Origins of Terrorism in Bosnia

I am posting Darko Trifunovic's latest study on terrorism in the Balkans. This is a long MS Word document which readers can download. Here is the first paragraph as an excerpt:

The terrorist actions of Islamic fundamentalists in Bosnia-Herzegovina were preceded by the methods of terror used by the Croats who were followers of the Ustaša movement. The principle goal of the Ustaša movement was to create the “Independent state of Croatia” and it was successful in it’s goal by acquiring the independence of the Republic of Croatia at the end of 20th century. Combining people from the extreme left-wing to the extreme right-wing - for the Ustaše movement ideology was not important; instead it was the political aim which was to be realized. One of the very first terrorist actions carried out by the members of Ustaše movement occurred in 1972.

Download Darko_Trifunovic_-Origins_of_terrorism_in_Bosnia_-_New_writings.doc

Comments

[Prenj]

Is this just another Serbian lobby site with the latest 'scientific' work of the former 'diplomat' Dr.Trifunovic or a serious institution whose reputation is supposed to be based on hard work of its participants and non-questionable facts?
Darko Trifunovic was expelled from the diplomatic service of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2001. Only after that sad episode he became a self proclaimed expert on terrorism writing mostly against Bosnia and Herzegovina and its peoples.
These facts could be easily checked here http://www.mfa.gov.ba/Index_eng.htm
And the article itself? Just another 33 pages of the Serbian lobby rubbish filled with falsified history and blatant lies.

[Nikolaus]

As far as I know situation in Bosnia as former SFOR member, there is system of "White Al Qaeda" operating on the Internet. For example, group "Maximus" namely Mirsad Bektasevic and Cesur Abdulkadir were recruited over the Internet. Latest arresting in Austria prove existence of Internet jihadist: "It's been three weeks since the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) put out an ad for a translator to help with the growing workload in terror news. "Brothers and sisters with English language skills are especially sought," wrote a GIMF member. "We're looking for someone with time to sacrifice for Allah and thereby support the jihad." Instructions were to send an e-mail response, after which one would receive "a little job" in return.

So, comment like above mentioned do not surprise. Internet jihadist exist such as Prenj.

Regarding Prenj comments, just to mention that there is case Darko Trifunovic vs. Bosnia and Hercegovina on 500 000$ US (Тел: 00387 (0) 33 707 165
e-Mail: pios@registrarbih.gov.ba
Факс: 00387 (0) 33 707 224
00387 (0) 33 707 225
because he was fired by Muslim Minister of Foreign Affairs o fake ground. Real reson for that were discovering of Darko Trifunovic existence of Al Qaeda connection at UN Bosnian Mission at NYC (see. case of Benuvalencia International Foundation, Global Relief Agency, case of Saffet Catovic, Muhamd Sacirbey etc..)

Internet Al Qaeda work well with intention to work against all groups or individuals or institutions engaged to fight against Terror and Terrorism.

So, Prenj is perhaps some World known expert or distinguish professors with several published book on the subject who can estimate or judge who is expert and who is not.

[Gavra]

Yes. Nikolaus

Her is the fact for Bosnia Al Qaeda:

SEVEN KEY AL-QAEDA MEMBERS WHO DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TOOK PART IN 9/11 AND ARE LINKED TO BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

• Nawaf al Hazmi, a Saudi. He was a September 11th hijacker. He fought in BiH in 1995.
• Khalid al-Mihdhar, from Yemen. He also was a September 11th hijacker. He also fought in BiH with the foreign mujahideen battalion in Bosnia in 1995
• Sheikh Omar abd-al Rahman (convicted of the 1993 attack on the WTC) was connected with the so-called humanitarian organization TWRA, which was a cover for terrorists. Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic made personal guarantees for TWRA’s general director and personal friend Elfatih Hassanein, so he could open an account with Die Erste Osterreich Bank in Vienna, Austria in 1993.
• Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who recruited Mohamed Atta into Al-Qaeda, had a terrorist base in Bosnia. Zammar is also responsible for recruiting two of Atta’s lieutenants, Ramzi Binalsahib and Said Bahaji.
• Osama bin Laden received a Bosnian passport from the Embassy in Vienna, Austria. Many other Al-Qaeda members were issued B-H passports, which enabled them to continue their terrorist activities.
• Abu al-Ma’ali (Abdelkader Mokhtari), a senior Al-Qaeda operative, was stationed in Bosnia until recently. Just a few years ago, US officials used to call him “Osama Bin Laden, Jr.”
• Bensayah Belkacem was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001. Numbers saved in his cell phone connected him with at least one top-rank associate of Bin Laden.
Al-Qaeda’s role in radical Islamic activities and events in Bosnia has been frequently mentioned in US media and official government reports since the 9/11 tragedy.

[Sunny]

Bosnian Muslim and Al Qaeda

Dangerous terrorists of the Iranian origin, who have Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and passports, most notably Mustafa Kamal, Shah Mohammad Ali Tala’ti, Talati Ali Sahmed, and Javad Hesarbani [spelling as received] in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Hasan Ali Fateh, one of Usamah Bin Ladin’s closest associates, was in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Fateh was granted the Bosnia-Hercegovina citizenship and passport in the Bosnia-Hercegovina General Consulate
in Istanbul under the number U-06-616-4/95 on 25 December 1995. Fateh was put in the Bosnia-Hercegovina Registration of Births in 1999 under the number 10-782 and that the number of his Bosnia-Hercegovina passport was 084779, issued to him on 24 April 1999.
The terrorist was registered at 14 Hasana Kikica street in Sarajevo, but that he has never lived at this address. There are also terrorists of the Palestinian origin in Bosnia-Hercegovina such as Abu Jajalah Nasez and Alkhgasan Savarahat Mahabuhagag (as received), as well as less-known terrorists from Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi A
[…]

2. Abu el Ma’ali (Abdelkader Mokhtari), a senior representative of Al-Qaida, was based in Bosnia until recently. Just a few years ago, a US official called him a junior Osama Bin Laden. He had to leave Sarajevo after several embassies complained to the Bosnian authorities. Incidentally, he was issued an apartment by none other than Bakir Izetbegovic, son of Alija, who ran the Sarajevo Canton Construction Bureau [government agency supervising all construction and development – tr.] The mjuhaedin emir and his family were transported out of Bosnia on a helicopter and with honors, while the public was told that he had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

3. Abu Abdel Aziz “Barbarossa,” a prominent holy warrior from Saudi Arabia, in 1994. In it, Abdel Aziz glorified jihad and praised the Pittsburgh magazine for its interest in holy war. “I ask Allah to make you and I successful,” he said. “I ask Him to help the workers and those who support this newsletter to perform their religious duty of da’wah (Islamic propagation) and to publicize mujahideen news and jihad.”
He asked Assirat readers in that interview, and in a 1995 update, to donate money for holy war. In the interview, Abdel Aziz lauded Dr. Abdullah Azzam, the ideological founder of al-Qaida. He described how the “joy of jihad overwhelmed our hearts” when the Soviets were pushed out of Afghanistan. “Indeed jihad will continue till the day of judgment,” he said. “We have to make jihad to make His word supreme, not for a nationalist cause, a tribal cause, a group feeling or any other cause,” Abdel Aziz declared . Barbarossa had been arrested multiple times in Saudi Arabia; in 1996, he was detained as the primary suspect in the attack on the Dhahran barracks, when 19 U.S. servicemen were killed.

4. Karim Said Atmani, the alleged associate and former roommate of Ahmed Ressam – indicted last week for illegally carrying explosives into the United States – had a Bosnian passport. By fervently embracing the Muslim cause in Bosnia the United States helped to create an international Islamic terrorist network. The Canadians claim that Ressam and Atmani had been stealing laptops in Montreal and sending the proceeds to Islamic terrorist groups. The French claim that Ressam and Atmani have links to Fateh Kamel – an Algerian who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and who may have been involved in a number of armed robberies in France in 1996. Kamel was arrested in Jordan earlier this year and extradited to France. He was sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment in Norway, for assaulting a police officer. Under the alias Abu Hisam, he fought in the “El mujahid” unit, changing his name later to Said Hodzic and marrying a Bosnian Muslim. With the help of Fateh Kemal, a terrorist as well, he emigrated to Canada. However, he was soon deported back to Bosnia, which extradited him to France in 2001, along with Zoheir Choulah, on an Interpol warrant.

5. Bassam A. Kanj, a Lebanese native, and Raed M. Hijazi, a Palestinian, were tied to separate militant and terrorist plots last year. Both plots were allegedly financed by bin Laden. Kanj, 35, who had lived in the Boston area for 15 years, was killed in northern Lebanon in January 2000 during an attack against the Lebanese Army. Hijazi, a Boston resident for about two years, was jailed in Jordan and is awaiting trial on charges that he planned to blow up a hotel filled with Americans and Israelis on New Year’s Day 2000 . Hijasi is one of the leaders of the extremist terrorist movement in Lebanon, Haraqat Taqfir wal Hegira. As a member of “El Mujahid” unit in Bosnia, he was known as Abu Aysha. His fellow member of “El Mujahid,” Khalid Mohammed Muslam al Jehani – a veteran of wars in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan – commanded the bomb attack on tourists in Riyadh, which killed 34 people and injured many more.

6. Saleh Al-Oufi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed in a shoot-out with police and security forces in Madinah earlier this year. In a coordinated strike, security forces raided premises in both Riyadh and Madinah after locating armed terrorist suspects. In Riyadh, four terrorists died and one was arrested. In Madinah, two died — including Al Oufi — and one was injured . Qufi, considered by intelligence services as the “most dangerous officer of Al-Qaeda,” had the privilege of meeting Osama bin Laden shortly after 9/11 and “celebrate” the success of the attack. They were joined by another terrorist, Khaled al-Harbi. Al-Harbi, a professor of Islamic studies from Mecca, was paralyzed by a bullet in 1992, when he was known as Abu Suleyman; he was wounded at Crni Vrh, near Teslic, in Bosnia, fighting the Bosnian Serbs, and has been in a wheelchair ever since.
“A confidant of Osama bin Laden, seen on a videotape with the Qaeda chief as he talked about the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has surrendered to Saudi diplomats in Iran and been flown to Saudi Arabia. Khaled al-Harbi, a potentially valuable asset in the war on terror because of his close relationship to bin Laden, was shown on Saudi television Tuesday being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport.
Harbi is the most important figure to surface under a Saudi amnesty promising to spare the lives of militants who turn themselves in. He told the television, “I called the embassy and we were very well received.”
Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makki, is considered a sounding board for bin Laden rather than an operational planner for his terror network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity”. The announcement did not give more details, but Al-Harbi, a native of the holy city of Mecca, is known to have fought in Afghanistan alongside Al-Qaeda chief Bin Laden in the early 1980s, during the Soviet invasion.
Al-Harbi, who was wounded while fighting in Bosnia, taught courses in Islam at the Grand Mosque in Makkah but dropped out of sight after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
He is believed to have fled to Afghanistan at the time, and appeared alongside Bin Laden in a videotape aired by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel in December 2001, during which he claimed that Muslim scholars “bless” the extremists’ actions. [source unknown]

7. Salaheddin Benyaaich (Abu Mughem), Moroccan, member of “El Mujahid” and former associate of Abu Dahdah , suspected of the Casablanca attack. In 1996, went from Bosnia to Italy, where he contacted the Milan center and Abu Dahdah.

8.Abu Asim Al-Makki (a.k.a. Muhammad Hamdi Al-Ahdal, Muhammad al-Hamati), is figuring prominently in the investigations of multiple terrorist attacks attributed to Al-Qaeda, including both the suicide-bombing of the USS Cole and the copycat terror attack on the French supertanker Limburg.
Abu Asim aided in the formation of a Al-Qaeda battalion in central Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the fall of 1992, he helped lead a group of 43 primarily Saudi mujahedeen in initial combat operations against Bosnian Serb troops .

9. Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah told Budiman that he wanted to take part in the Jihad, or holy war, in Bosnia. Bin al-Shaibah is the 20th hijacker who was supposed to be aboard the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field.

10. Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar (American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon) were not like the other hijackers. The two Saudis militant backgrounds is more comprehensive than the others, despite their young ages. In the mid-1990s both apparently were in the Bosnia conflict, and then fought in Chechnya at various times between 1996 and 1998. This was confirmed by the Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearings.

11. The “shoe-bomber”, Richard C. Reid and Jamaat ul-Fuqra
U.S. officials believed Reid to be a follower of Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Gilalni, a leader of an obscure Muslim militant group named Jamaat ul-Fuqra (“The Impoverished”). Described by the State Department’s 1995 report on terrorism as dedicated “to purifying Islam through violence,” ul-Fuqra recruited devotees from as far away as the Netherlands and had sent Jihadis into battle in Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Israel.
Sheikh, himself, visited Bosnia at least once, when he joined a “Caravan of Mercy,” taking “relief supplies” to Bosnia.

12. Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri is one of the most distinctive radical Islamic figures in Britain:
“Bin Laden is a good guy. Everyone likes him in the Muslim world, there is nothing wrong with the man and his beliefs.”
“Many people will be happy, jumping up and down [after September 11]. America is a crazy superpower and what was done was done in self-defense.”
In Afghanistan, he sustained the injuries to his hand and eye - apparently clearing landmines for the Mujahideen - that make him such a distinct figure.
He has also claimed to have worked in the Muslim community in Bosnia .

13. An Egyptian Islamist using the nom de guerre Salim al-Kurshani—a veteran of the Mujahedeen units who married a Bosnian and now legally lives in B-H. Al-Kurshani introduces himself as the commander of a Jihadist organization called the Islamic Group—Military Branch in Bosnia. However, he issued the warning in the name of a new group called the Bosnian Islamic Jihad. The all-Islamic versions of both names are also used by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al-Kurshani stressed the centrality of martyrdom to his forces and stressed his strikes would be most effective because I-FOR had no defense against such operations. “I have a message for NATO forces in Bosnia,” he warned: “We shall send suicide bombers to punish the United States and I-FOR for their occupation of an Islamic land.”
In his statement, al-Kurshani clarified his own, and his organization’s, affiliation with the Egyptian Islamist terrorist elite, particularly the forward headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria, under the command of Ayman al-Zawahiri. Indeed, the Islamist terrorist forces under al-Zawahiri’s command were activated throughout the Balkans in early April 1996. Back in early 1996, confident in his ability to maintain secure and solid lines of communications to the Islamist terrorist forces in B-H, al-Zawahiri ordered the deployment of key experts capable of planning, overseeing and leading major spectacular terrorist strikes against such objectives as US/I-FOR facilities. The arrival of 40 Egyptian expert terrorists was the first major forward deployment for this purpose .

14. Talaat Fouad Kassem, known as Abu Talal, was a leader of the Egyptian Jamaa. He lived in Denmark. He was also a frequent visitor to the Viale Jenner mosque in Milan, where he would preach fiery sermons. In September 1996, he disappeared while visiting Croatia. An eyewitness now says that he was “picked up” by American intelligence agents, transferred to a ship in the Adriatic and then shipped to Egypt. His family and defenders are now claiming that Abu Talal has been assassinated .

15. The last known address of Abu Hanim Abdul Gafar and Sabri Ghilar is a house in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was there that they were held in October 2002 by Malaysian and American agents. Their capture was the outcome of a painstaking investigation by Milan-based carabinieri from the ROS special operations squad. The three men, contacts for an active cell in Italy, were under investigation as Al Qaeda members with a dark past. Abu Hani fought in Bosnia and Chechnya, then took part in the murder of Massud, the head of the anti-Taleban alliance who was killed on September 9, 2001. Gafar is under investigation for the attack on the USS Cole. It would have been interesting to question them, but instead they became another “extraordinary rendition”, their destination Egypt. The Italian authorities requested American collaboration in vain. All appeals went unanswered.

16. Anas al-Shami (a.k.a. Omar Yousef) is a well known Salafist Islamic cleric from Jordan who was born in the late 1960s. Abu Anas is a student and admirer of like-minded militant clerics in the Middle East, particularly Shaykh Salman al-Awdah, Dr. Safar al-Hawali, and Shaykh Issam Barqawi (a.k.a. Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi).
• In his youth, Abu Anas traveled to Saudi Arabia with his family and lived there “for a while” until his family moved again and finally settled in Kuwait. After the 1991 Arabian Gulf War, Abu Anas departed Kuwait and returned to Jordan, taking a position as the in-house cleric at the local Marad Mosque. During his time working at the mosque in Jordan, he became very active in Islamic missionary efforts and drew many young male followers.
• In the mid-1990s, Abu Anas traveled to Bosnia-Herzegovina in southeastern Europe, ostensibly to act as a religious missionary there and help spread the Islamic faith. In 1996, a recently declassified U.S. government report—attributed by the Wall Street Journal to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—alleged that “nearly one third of the Islamic [missionary organizations] in the Balkans have facilitated the activities of Islamic groups that engage in terrorism, including the Egyptian Al-Gama‘at Al-Islamiyya, Palestinian Hamas, and Lebanese Hizballah.”
• After working in Bosnia, Abu Anas al-Shami returned to his Jordanian homeland to help found a major outreach center of the fundamentalist group Jamaat al-Sunnah wal-Kitab (“Society of the Sunnah and the Book”). The radicalism of the Society caused growing tensions with the Jordanian government, which ultimately led to the forced closure of the Islamist outreach center in northern Markah run by Abu Anas.
• Friends and associates of Abu Anas al-Shami claim that he initially straddled the boundary between comparatively moderate Islamic reformers and more radical fundamentalist leaders. These same sources blamed internal struggles for
ideological control of the Islamist trend, recent Al-Qaida terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, and “American crimes” in Iraq for polarizing Abu Anas into joining Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi.
• In 2003, Abu Anas al-Shami suddenly told his friends and followers that he planned on leaving his home in Jordan again, this time to “do work” in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Shortly after departing Jordan, Abu Anas instead resurfaced inside neighboring Iraq where he was appointed to a position on the elite Shura (“Advisory”) Council of the Al-Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
• In the spring of 2004, combat diaries purportedly written by Abu Anas al-Shami began to appear on the Internet, describing Zarqawi’s involvement in the struggle with U.S.-led military forces for control of the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Abu Anas narrated the secret history behind the dramatic April battle in the heart of the Sunni triangle:
“…at the orders of the leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military Shura council met in the city to review the situation and study the options at hand—the result was painful and difficult. We found out that after a year, the jihad was still not rising from the land… We [Al-Qaida] have been hiding in the daytime and sneak about like grouses… And the safehouses have been raided and the heroes have been chased. This was a dark thought, and everyone felt like a complete failure. And thus it was required to come up with a quick solution and a change of the operational plan, so we decided to make Fallujah a safe refuge and an impregnable armor of the Muslims—and a forbidden [and] destructive land to the Americans. Then they will not be able to enter it except with great fear and they do not depart from it except frightened and chased as they carry their injured and their dead… ”

17. Tal’at Fu’ad Qasim
Bosnia was an open field for the arrest of many Jihad and Islamic Group [IG] members when they tried to turn Bosnia into another Afghanistan at heart of Europe and to move the phenomenon of Arab Afghans to it. The most prominent leader arrested there was Tal’at Fu’ad Qasim, the former official spokesman of the IG, which is banned in Egypt. He was arrested in Croatia as he was crossing into Bosnia in August 1995. According to IG sources, he was extradited to Egypt but the latter’s security authorities categorically denied this .

18. Sabri Ibrahim al-‘Attar. His trip with the Islamic groups and organizations started 13 years ago, specifically in 1986 when he used to go to the ‘Ibad-al-Rahman Mosque in one of al-Jizah’s suburbs. He became acquainted with Khalid al-Tahir who undertook the task of educating him in shari’ah. He studied a booklet called The Islamic Action Charter, regarded as the IG’s organizational constitution. Al-‘Attar then grew a beard, wore the Afghan dress, and became an active IG member. He was called Abu-al-Miqdad for his hard-line views and constant involvement in all the IG activities and even the plans it was preparing. He went from Afghanistan, where conditions were not agreeable anymore, to the Balkan at the end of 1996. He arrived in Bosnia with the help of a Palestinian fundamentalist, a forged passport, and $5,000. He stayed for more than a year in Bosnia until he left, or tried to leave, for Albania but fell into the hands of
the European and US intelligence services before he could so.

[Prenj]

Yes, this place definitely looks like just another Serbian lobby site.
Gentlemen, I admit that I do not have a proper answer for your hate language.
I would like to recommend to Mr.Weinglass and his readers to study archives of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (www.icty.org).
It will help you to understand origins of the Serbian terrorism in Bosnia and the real motivation of 'experts' like Mr. Trifunovic and his serbiancafe.com hounds.

[Justin]

Mr.Prenj, please do not make confusion. I understand that it is not so easy for the Muslim to accept that ALL MUSLIM ARE NOT TERRORIST, BUT IT IS FER TO SAY THAT ALMOST ALL TODAY TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS ARE MUSLIM'S. Your Muslim fellows believe such as Yassir Arafat winner of Nobel Prize that state of Israel shell be erase from the Earth. Or, generation's of Bosnian Muslim's grown up with the ideas of Ayatollah Khomeini

[Prenj]

In Bosnia there are still some terrorists at large who are not Muslims, but for some reason Mr. Trifunovic, "the expert", is not interested to write about them, though they killed more people than all world Muslim terrorist together, which only proves that this place is just another Serbian lobby site ...

Bosnian grave yields over a 120 victims
AFP Published:Oct 04, 2007

SARAJEVO - The remains of what are believed to be more than 120 Muslim victims of the Srebrenica massacre have been exhumed from a mass grave in eastern Bosnia, a forensic expert said today.

"So far we have exhumed 19 complete and 105 incomplete skeletons," Murat Hurtic of Bosnia’s Missing Persons Commission told AFP.

The grave, located outside the village of Zeleni Jadar, about 15 kilometres (10 miles) south of Srebrenica, is thought to contain the remains of at least another 50 people, he said.

Some personal documents had also been uncovered from the burial site, which was discovered in September. The remains were crushed and compressed, proving they had been re-buried with bulldozers.

In the final months of Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, Bosnian Serb forces killed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre - the single worst atrocity on Europe since World War II.

Most of their remains were buried in a large mass grave before being moved by Serbs in an attempt to cover up the crime. Thousands have been uncovered from about 60 mass graves around the eastern town.

The main culprits for the crime - wartime Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic - remain at large.

The Srebrenica massacre has been deemed by the UN war crimes tribunal and the International Court of Justice to have constituted genocide.

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=579204