West accused of downplaying Islamist threat in Bosnia
BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - May 30, 2008, Friday

Text of report by Bosnian Serb privately-owned centrist newspaper Nezavisne novine, on 28 May

[Commentary in "Personal View" column by Slavko Mitrovic: "Al-Qa'idah Without a Passport"]

Bill Clinton: "We managed to prevent mujahidin from coming to power in Bosnia-Hercegovina when the war ended in 1995."

This statement by former US president clearly illustrates the strength and the intensity of radical Islam that was involved in the war conflicts in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although many years have passed since this statement was made, Bosnia-Hercegovina is still not safe from the epidemic that the European soil spawned at the time. Al-Qa'idah was born in the war against Russian troops in Afghanistan in late 1980s, but it grew its wings and left its cocoon only with the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, after which it spread its wings all over the world. After the Dayton peace, Bosnia-Hercegovina was no longer in the focus of major world politics. It has made a comeback in the context of a possible regional crisis pertaining to the recognition of Kosovo as a self-proclaimed state. At the same time, seeing the light of day are just fragments of what is called radical Islamization of the entire Balkans. World Security Network recently published a text entitled "Balkans - a Hub of Worldwide Terrorist Network?" This text say that imported radical Islam threatens the local Bosnian branch of Islam, although the latter is putting up resistance. Nevertheless, there are no signs that the strength of Islamic movements controlled from the outside has dropped to the level where it was 17 years ago, at the beginning of the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Radical Islam has taken root, and its presence is felt in the current political turmoil, social stratification, and the large safe haven for people linked to terrorism and organized crime. Western intelligence agencies responded to all of this only with "increased, if quiet attention." The intention of occasional arrests of people of Afro-Asian origin (which is a euphemism for mujahidin, Wahhabis, and Al-Qa'idah), which take place every several years, is to show that there is knowledge of these groups and individuals and that they are being observed, so Bosnia-Hercegovina and other countries are allegedly safe.

Like the Los Angeles Times wrote after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, what began was the unearthing of a weakly linked network of violence that spanned several countries, with one common thread for all of them: Bosnia-Hercegovina. During his visit to Sarajevo, CIA head Porter Goss warned that the arrest of Islamic terrorists anywhere in the world confirmed that they had links to Bosnia-Hercegovina.

None of this is a coincidence or odd if we know that, in 1993, Usamah Bin-Ladin got a passport in the B-H Embassy in Vienna, after which he visited Sarajevo, where he portrayed himself as a leader of the Islamic world. This claim was made by Renate Flotau, a journalist of Germany's Der Spiegel. After the war, many Al-Qa'idah members had no problem to extend the validity of their passports in B-H embassies. Now, Bin Ladin and his close associates like al-Zawahiri, who also visited Zenica, no longer need passports. They no longer need to travel to recruit followers because Al-Qa'idah has become a mental code and a way of thinking of all present and future radical Islamists. They no longer need Bin Ladin and his orders because they create their own participation in the jihad. This definitely is not the Islam that belongs to believers, but an ideology that reconciles distorted and primitive views, using modern technology to spread these ideas.

We need to learn lessons from all of this. For radical Islam, Balkan Muslims - and the Bosnian war in particular - were god's gift. This soil was used for the training of Islamic terrorists through the most brutal methods of war and murder of Serb prisoners that were recorded on camera. This footage was subsequently multiplied and distributed through various channels like it was a fitness video. This is used to spread jihad throughout the planet, with the invocation of Muslim brothers' feats of heroism in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Many Western media sweep under the carpet what has been happening in Bosnia-Hercegovina after the war. This is deliberate whitewashing, because they tried to portray support for Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Kosovo as "the right policy" towards Islam in general, and said that this relationship "should be seen by Islamists from Indonesia to Morocco." Each terrorist act shows how self-destructive and shortsighted this thesis is. Whether coincidentally or not, authors of "the right policy" thesis have made reference to the borders of the caliphate that radical Islamists have been expanding from the Philippines to Gibraltar.

Bosnia-Hercegovina will soon start visa regime negotiations with the European Union. Bosnia-Hercegovina will consequently be required to issue biometric passports, with fingerprints, iris patterns, and facial scans. We hope that B-H citizens who were born and live here, and their ancestors as well, will not have problems to get these passports. Or they might have to wait for the resolution of the problem with naturalized citizens, who acquired these rights by fighting against B-H citizens. So much has been done to take care of their civil rights that it would be no surprise if we had to stand and wait before the human rights of meritorious Algerians, Moroccans, Saudis, and Pakistanis have been defended.

I have nothing against any state or people, but I do not want my right to belong to Europe to be denied over someone's wartime record. I hope that our services will guard the security of all in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Or I may be wrong? Perhaps our services have more important things to take care of, at the behest of controllers whom no one holds to account. Meanwhile Abu This and Abu That [as published] may sleep in peace. They are protected by those who brought them here in the first place.

Source: Nezavisne novine, Banja Luka, in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian 28 May 08
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