Foreign Islamists a concern for EU peacekeepers in Bosnia Agence France Presse

Foreign Islamists a concern for EU peacekeepers in Bosnia
Agence France Presse – English - November 29, 2004

By: Calin Neacsu

SARAJEVO Nov 29 - European peacekeepers set to replace NATO troops in Bosnia next week could come face-to-face with Al-Qaeda militants amid reports that cells linked to Osama bin Laden are operating in the Balkan country.

The commander of the outgoing NATO-led peacekeeping force (SFOR), Brigadier General Steven Schook, recently told journalists his troops had monitored Islamist militants who fought alongside local Muslims in Bosnia's 1992-1995 civil war.

"NATO undertakes operational supporting tasks such as counter-terrorism ... the primary mission is to continue to monitor that situation and to prevent the ability of a terrorist organisation to continue to either raise funds or exist in Bosnia," he said.

The 7,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia is due to hand over peacekeeping duties to a relatively untested EU force of the same strength on December 2.

Hundreds of fighters from Islamic countries, known as mujahedeen or "holy warriors", arrived illegally in Bosnia in the 1990s to boost the ranks of Muslim forces in their battles against ethnic Croats and ethnic Serbs.

Under Bosnia's 1995 peace agreement they were all supposed to leave the country but some of them stayed, obtaining Bosnian citizenship either on the basis of their army service or by marrying local women. Their numbers have never been made public.

Most Bosnian Muslims are extremely moderate, but the foreign extremists have found friends in some official quarters. Nine officials were charged last week with corruption for allowing 741 mostly Arab fighters to illegally gain citizenship.

Bosnian prosecutors are preparing indictments against 100 of the foreigners and their Bosnian citizenship is expected to be revoked, an official source said.

NATO led several operations to disrupt suspected terrorist cells in the country, notably after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Several Bosnia-based Islamic associations were put on a US anti-terror blacklist for allegedly financing terrorist activities.

"The danger of Al-Qaeda in Bosnia comes from the fact that according to estimates some 700 to 800 fighters from Islamic countries came to Bosnia during the war," said Senad Slatina of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank.

"In 2003 there was more action against radical Islamists than against those indicted by The Hague tribunal (for war crimes)," he added.

Yossef Bodansky, the director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US Congress, said in October that Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was actively directing terrorist cells in Bosnia.

"There is a terrorist network in Bosnia, composed of several well-trained and connected groups, which are directly or indirectly responsible to ... Osama Bin Laden," he was quoted as saying in a local daily.

Bodansky linked the central Zenica region with a series of suicide attacks in Baghdad in August last year, including the bombing of the UN headquarters which killed 22 people.

"They were trained in Zenica's milieu, and from there they were sent out through Italy to Iraq to fight American forces," he said.

The cells were allegedly using Bosnia as a training ground and a gateway to send terrorists to western Europe or to hide them on their way to the east if they were on the run.

"Representatives of the international community in Bosnia and (local) authorities are aware of this but they do not work enough to fight international terrorism," Bodansky said.

A NATO spokesman said there was "no firm evidence of any terrorist organisation either operating or training in this country".

But a source close to Bosnian intelligence told AFP on condition of anonymity that Bodansky was correct.

"All this information is real," he said.

He said remote mountain training camps operated secretly in the Zenica region, while "radical Islamist networks, followers of Wahhabism", an ultra-orthodox branch of Sunni Islam, were reported around Bihac and Maglaj.

November 29, 2004 Monday 3:29 AM GMT