Terrorism of Islamic Fundamentalist in the West Balkan

Terrorism

of Islamic fundamentalist

in the West Balkan

The Al-Qaeda Bosnian Connection

Introduction

Those who look solely at the modern world to explain the use of terrorism by Islamic extremists are missing the bigger picture. Although the chief contributing causes of Islamic terrorism do include social and economic circumstances, and the ideological replacement of Communism with religious fanaticism, the primary cause motivating Islamic fanatics today is one that has existed for centuries: the establishment of a global Islamic state, the Ummah. Fanatics obsessed with such a vision continue to abuse Islam for the purpose of realizing their ambitions. There is also the issue of misinterpreting the Koran, mostly by those Muslims who publicly declare Islam a religion of peace while in private dedicate themselves to the pan-Islamic cause that simply excludes co-existence with non-Muslims. Among those who engage in religious manipulation without hindrance – indeed, with the approval of the highest religious authorities – are terrorists of the Al-Qaeda network.

Commitment to a global Islamic state reaches all the corners of the Muslim world. For example, the supposedly secular and moderate Bosnian Muslims have allowed one Eslam Durmo to head some 16 madrassahs[1] during the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war, and six afterwards. According to official Egyptian sources, Eslam Durmo is actually Al-Hussein Hilmi Arman Ahmad, born 14 January 1960 in Cannae. Egyptian authorities suspect him of felonies such as document forgery and the 1997 terrorist attack in Luxor. They have also identified Durmo as an associate of Osama bin Laden. He was identified as the ideological leader of the radical Islamic Wahhabi movement in Islamic terrorist circles. As a member of the El-Mujahid unit of the Bosnian Muslim army, which has been connected to heinous war crimes and atrocities against civilians and POWs, Durmo published a religious instruction book, titled “Ideas that need to be corrected” (Shvatanja koja treba ispraviti). This pamphlet was printed by the Kuwaiti so-called humanitarian NGO “Islamic Thought Revival[2].”

What could this man, with a criminal past and terrorist ties, teach Bosnian Muslim youth about religion? Who allowed him to engage in religious instruction at all? The answer is not so elusive when one considers that many governments, Iran most of all, share Eslam Durmo’s opinions and beliefs.

Indeed, the former Iranian leader and president Ayatollah Khomeini publicly advocated Iranan leadership for a global Islamic revolution. In Qom, on 14 January 1980, reviewing a company of 120 Pakistani officers training for terrorism and sabotage operations, he said: “we are in a war against infidels. Take this message with you – I ask all Islamic nations, all Muslims, all Islamic armies and all presidents of Muslim nations to join the Holy War. There are many enemies that need to be killed or destroyed. Jihad must triumph.[3]”

A religious leader, a terrorist – or both? Long before anyone else, Khomeini began to attack Western targets with suicide bombers. He trained extremists to practice suicide attacks in Lebanon. Thousands of young Muslims from around the world were trained for suicide attacks at the Besheshita camp near Karay, west of Tehran. In addition to men, some 300 women were trained at this camp, under the instruction of Zahra Rahneward. There were many other camps for military and theological instructions, all in the function of pan-Islamic revolution. Former Iranian leader Khomeini is also the originator of the idea of using airplanes for suicide attacks. In the early 1980s, Iran had ordered a number of PC-7 airplanes[4] for just this purpose. Pilots were sent to North Korea for suicidal training, and sent upon their return ton the newly established Shahid Chamran Airbase near Busheher. Members of these suicide squadrons were called the “Pasdaran pilots.”

Other nations besides Iran have accepted the ideas of Islamic revolution.

Initially, the fledgling terrorist network of Islamic extremists operated on two tracks. The first (and the legal) one relied on Islamic organizations such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the World Islamic League (RABITA) and the “Islamic Committee for Palestine,” which spread influence through mutual solidarity, financial aid and a network of connections in Western Europe and the US.

The other, illegal method focused on achieving the fundamental ideas of the Ummah[5] through extremist groups practicing violence and terror, with the help of terrorism-sponsoring governments and the aforementioned organizations. Such groups included, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood and Gama’a al-Islamiyya of Egypt, and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria. These and other terrorist groups of Islamic extremists help Muslims anywhere in the world who fight for Islamic extremist causes, offering them ideological and military assistance. That some of today’s most notorious terrorists took part in the civil wars of the former Yugoslavia – especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H), Kosovo-Metohia and the possible future conflict in the Raska (or Sandzak) region of Serbia – casts a new light on the nature of these conflicts and the true aims of Islamic extremists in the Western Balkans.

More alarmingly, these extremists have found military and political support from the West. For example, Issa Abdullah (a.k.a. Abu Abdullah), a naturalized US citizen of Palestinian origin and a Hamas member who came to B-H to train mujahedin with other US Special Forces instructors, proceeded to conduct terrorist activities unhindered, with the full knowledge of the Clinton Administration. Other members of Abdullah’s group were assembled at a New Jersey mosque and then trained on private property nearby. Top Bosnian Muslim officials who had a key role in bringing in the mujahedin from North America to Bosnia and the Balkans include Safet Catovic[6], Ivica Misic and Muhamed Sacirbey.

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[1] Islamic religious school.

[2] Islamic Thought Revival is so-called humanitarian charity operating among others theritory in Bosnia.

[3] Yosef Bodansky, Target America, 1993. pp. 2-3.

[4] The Pilatus PC-7 Turbo Trainer is a low-wing tandem-seat training aircraft.

[5] Ummah (Arabic: أمة) is an Arabic word meaning Community or Nation. It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of Islamic states or (in the context of pan-arabism) the whole Arab nation. In the context of Islam, the word ummah is used to mean the diaspora or "Community of the Believers" (ummat al-mu'minin), and thus the whole Muslim world. In such a unified "Islamic Umma," the non-Muslim citizens would be subject to Dhimmi limitations and conditions.

[6] Secret advisor to the B-H mission to the UN, appointed by Muhamed Sacirbey and supported by Ivica Misic, until recently the deputy B-H Foreign Minister; together with Imam Siraj Vahaj, Catovic organized a jihad “summer camp” in Pennsylvania, in August 2001, near the 9/11 Shanksville crash site. Catovic is alleged to have connections with Bin Laden’s network inside the US.

The Origins and Developments of Modern Islamist Organizations in the Balkans[1]

In February 1982, well before the collapse of communism and the break-up of the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia (FSRY), the Albanian Democratic Organization of Yugoslavia (ADJ) was founded in Izmir, Turkey, by the Turkish MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, National Intelligence Organization,) in order to infiltrate Kosovo. By 1985, the ADJ had created four branches in Turkey in the cities of Ikonio, Sibas, Prusa, and Istanbul, gathering Albanians living within the country.

In 1993, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, the ADJ was renamed the Kosovo People’s Movement (Levitsa Popullore Kossoves, LPK), and 12 branches of the new organization were soon founded in Europe, with the command centers being in Germany and Switzerland. In 1996, a branch was founded in Tetovo, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), and in 1997 another was created in Priština, in the Albanian-majority Serbian province of Kosovo. In the same year, the LPK led the creation of Fatherland Calls (Vendlina Terret), an Albanian-diaspora activist group with branches in 21 countries in Europe and North America.

The first commander of the LPK organization in Europe was Ibrahim Kelmendi, a Kosovo-born Albanian professor in Germany. The command trinity of LPK consisted of this man and two other Albanian professors, Miliam Feiziou¹ and Fanil Souleiman, while the Tetovo branch was led by another professor, Tzebat Halili.

From the time of its creation, the LPK received significant financial aid in order to support Ibrahim Rugova, who had secretly organized the first armed groups of Kosovo Albanian irregulars by founding the Military Force of Kosovo (FRK). These groups were trained by Turkish officers in small mountain bases, in the Šar Planina mountain range, a formidable and isolated area which reaches 2,747 meters in height and which forms the natural border between Serbia’s Kosovo province and Macedonia. Later, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA – or , in Albanian, Ushtria Clirimtare E Kosoves, UCK) was established by members of the FRK. Subsequently, Ibrahim Rugova lost control of the militant group.

The Albanian intelligence service, SHIK (Sherbini Informative Kombetare, or State Information Service), following the order of its director, Bashkim Gazidede, founded the VEFA group of companies in Tirana in order to support the FRK and LPK and their operations in Kosovo. The president of VEFA, Vehbi Ali Muca, was under the charge of Gazidede’s SHIK officers. Born in 1949 in Avlona, Albania, Ali Muca was a relative of then-president (and, since 2005, prime minister) Sali Berisha, leader of Albania’s Democratic Party. It was Berisha who put Ali Muca in contact with Ibrahim Rugova. Bashkim Gazidede, whose pro-Islamist sympathies were well known, accompanied Ali Muca to Berne, Switzerland. There the Albanian spychief sought to assign one of his agents, Udri Osmani, as commander of the significant local Kosovo Albanian diaspora group. The SHIK gave financial support and instructions to Osmani who, together with Ali Muca, had established a KLA support network in Europe, while simultaneously managing extensive arms and drug trafficking networks in order to acquire the necessary funds for KLA activities.

Ali Muca’s VEFA group also had links with Islamist organizations and companies, and served their purposes in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo and other Balkan countries. VEFA companies also cooperated with the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) of Qatar, the key cover organization for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist operations in the Balkans. Through the IIRO, a base was founded at the Giadri military airport near Shkodra, in northwestern Albania. From there, Islamist provocateurs were trafficking arms and drugs, while sending mujahedin volunteers to fight in the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. Ali Muca was able to use Giadri airport frequently and unhindered, by virtue of the fact that he was a relative of Prime Minister Berisha.

Gazidede, the director of SHIK, had previously been head of the Association of Islamic Intellectuals in Albania and throughout the 1990’s retained direct contact with Osama Bin Laden. At the same time, his close relations with the Turkish MIT allowed him full cooperation with all the Islamic organizations in Turkey and their networks in Europe. Throughg a secret agreement, Gazidede and the SHIK were able to contribute towards the fulfilment of a key Turkish strategic imperative, by conducting surveillance and sabotage operations in Greece on behalf of Turkey. These operations were expedited by the VEFA group’s financial activities in Greece, which served to conceal its surveillance network there. This Albanian front group cooperated with, among others, Edeavur Shipping and Avlona Maritime, of Valeta, Malta, two international shipping companies. The depth of Ali Muca’s involvement in Greece was attested by the fact that he bought a luxury house in Athens (located at Thetidos 27, Ekali neighborhood). He was in contact with a SHIK officer in the Albanian Embassy there, Arben Prasta, who also served as the embassy’s first secretary.

Further cooperation with an international flavour between VEFA and the Turks included a company called Bersi International, founded in Priština, Kosovo, with one branch in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. One S. Bogiatzi married the daughter of the unrecognized “president” of the occupied Northern Cyprus, Rauf Denktas, and with his father founded a bank which secretly supported money laundering for the KLA and for other Islamic organizations operating in the Balkans. Many other companies have been founded since then, all having the same objective.[2]

In Turkey, an extremist group with approximately 650 members, the Islami Haraket, together with the Algerian FIS (Front Islamique du Salut, or Islamic Salvation Front), was involved with organizing the recruitment and transfer of fanatical volunteers for the jihads in Bosnia and Chechnya. At the same time, however, they were also organizing fund-raising to support the KLA’s paramilitary campaign against the Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo. Moreover, the Turkish MIT utilized a Berlin-based Turkish community organization, Milli Goros, introducing its leaders to those of VEFA, and to the KLA network. This Turkish community group was distinguished by an Islamist character; some of its more extreme fundamentalist members also founded an organization called the “Caliphate of Colonia.” Milli Goros was and is the largest Turkish organization in the world, having 28,500 members in Germany alone. It has 2,600 clubs and organizations and maintains 516 mosques in Europe. Members of the Turkish Jihad were activated in and by Milli Goros and, along with members of the Egyptian al-Gama’a Islamiyya and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, travelled to Kosovo in order to support the KLA.

As the war between the KLA and Yugoslav military forces heated up in 1998, Sali Berisha created outdoor camps in his home territory and power base- the mountains of Tropoje in Northern Albania. Along with regular Albanian nationalist fighters, numerous Islamic fundamentalists were trained there. Afterwards, they were transferred to the military bases of the 1^st Division of the Albanian Army, in the township of Kukes, in far north-eastern Albania, where they were trained in order to be transferred in Kosovo and Bosnia. Kukes also allowed access to a military airfield.

The transfer of thousands of volunteers to Bosnia, while not the direct location of the fighting, aimed to break-up Serbian ability to control Kosovo and to support the extreme fundamentalists in KLA battles with the Serbs. The monthly salary of the Islamic volunteers fluctuated from US$2,000 to $3,000. These funds were supplied by a huge support network within Europe and around the world, and from Islamic organizations in the Middle East. During this time, Osama Bin Laden retained control of four organizations in Tirana, responsible for the collection of money from Islamic countries. The extensive separate income of the KLA itself came from drugs and arms trafficking, and they enjoyed excellent cooperation with Turkish narcotics and arms trafficking networks in Europe. GIS sources inside the Albanian organizations reported that Albanians would imminently displace the Turks and assume even greater responsibility for the drugs and arms trafficking in Europe as a whole.

At this moment, the center of command for the total of the financial aid network and logistic support of Islamic organizations and extreme cells in Europe is based in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Sanzak, Montenegro, and Albania, there are hundreds of Islamic institutions, despite the presence of multinational forces, NATO forces and international organization, and these do not just operate but they expand and strengthen continuously. Also, based on information provided by the Bulgarian security services, Islamic institutions and the activities of fundamentalists is rapidly exploding in the Muslim population of south-east Bulgaria. For the past three years many Wahhabist imams have been operating in the numerous Turkish minority areas of Bulgaria.

Furthermore, it is well known that the past two years in FYROM, powerful Islamic cells operate in Tetovo, Gostivar, Kumanovo, Lipkovo, Struga, Depar, Kitcevo and others. Specifically, in the Islamic community of FYROM (IVZM) at present there are domestic collisions between the religious leaders because they have been separated into two groups. The first group supports the moderate, traditional Islam, and the second group supports the Saudi Arab version, Wahhabism. Wahhabism in FYROM is expressed through the mufti of Skopje, Zenun Berisha, who has a leading rôle in the area. Mufti Zenun Berisha is supported by tens’ of Islamic theologists, where the latter have studied in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Zenun Berisha actively supports the KLA and the Albanian extremists in FYROM, and he is closely cooperating with the secret spiritual leader of all Wahhabism extremists in the Balkans, the Imam of Sanzak, Zuhurgic. Zuhurgic is the dean of the center for Islamic studies in Novi Pazar and he had founded the extreme organization “Kosovo Islamic Relief” in Kosovska Mitrovica, and the organization “Protectors of Islam” in Prizren. The secret headquarters of Imam Zuhurgic is based Kosovska Mitrovica where Ekrem Avdiu is located. It was Ekrem Avdiu who organized the violent riots and terrorist actions against the Serbs in Kosovo in March 2004. The orders were executed by the new Islamic organizations, “Ilmi Elezi” and “Abu Bakr Sadik”.

At the same time, the leader of the Islamic community in FYROM (IVZM), Ulema Arif Emini, had organized fanatic extremists in Lipkovo, in groups of five to 10 persons in order to take up the armed battle in the Spring of 2006 in FYROM. Ulema Arif Emini was accused many times by European Union intelligence services of having a relationship with jihadist and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

At present in Albania the Wahhabisms’ have built at least 140 mosques, without legal permission from the State, and they get financial aid from hundreds of Islamic institutions but mostly from the “King Fahd” institution of Saudi Arabia. These new mosques are built mostly in northern Albania. The spiritual leader of Wahhabism in Albania is Ulema Abul Sakir Aslam, a Pakistani. He is based in the Islamic institution of Tiranë and in 2005 alone he has sent 400 children to study in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Ulema Abul Sakir Aslam recently appeared on a TV interview, where he was accompanied by the leaders of the “Chameria” group and the extremists of KLA (who had provoked the diplomatic incident with the President of the Hellenic Republic), professor of geography Selman Semen and professor Servet Mehmetin respectively, the non-existent rights of “Chameria” in Greece and he attempted to explain and justify the extremist trends of KLA encouraging its members to fight against the Greek minority in Albania under the name of Islam.[1]

Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, in November 5, 2005, in a report entitled Tensions Rise Between Greece and Albania, noted, among other things:

The President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, on November 1, 2005, had a scheduled meeting with his Albanian counterpart Pres. Alfred Moisiu, in a hotel in the city Agii Saranta in Albania. A few hours before the scheduled meeting, a group of Albanians from the nationalist “Chameria” group met outside the hotel where the Greek President was accommodated, shouting against Greece and in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA/UCK). The group also shouted claims that Greece was occupying territory belonging to Albania. “Chameria” had received legal permission by the Albanian authorities to demonstrate outside the hotel where the Greek President was staying.

Additionally, since 1998 Ulema Abul Sakir Aslam has been visiting the extremist Islamic organizations in the Balkans and he has received asylum from the Albanian Government. He also retains very close relations with the former director of SHIK, Gazi Dede and the Albanian diplomats Petrit Gajemi and Ekrem Mite. Petrit Gajemi was the director of the Balkan and Middle East office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Albania, 1992-1996. The two diplomats, in a report which they had sent to High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union, Javier Solana, on April 2, 2001, discuss the overall solution of the Albanian issue in the Balkans mentioning even the Albanian Muslims in Bulgaria.

On December 9, 2004 the US Western Policy center organization published the report “The Trojan Horse of Wahhabism”, by Stephen Schwartz, who warned Greece of the expected dangers of the construction of a mosque in Athens. Greece is the only European country which does not have any mosques or Islamic institutions. For the past three years, the ambassadors and governments of the Arab world have put pressure on Athens to construct a mosque in Athens, which is home now to some 120,0000 Muslims. The “King Fahd” institution of Saudi Arabia has offered financial aid for the construction of the mosque and has offered the placement of the Imams from Saudi Arabia. The Greek Government, however, has not responded to the pressure, due to the strong opposition of the Greek Orthodox Church and of the Greek political community.

The activities of Wahhabism in the Balkans have been strengthened significantly during the past two years, with the recent developments dominated by increased activities of extreme fundamentalist Pakistanis. It is very important to mention the complaint made by the president of the Pakistani community in Greece, Tjavent Aslam (it is not known whether he is related to the spiritual leader of Wahhabism in Albania, Ulema A. S. Aslam), to the Athens Prosecution authority where he mentions that on July 15, 2005, in the Petralona area in Athens (a few days after the London terrorist attacks) unknown persons, that introduced themselves as police officers, entered into a house at Tellou 7 Street, at 23.00 hours, and kidnapped six Pakistanis and one person from Kashmir. The kidnapped were transferred to unknown location, and they were questioned over their possible connection with the bombing attacks in London. Five of them were released two days later, blindfolded, in the center of Athens; the rest of them were released seven days later under the same conditions and in the same place. According to T. Aslam, there were 23 cases of illegal kidnapping and questioning — about terrorist links — of Pakistanis and Saudi Arabs in Greece.

The leaders of KLA in Kosovo and the Balkans have expanded their illegal activities in Europe on multiple levels and on a large scale recently. Their illegal activities are identified with the secret networks of the extremist Islamists and terrorists in Europe. They continue to receive huge financial aid from drugs and arms trafficking and from inflow of capital from Middle East countries and Islamic institutions. Also, they own a significant inventory of weapons and a a sleeper “army” capable of undertaking numerous terrorist attacks concurrently in Europe.

After the peace accords in Kosovo, the international community made a proclamation offering financial aid to anyone that would surrender their weapons. It was assumed that the KLA weapons in Kosovo numbered to 420,000. From these total 157 weapons were handed over, and a major, ongoing flow of weapons into Kosovo has occurred subsequent to that weapons moratorium.

Kosovo-Albanian politicians are captives, essentially, of the various Islamist groups active in the area. This is the case also in Bosnia; while the “Balkan Mecca” of Wahhabism is located in the Sanzak area, in southern Serbia/northern Montenegro. The

Islamist community of FYROM, which is of Albanian origin, is now under the influence of Wahhabism, while Islam is developed on its worse form/version in Albania. At the same time, moderate Kosovo-Albanian Muslims join the armed nationalist groups as they are frightened by the presence and activities of the extremists Afghans, Pakistanis, and Saudi Arabs in the area.

Lately, the armed nationalists have attacked and intimidated UN peacekeeping forces and the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR), while on the contrary the Islamists are not dealing with international forces.

Recently a new group named “Self-Determination” has appeared under the leadership of an old KLA officer, Albin Kurti, who is threatening the UN forces in the environs of Priština. This group has burned many cars and they have established ambushes many times during the past days (ie: late October/early November 2005), demanding the withdrawal of the international forces from Kosovo.

These groups were part of the Albanian mafia network in Europe and it was financed by other groups as well and by the new divisions of FNUA. Such groups are the Albanian National Fund Office (Albanski Nacionalni Fond-ANF), the Nation Liberation (Sloboda Naroda), the Kosovo Fund Office (Fond Kosova), the Tetovo University (Univerziter Tetova), and the clubs: “Domovina Zove”, “Klub Rugova”, “Klub Dipowa”, “Klub u St. Galenu”, “Klub Prarimi”, and “Klub KowFca”.

Meanwhile, a new terrorist organization has appeared, named “Qirima Jakubija”. This organization was founded by the selected members of the “Adem Jaferi” division and it is preparing to take control in the valley of Preševo in southern Serbia, because since 2003 the activities of KLA has been reduced in the area due to the arrestment of their leaders, Besim Tahiri, Farak Esati, Naser Sejdliu, Enis Jebani, Agron Memeti and Burhan Ibrahimi by the Serbs. The new terrorist organization “Qirima Jakubija” was expected to take action in the beginning of December 2005.

Albin Kurti, KLA officer, who is threatening the UN

Bosnia’s Place in the Network of Al-Qaeda Terrorists

Al Qaeda (“The Foundation”) is a conglomerate of groups, operating as a network, spread throughout the world. It has a global reach, with a presence both on its own as well as through some subsidiary terrorist organizations that operate under its umbrella, including: Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was led by Ayman al-Zawahiri (the number-two-man in the Al-Qaeda hierarchy), and at times, the Islamic Group (also known as Al-Gama‘a Al-Islamiyya or simply, Gama’a), and a number of jihadist groups in other countries, including Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, the Serbian province of Kosovo, Croatia, Albania, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, the Kashmir region of India, Indonesia, and the Chechnya region of Russia. Al-Qaeda has also maintained cells and personnel in a number of countries to facilitate its activities, including Kenya, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Malaysia, Australia and the United States.

Since September 11, 2001, US peacekeepers in Bosnia have been watching with greater interest hundreds of foreign mujahedin who came to fight in the Balkan wars, and then stayed on. Several people in Bosnia have been questioned for links to international terrorism. Six of them, all Algerians, were arrested and handed over to the US Government, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay.

The United States has long been alarmed by the presence in Bosnia of these Arab-born Muslim fundamentalists who first traveled there in the 1990s to fight for the nation’s substantial Muslim population during the civil war. Many went there under the direction of Osama bin Laden, who apparently saw the opportunity for a jihad to defend Muslims against Serb and Croat Christians. Osama Bin Laden directly aided the Bosnian Muslims, both financially (for weapons procurement) and with training. In addition, that same “aid” was extended to the separatist Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia. Ironically, the US found Bin Laden and his supporters “convenient” allies when dealing with Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians, again in another so-called struggle for “freedom”[1], as it had earlier, during the war in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation of that country until just before the collapse of the USSR in 1990.

Dangerous terrorists of Iranian origin, who have Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and passports, have been identified, most notably Mustafa Kamal, Shah Mohammad Ali Tala’ti, Talati Ali Sahmed, and Javad Hesarbani [spelling as received] in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Other known terrorists now operating [NOW?] with Bosnia-Herzegovina passports include:

1. Hasan Ali Fateh, one of Osama Bin Laden’s closest associates, was in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Fateh was granted Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and passport (number U-06-616-4/95) at the Bosnia-Herzegovina General Consulate in Istanbul on 25 December 1995. Fateh was put in the Bosnia-Herzegovina Registration of Births in 1999 under the number 10-782; his Bosnia-Herzegovina passport (no. 084779) was issued to him on 24 April 1999.

Although this terrorist was registered at 14 Hasana Kikica street in Sarajevo, he never lived at this address. Terrorists of Palestinian origin in Bosnia-Herzegovina included Abu Jajalah Nasez and Alkhgasan Savarahat Mahabuhagag (spelling as received), as well as lesser-known terrorists from Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia and so on.

2. Abu el Ma’ali (Abdelkader Mokhtari), a senior representative of Al-Qaeda, 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, el Ma’ali was issued an apartment by none other than Bakir Izetbegovic, son of Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, who ran the Sarajevo Canton Construction Bureau [government agency supervising all construction and development – tr.] The mujahedin 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, also known as “Barbarossa,” was a prominent holy warrior from Saudi Arabia, who came to the Bosnian jihad in 1994. In an interview, 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 mujahedin news and jihad.”

Abu Abdel Aziz, leader of mujahideen terrorist/trainers in Bosnia. The photo appeared in Newsweek on 5 October 1992, with an article entitled, ''Help from the Holy Warriors.'' The London Times wrote that “Aziz claimed to have spent six years fighting in Afghanistan, and had also seen service as a 'holy warrior' in the Philippines, Kashmir and Africa” (9 May 1993). And, nine years later, the Gulf News had him leading terrorists who kidnapped European and Asian tourists in the Philippines. (5 July 2002 )

The jihadi asked Assirat readers in that interview, and in a 1995 update, to donate money for the holy war. In the interview, Abdel Aziz lauded Dr. Abdullah Azzam, the ideological founder of Al-Qaeda. 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[2]. 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 US servicemen were killed.

4. Karim Said Atmani, the alleged associate and former roommate of Ahmed Ressam – indicted 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 in 2005 and extradited to France. He was sentenced to five 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, another terrorist, 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. 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[3]. Hijazi is one of the leaders of the extremist terrorist movement in Lebanon, Takfir wa al-Hijra. As a member of the 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 – also commanded a bomb attack on tourists in Riyadh, which killed 34 people and injured many more (WHEN?).

6. Saleh Al-Oufi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed in a shoot-out with police and security forces in Medina in early 2005. In a coordinated strike, security forces raided premises in both Riyadh and Medina after locating armed terrorist suspects. In Riyadh, four terrorists died and one was arrested. In Medina, two died — including Al Oufi — and one was injured.[4] 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 “celebrated” the success of the attack on America. 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.

Abu Sulaiman and Osama Bin Laden

In December 2001, Abu Sulaiman suddenly reappeared in a videotape produced by Osama Bin Laden in which the latter took credit for organizing and financing the September 11 suicide hijackings. The two men, sitting on the floor together in a plain white room, discussed the intricate details of the 9/11 plot. After a grinning bin Laden explained how he had schemed to crash commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, Abu Sulaiman chimed in and spoke of his joyous reaction when he heard “the news.[5]”

“A confidante of Osama bin Laden, seen on a videotape with the Al-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 US counterterrorism official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.” (WHAT IS THE SOURCE OFR THIS LONG QUOTE?)

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 on New York and Washington. 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[6], suspected of the Casablanca attack. In 1996, he went from Bosnia to Italy, where he contacted the Milan center and Abu Dahdah.

Abu Asim Al-Makki, was considered one of Osama bin Laden’s senior commanders

8.Abu Asim Al-Makki (a.k.a. Muhammad Hamdi Al-Ahdal, Muhammad al-Hamati), figured 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 an Al-Qaeda battalion in central Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the fall of 1992, he helped lead a group of 43 primarily Saudi mujahedin in initial combat operations against Bosnian Serb troops.[7]

9. Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah told Budiman that he wanted to take part in the jihad in Bosnia. Bin al-Shaibah was the 20^th hijacker who was supposed to have been aboard the aircraft which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, instead of its intended target in Washington, DC.

Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah, a suspected organizer of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US

Nawaf Alhazmi Khalid al-Mihdhar

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

11. The so-called “shoe-bomber,” Richard C. Reid, was a member of the extremist group Jamaat ul-Fuqra. US officials believed Reid to have been 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.

The Sheikh had himself visited Bosnia at least once, when he joined a “Caravan of Mercy,” taking “relief supplies” to Bosnia.

12. For many years, Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri was one of the most distinctive radical Islamic figures in Britain. He once noted:

“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.”

Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri

In Afghanistan, he sustained the injuries to his hand and eye — apparently while clearing landmines for the mujahedin — that would make him such a distinct figure. He has also claimed to have worked in the Muslim community in Bosnia.[8]

13. An Egyptian Islamist using the nom de guerre Salim al-Kurshani, a veteran of the mujahedin units who married a Bosnian and now legally lives in Bosnia-Hercegovina. 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 to his forces the centrality of martyrdom and stressed that 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 élite, particularly the forward headquarters in Sofia, Bulgaria, then 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 of his ability to maintain secure and solid lines of communications to the Islamist terrorist forces in Bosnia, 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.[9]

14. Talaat Fouad Kassem, known as Abu Talal, was a leader of the Egyptian group 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 said that he was “picked up” by US intelligence officers, transferred to a ship in the Adriatic and then shipped to Egypt. His family and defenders later claimed that Abu Talal was assassinated[10].

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 US intellience officials. 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 victims of 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 Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, Dr. Safar al-Hawali, and Sheikh Issam Barqawi (a.k.a. Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi).

Abu Anas al-Shami, a top aide to Zarqawi

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 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, ostensibly to act as a religious missionary there and to help spread the Islamic faith. In 1996, a recently declassified US 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-Qaeda terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, and “American crimes” in Iraq for polarizing Abu Anas into joining Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

“…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-Qaeda] 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…[11]”

17. Tal’at Fu’ad Qasim. Bosnia was an open field for the arrest of many jihad and Islamic Group [IG] members who had tried to turn Bosnia into an Afghanistan in the heart of Europe, by bringing the “Afghan-Arab” phenomenon 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.[12]

               18. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Al Qaeda spokesperson Abu Gha'ith claimed that Al Qaeda had a right to kill 4 million and had the right to use biological or chemical weapons. Kuwaiti-born Sulaiman Abu Ghaith had been an Imam and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He travelled to Bosnia to fight alongside the Muslim forces. He is considered a trusted insider and chief spokesman for Al Qaeda. 

Abu Gha'ith alongside Zawahiri and Bin Laden

            19. Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, a one-time Boston taxi driver, was investigated by the Boston office of the FBI as part of a ‘sleeper cell’ supporting Al Qaeda terrorist activities. The FBI also tried to discover whether he may have had connections to the September 11, 2001 plot. Elzahabi was charged in Minnesota for lying to the FBI and shipping communications equipment to Pakistan. Elzahabi lived in the Boston area between 1997 and 1999, driving a cab leased from the Boston Cab Co., the same company that al-Marabh and Hijazi leased from. Elzahabi lived in apartments in Everett, a town near Boston. Like al-Marabh, he attended Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan during the 1980s. According to an account provided to the Boston Globe, Elzahabi fought together with al-Marabh against the Soviets in Afghanistan. According to the Globe, Mashour Masoud, of Everett, said he met both Elzahabi and Almarabh in the late 1990s, while driving a cab at Logan International Airport. 

               Elzahabi reentered the US in mid-August 2001 and went to Minneapolis (the month Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in Minneapolis). Did Moussaoui know Elzahabi? Elzahabi was held for three months under a material witness warrant beginning in May 2004. When the federal district court judge lost his patience (because the government had not presented him to a grand jury), the government brought charges relating to making false statement to investigators. US Attorney Heffelfinger “wouldn't comment on whether Elzahabi's case had any connection to Moussaoui.”

               Elzahabi trained for four years in Khalden in the early 1990s. He came back to the US for medical care after being shot, and lived in a house near the University of Minnesota that was also the site of a mosque. Law enforcement agents were however tracing his steps, even going through his garbage for months. He applied for a job with a school bus company on September 11, 2001, but did not begin work until at least October 17, according to a published report quoting a named First Student spokesperson. He reportedly was dismissed in January 2002 after missing a few days of work.

               Interestingly enough, Elzahabi was granted a hazmat truck license in January 2002 by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Department. His license to drive a bus was cancelled in February 2002 for reasons that are not known. 

               Moussaoui trained at the Khalden camp in or around April of 1998, the same year Zubaydah asked Elzahabi to be a trainer there (Elzahabi says he declined, and went to Bosnia to fight instead). At the time of Zubaydah's request, Elzahabi was living in New York and providing logistical support (shipping radios) to the Afghan fighters. Zubayday is one of the Al Qaeda planners that Zacarias Moussaoui wanted to testify at his trial. Zacarias said in a March 2002 motion: “Abu Zubaydah must talk to the world about September 11.” According to the statement of facts filed in support of his plea, Moussaoui managed an al Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar. This was a position of high respect within al Qaeda. Moussaoui communicated directly with Bin Laden and Abu Hafs al Masri.

20. Arar Mohammed Nedjib, an Algerian, was a member of the El Mujahid unit in Bosnia. He was killed in 2001 in Afghanistan by US troops, while fighting as a member of the Taliban. In the same military action, US troops arrested a naturalized citizen of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and terrorist, Tariq Mohmodd Ahmed al-Sawah- allegedly, a “humanitarian worker” for World Islamic Relief. Prior to his engagement to WIR, he had been for three years (1993-95) a member of the El Mujahid unit. In 2000 he left Bosnia for Afghanistan.

21. Abdulaziz al-Muqrin [Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin] took over the Saudi operation of al Qaeda after its previous leader was killed in a shootout with police there in March 2004. Listed first in a list of 26 most wanted persons, al-Muqrin is believed to be in his mid-30s, and received the nom de guerre of “Abu-Hajar.” He trained with the Al-Qaeda organization in Afghanistan during the period 1990-1994. Thereafter, Al-Muqrin was transferred from Afghanistan to Algeria to fight on the side of the Islamic Liberation Front (FIS) there. He smuggled weapons from Spain to Algeria via Morocco. He then went to Bosnia-Herzegovina, working initially as a member of a training staff in a military camp. Al-Muqrin was arrested and imprisoned in Somalia until he was deported to Saudi Arabia, where he was imprisoned in 1999. While a Saudi religious court sentenced him to four years in prison, the Interior Ministry commuted his prison sentence by half because he learned the Koran by heart. The terrorist was released from prison in 2001, and left for Yemen, finally arriving in Afghanistan. According to his own account, he took part in the last of the fighting against US forces when they invaded that country in late 2001. Then he returned to Saudi Arabia. An advisor to Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to London called al-Muqrin the “toughest” in a series of perhaps a half-dozen leaders who had headed the Saudi network.

Abdulaziz al-Muqrin was the former leader of al-Qaeda Organization in Saudi Arabia

Abdulaziz al-Muqrin was also editor of al-Battar magazine, Al-Qaeda’s training publication. The al-Battar sword — the “sword of the prophets — was taken by the prophet Muhammad as booty from the Banu Qaynaqa. The magazine’s name commemorates “Al-Battar,” the alias of Sheikh Yousef Al-Ayyiri, a onetime Al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia who was Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguard. He was killed in 2003 in a clash with Saudi security forces.

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[1] The Centre for Peace in the Balkans Toronto, Canada, Bosnia, 1 degree of separation from Al-Qaeda, www.balkanpeace.org Analysis, July 2003

[2] Tribune-Review, Man linked to mosque under FBI scrutiny, By Betsy Hiel and Chuck Plunkett, Wednesday, September 11, 2002.

[3] The Boston Globe, Boston arm of terrorist group being sought , By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff, 9/12/2001

[4] Arab News, Al-Qaeda Chief in Kingdom Killed, Roger Harrison & Javid Hassan, Friday, 19, August, 2005 (14, Rajab, 1426)

[5] See Evan Kohlmann (http://www.globalterroralert.com) “That day the congratulations were coming on the phone non-stop… No doubt it is a clear victory… Thank Allah America came out of its caves. We hit her the first hit and the next one will hit her with the hands of the believers, the good believers, the strong believers. By Allah it is a great work. Allah prepares for you a great reward for this work… I live in happiness, happiness, I have not experienced, or felt, in a long time… In these days, in our times, that it will be the greatest jihad in the history of Islam.”

[6] La Padania On Line, INTERCETTAZIONI TELEFONICHE CONFERMANO L'ITALIA COME BASE CHIAVE PER AL QAEDA, ANCONA, IL PORTO DEL TERRORE [Data pubblicazione: March 23, 2004].

[7] The Centre for Peace in the Balkans Toronto, Bosnia, 1 degree of separation from Al-Qaeda, Canada www.balkanpeace.org Analysis, July 2003

[8] BBC, Profile of Abu Hamza. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3752517.stm

[9] Bodansky, Yossef, THE PRICE OF WASHINGTON'S BOSNIA POLICY, http://www.freeman.org/m_online/feb98/bodansky.htm

[10] Corriere dela Sera, Milan - Inquiry into Disappearing Fundamentalists, by Paolo Biondani and Guido Olimpio http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2004/12_Dicembre/02/Cia.shtml

[11] Dossier: Abu Anas al-Shami (Omar Yousef), http://www.globalterroralert.com/abuanasalshami.pdf

[12] Title: More on Islamic Jihad Trial Confessions .Document Number: FBIS-NES-1999-0309. Document Type: Daily Report. Document Title: FBIS Translated Text . Document Region: Near East/South Asia , Document Date: 07 Mar 1999, Division: Arab Africa , Subdivision: Egypt. Sourceline: MM0903103099 London Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic 7 Mar 99 p 6 

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[1] See Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis, November 5, 2005: Tensions Rise Between Greece and Albania.

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[1] Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily “The Origins and Developments of Modern Islamist Organizations in the Balkans; New Terrorist Groups With Links to Old; Strong Involvement of Albanian, Turkish, and Northern Cyprus Governments, Exclusive. From GIS Station South-East Europe”, November 12, 2005

[2] GIS has earlier reported that the Bosnian Kvadrat terrorist support organization deploys operatives through Northern Cyprus, for the purposes of re-establishing identities and bona fides, en route back to the Balkans from Chechnya, and other terrorist operational locations. See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, October 1, 2004: Saudis and Iranians Work Through Bosnian Terrorist Group to Support Ongoing Conflict in Chechnya.