organization known as Wahhabis injured a member of the organization with a knife.

The incident occurred when Fuad Sabanovic, a 47-year-old local Muslim, stopped a jeep that had been following two Serb girls living in the nearby refugee settlement Prutace and started a scuffle with 33-year-old Dzevad Kopcalic, one of the three men in the vehicle, whom he injured with a knife. Sabanovic was arrested and placed in custody, while Kopcalic, on whom the police found a gun, was hospitalised.

Conflicts between local residents and members of this radical Muslim organization in Prutace started with the arrival of radical Muslims in Gornja Maoca, on the border of the municipalities of Srebrenik and Brcko. Previously they had lived in the village of Bocinja near Maglaj, from where they had to move after frequent clashes with Serb returnees and pressure by the international community.

Radical Islamists have been clashing frequently with Muslims as well, and several days ago they beat up a Muslim cleric in Zenica saying that he did not perform a religious service according to the Arab ritual.

The ideology of the Wahhabis, radical war veterans and members of the Organization of Active Islamic Youth (AIO), can be compared to that of the followers of the 18th century Arab preacher Muhammad Abdul Wahhab, whose conservative doctrine is dominant in modern Saudi Arabia. They observe Islamic laws and consider the Koran their constitution.

AIO was registered as an organization in Bosnia-Hercegovina back in 1995. It is believed to have several thousand members, but the figure has never been officially confirmed.

SOURCE: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 15:06 GMT, 29 May 05