The Centre for Peace in the Balkans
Bin Laden’s Balkan Connections
September 2001
IN MEMORIAM
Dedicated to all victims of terrorism, including a member of The Centre
for Peace in the Balkans who is still listed as missing in the World
Trade Centre bombing.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 2,
1999, CIA Director George Tenet warned of the worldwide threat posed by
the Bin Laden network:
"There is not the slightest doubt that Osama Bin Laden, his worldwide
allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against us.
Despite progress against his networks, Bin Laden´s organization has
contacts virtually worldwide, including in the United States. And he has
stated unequivocally that all Americans are targets. Bin Laden´s
overreaching aim is to get the United States out of the Persian Gulf,
but he will strike wherever in the world he thinks we are vulnerable. We
are anticipating bombing attempts with conventional explosives, but his
operatives are also capable of kidnappings and assassinations. We have
noted recent activities similar to what occurred prior to the African
embassy bombings, Mr. Chairman, and I must tell you that we are
concerned that one or more of Bin Laden´s attacks could occur at any
time."
According to the September 15, 2001 issue of the New York Times (U.S.
Demands Arab Countries ´Choose Sides´ by Jane Perlez) the United States
has issued a communiqué to its embassies around the world "…listing the
conditions that nations were expected to meet in order to qualify for
membership in the anti-terror coalition." Considering that the US
supports countries where many terrorists originate or are trained (Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania), we are
concerned about the fallout should those countries fail to meet the
stated US demands.
Furthermore, we must note with tragic irony that the United States
trained and financed Islamicist “freedom fighters” during the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, to the tune of $10 billion (September 13, 2001,
Washington Times). Osama Bin Laden was part and parcel of that military
“aid” program.
Yet, it would be willful blindness to suggest that the roots of terror
begin and end in Afghanistan or the Middle East. When examining events
that have transpired in the Balkans over the past ten years, Osama Bin
Laden’s name appears prominently. Bin Laden directly aided the Bosnian
Muslims, both financially (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”.
Bosnia
Bosnian Muslim weekly “Dani” reported on September 24, 1999, that Osama
Bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist in the world, was issued a
Bosnia-Herzegovina passport. Bin Laden was issued the Bosnian passport
by the Bosnian embassy in Vienna in 1993. However, Bin Laden was not the
only one. A number of suspected terrorists have traveled the globe
utilizing “legally issued” Bosnia-Herzegovina documents.
According to ‘Dani’, the Bosnian Foreign Ministry was seized by panic
when Mehrez Aodouni, another Bosnian passport bearer, was arrested in
Istanbul on September 09, 1999. Aodouni was believed to have close ties
with Bin Laden. The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) [Bosnia´s main
Muslim party led by Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegovic] issued a
statement that on September 23, 1999, Audouni obtained the
Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and a passport because he was a member of
the Bosnia-Herzegovina Army.
The Bosnian Muslim daily "Oslobodjenje" published that three men,
believed linked to Saudi extremist Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in
Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El
Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects
were holding Bosnian passports.
The arrest, carried out by police from Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation, was requested by the United States, Oslobodjenje said.
The Dayton peace agreement, that ended Bosnia’s civil war, ordered all
foreign soldiers to leave the country, including those who fought
alongside the mainly Muslim government army. Many of those who fought in
the Bosnian Muslim Army included ranks of Islamicist radicals from the
Arab world, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South East Asia. However, an
undisclosed number remained, obtaining Bosnian citizenship as members of
the army or by marrying Bosnian women.
At the end of the civil war many of these so-called mujahadeen remained
on territories controlled by the Bosnian-Croat Federation, instructing
Muslim forces in terrorist activities. Those activities came to light on
December 18, 1995, with the premature detonation of an automobile bomb
in Zenica. It is widely speculated that the bomb was meant for U.S. NATO
troops serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina as revenge for the life sentence
given to Sheik Omah Abdel Rahman, the brain behind the World Trade
Centre bombing in New York.
Also noteworthy is the raid conducted by NATO forces on the training
center of the Bosnian Muslim secret police (AID), located in the ski
center near Fojnica in February of 1996, and the arrest of several
persons for preparing to conduct terrorist actions. Iranian instructors
were teaching future terrorists from AID how to disguise bombs as
children’s toys, dolls, and plastic ice cream cones.
In its June 26, 1997 Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times noted that those arrested
confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the
terrorists also admitted to ties with Osama Bin Laden.
Defence and Foreign Affairs analyst Yossef Bodansky wrote in 1997 that
Iran, from its terrorist bases in Bosnia-Herzegovina, planned the
assassination of Pope John Paul II. The assassination was planned
towards the end of September 1997. A terrorist group consisting of 20
members holding Croatian, Bosnia-Herzegovinian, Tunisian, Algerian and
Moroccan passports were to assassinate the Pope during his Bologna
visit. The leaders of the group were all former mujahadeen from
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Logistical support for the group was secured through
a local terrorist network which was closely associated with GIA.
Italian authorities discovered the assassination attempt in time and
managed to arrest 14 members of the terrorist cell.
Many mujahadeen in Bosnia are now located in what was the pre-war
Serbian village of Bocinja Donja. Today, a sign on the road into the
town warns visitors to "be afraid of Allah."
The village´s 600 residents include 60 to 100 former mujahadeen,
Islamicist guerrillas from the Middle East and elsewhere who came to
help Bosnia´s Muslims during the 1992-95 civil war. Since the conflict
ended, they and their families have organized a community that stands
apart from the rest of Bosnia, whose Muslim majority largely follows a
relaxed version of Islam. Bocinja Donja´s affairs, in contrast, are
governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Women must wear
veils and long black robes; men must have long beards. Smoking and drink
is forbidden, as well speaking to visitors.
Washington and its allies have complained periodically about the
mujahadeen, who were technically obligated by international treaty to
leave the country in 1995. But Western complaints lacked urgency until
late 1999, when U.S. law enforcement authorities discovered that a
handful of the men who have visited or lived in this area were
associated with a suspected terrorist plot to bomb targets in the United
States on New Year´s Day.
Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as
the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the
bombings. He is a former roommate of Ahmet Ressemi, the man arrested at
the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a carload of
explosives. Atmani has been a frequent visitor to Bosnia, even after
Ressmi´s arrest.
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records--conducted
at the urging of the United States--revealed other former mujahadeen
who are linked to the same Algerian group or to other suspected
terrorist groups and who have lived in this area 60 miles north of
Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years.
One man, a Palestinian named Khalil Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late
December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist
sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in
Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated
with Osama Bin Laden.
A third suspect, an Algerian named Abu Mali who was regarded as a
community leader in Bocinja, was asked to leave the country with his
family in spring of 1999 after Washington accumulated evidence that he
worked for a terrorist organization. Mehrez Amdouni, another former
resident, was arrested by Turkish police in September of 1999 in
Istanbul, where he arrived with a Bosnian passport. Amdouni was charged
with counterfeiting and possessing stolen goods.
The Centre for Peace in the Balkans wrote in Spring of 2000:
The December 14, 1999, arrest of Algerian national Ahmet Ressemi at a
U.S.-Canada border crossing in British Columbia – he was in a car full
of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials – was headline news in North
America. Many theorized that Ressemi planned to blow up a major
structure in the U.S. to start the new millenium.
The theorists could have saved themselves some time by taking a closer
look at Ressemi’s past ties, especially those with terrorists trained in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Ressemi fought as a mujahadeen.
It has been confirmed that Ahmet Ressemi had ties with Said Atmani,
another terrorist who fought in the "El Mujahadeen" unit in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Canadian authorities deported Atmani back to
Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 18, 1998, supposedly without knowing of
his alleged participation in terrorist activities through Europe.
The NY Times, in it´s "Magazine" edition of February 6, 2000 published
that: "Last year, sources in Jordan say, the Mukhabarat, the
intelligence service, alerted the C.I.A. to at least three plots by
Bosnia-based Islamic terrorists to attack U.S. targets in Europe."
Recently, Kenneth Katzman, of the Library of Congress’ Congressional
Research Service, released an updated report on terrorism. That report
identified cells of the Bin Laden Al-Quaida Network in the Middle East,
Africa, Bosnia, and Albania.
Albania/ Kosovo Albanians
Osama Bin Laden’s activities in Albania are well known and documented.
As a matter of fact at one point the presence of his network in that
country was so powerful that US Defence Secretary William Cohen
cancelled a scheduled visit July 1999 for fear of being assassinated.
It is believed that Bin Laden solidified his organization in Albania in
1994 with the help of then premier Sali Berisha. Albania’s ties to the
Islamicist terrorist blossomed during Berisha´s rule when the main
Kosovo Albanian KLA training base was on Berisha´s property in northern
Albania.
Fundamentalists were well established in Albania, despite several raids
by the CIA and Albanian security forces that seized five key members of
Islamic Jihad and other Middle Eastern groups in summer of 1998.
Around that time, a joint CIA-Albanian intelligence operation has
reported mujahadeen units from at least half a dozen Middle East
countries streaming across the border into Kosovo from bases in Albania.
The American request came at a meeting of US envoys with the leaders of
the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army at their headquarters in
Geneva.
A few years ago, Albanian authorities working with the Central
Intelligence Agency claimed to have uncovered a terrorist network
operated by Osama Bin Laden. The network is said to have been set up to
use Albania, a nominally Muslim country, as a springboard for operations
in Europe.
Fatos Klosi, the head of Shik, the Albanian intelligence service, said that Bin Laden had visited Albania himself.
Bin Laden’s organization was one of several fundamentalist groups that
had sent units to fight in Kosovo, the neighboring province of Serbia.
Apparent confirmation of Bin Laden´s activities came when Claude Kader,
27, a French national and self-confessed member of Bin Laden´s Albanian
network, was jailed for the murder of a local translator. He claimed
during his trial that he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters
for Kosovo, and that four of his associates were still at large.
Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in
1994 after telling the government that he was head of a wealthy Saudi
humanitarian agency keen to help Europe´s poorest nation.
In April 2000 the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said the "notorious
international terrorist" and "Islamic fanatic" arrived in Kosovo from
Albania.
"Until recently, Bin Laden was training a group of almost 500 mujahadeen
[Muslim fighters] from Arab countries around the Albanian towns of
Podgrade and Korce for terrorist actions in Kosovo."
The report added that an eventual 2000-strong group of "extremists"
planned "to set off a new wave of violence in southern Serbia (the area
linked by the towns Presevo, Bujanovac, Medvedja)."
In March of 2000, the BBC reported that KFOR raided a Saudi charity
operating in Kosovo after being tipped off by U.S. officials that it may
have links to Bin Laden. The Islamic relief organization strongly
denied the allegations.
Before the NATO air campaign, the Yugoslav government said on its
website that KLA fighters from Kosovo had been attending terrorist
training camps in Arab states, "financed by some renegade Saudi
businessmen" - an apparent reference to Bin Laden.
In May of 1999, the Washington Times reported that the KLA had borrowed money "from known terrorists like Osama Bin Laden."
Two months earlier, Israeli investigative journalist Steve Rodan wrote
that, according to European security and diplomatic sources, "Kosovo has
become the latest and most significant arena for radical Islamic states
and groups that seek to widen their influence in Europe."
Macedonia
The danger exhibited by Macedonia was foreseen by Henry Kissinger in his
Washington Post article of February 22, 1999 ("No U.S. Ground Forces
for Kosovo: Leadership Doesn´t Mean That We Must Do Everything for
Ourselves"):
"Ironically, the projected peace agreement increases the likelihood of
the various possible escalations sketched by the president as
justifications for a U.S. deployment. An independent Albanian Kosovo
surely would seek to incorporate the neighboring Albanian minorities --
mostly in Macedonia -- and perhaps even Albania itself. And a Macedonian
conflict would land us precisely back in the Balkan wars of earlier in
this century. Will Kosovo then become the premise for a NATO move into
Macedonia, just as the deployment in Bosnia is invoked as justification
for the move into Kosovo? Is NATO to be the home for a whole series of
Balkan NATO protectorates?"
The connection between Macedonia, its conflict and Bin Laden’s
involvement can be gleaned from a Washington Times editorial on June 22,
2001, ("Bin Laden´s new special envoys"):
"[The NLA] is fighting to keep control over the region’s drug
trafficking, which has grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since
the Kosovo war. In addition to drug money, the NLA also has another
prominent venture capitalist: Osama Bin Laden.
The Muslim terrorist leader, according to a document obtained by The
Washington Times and written by the chief commander of the Macedonian
Security Forces, puts out the front money for the rebel group through a
representative in Macedonia: "This person is representative of Osama Bin
Laden, who is the main financial supporter of the National Liberation
Army, where to date he has paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the
National Liberation Army.”
It is important to point out that in Macedonia, local drug-trafficking
is now out of control. Osama Bin Laden is realizing that this growing
reality of Albanian narco-terrorism could lead to the emergence of a
situation in which his venture may become powerful enough to control one
or more states in the region. In practical terms, this will involve
either Albania or Macedonia, or both. Politically, this is now being
done by channeling profits from narco-terrorism into local governments
and political parties.
Strategically, Macedonia is very important to Osama Bin Laden and his
followers from another perspective as well. It closes the loop between
East and West, and more particularly it gives him an open hand when it
comes to control of the new pipeline that is planned to stretch from
Bulgaria to Albania ports. This way Osama Bin Laden would have the
ability to control the distribution of oil to the United States.
Conclusion
This article has attempted to deliver the reader with the evidence of
the influence gained by Osama Bin Laden in the Balkans. The Centre for
Peace in the Balkans, throughout its existence, has warned that tacit
cooperation with terrorists like Osama Bin Laden would undoubtedly
result in catastrophic consequences around the globe. Turning a
blind-eye while Bosnian Muslims and Albanians in Yugoslavia and
Macedonia actively worked with Islamicist terrorist elements, right
under the nose of NATO, was bound to destabilize other parts of the
world. Strengthened and emboldened by success in the Balkans, these
terrorists have now gone on to fulfill what in essence was the Crown
Jewel of terror, terror over the whole of North America. In fact, it is
certain that the New York and Washington catastrophes served as a
recruitment advertisement for the movement.
Yesterday it was the Balkans, today the USA, tomorrow it’s anybody’s
guess. After the events of September 11th, it appears that our
imagination is too conservative for the minds of terror. The United
States and NATO countries found these terrorist elements “useful” in the
service of past policy objectives, whether it was Afghanistan, Bosnia
or Kosovo. The real question now is who was using whom? Radical
terrorists, whether Islamicist or not, are tigers which cannot be
ridden. The foolishness of how any Pentagon, CIA or State Department
analyst could have viewed otherwise became horrifically apparent on
September 11, 2001.
Links
Balkan wars and terrorist ties
Director of the U.S. Congress' Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional warfare: "Some Call It Peace"
NATO Probes Claims that Bin Laden is in Kosovo
Persecution Watch : Kosovo
Defang the KLA
Destabilizing the Balkans: US & Albanian Defense Cooperation in the 1990s
Bin Laden in Kosovo
Bosnia Arrests Three Suspected Bin Laden´s Associates
A Bosnian Village's Terrorist Ties; Links to U.S. Bomb Plot Arouse Concern About Enclave of Islamic Guerrillas
Bin Laden opens European terror base in Albania
US tackles Islamic militancy in Kosovo
US alarmed as Mujahidin join Kosovo rebels
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The former Ambasador of the Bosnian United Nations Mission when Darko Trifunovic worked thre in diplomatic capacity confessed to giving Osama bin laden a passport when he was stationed in Italy at this time to pass illegally through Bosnia!
There is no doubt in my own mind that if former President Bill Clinton and others in the American government had not supported the KLA and an independent Kosovo, many terrorist attacks around the world in America as well as in Europe would not have happened. Given al Qaeda a springboard in Kosovo and Albania was about the dumbest thing an American President coiuld do!
And now America is paying the price in the recent rise of terrorist attacks right here in NJ at the hands of KLA terrorists from Kosovo!\\Fort Dix is only one example!