The Golden Chain list. [Source: Public domain]In
March 2002, authorities in Bosnia, Sarajevo, will raid the offices of
the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) due to suspected funding
of al-Qaeda (see March 2002).
The raid will uncover a handwritten list containing the name of twenty
wealthy donors sympathetic to al-Qaeda. The list, referred to as “The
Golden Chain,” contains both the names of the donors and the names of
the recipients (but does not mention amounts given). Seven of the
payments are made to Osama bin Laden. [United Press International, 2/11/2003] Most accounts will be vague on what year the Golden Chain document was written; some say 1988. [Wall Street Journal, 3/18/2003] But counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will say it dates from 1989. [US Congress, 10/22/2003] Al-Qaeda is formed in late 1988 (see August 11-20, 1988).
The Wall Street Journal will later note, “The list doesn’t show any
continuing support for al-Qaeda after the organization began targeting
Americans, but a number of the Saudis on it have been under scrutiny by
US officials as to whether they have supported terrorism in recent
years.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/18/2003] The donors named include:
The “Bin Laden brothers.” Their first names are not mentioned. They
give money to Osama bin Laden. UPI will later point out that “the
discovery of this document in Sarajevo calls into question whether
al-Qaeda has received support from one of Osama’s scores of wealthy
brothers.”
Adel Batterjee, a wealthy Saudi businessman who is also the founder of
both BIF and its predecessor, Lajnatt Al-Birr Al-Islamiah. He appears to
be mentioned as a recipient three times. [United Press International, 2/11/2003] The US will declare him as a terrorist financier in 2004 (see December 21, 2004).
Wael Hamza Julaidan, a Saudi millionaire and one of the founders of
al-Qaeda. He is listed as a recipient. The US will declare him a
terrorist financier in 2002 (see September 6, 2002).
Saleh Kamel, a Saudi billionaire, and the majority shareholder of the
Saudi conglomerate Dallah Albaraka. In 2003, Forbes will call him one of
the richest people in the world. The list has him giving money to
Batterjee.
Sulaiman Abdul Aziz al-Rajhi, another Saudi billionaire. The SAAR
network, which is named after him, will be raided by the FBI in 2002
(see March 20, 2002). [Emerson, 2006, pp. 400]
Khalid bin Mahfouz, another Saudi billionaire. A lawyer for bin Mahfouz
will later say bin Mahfouz did contribute a small amount to fund the
mujaheddin in the late 1980s, but only at the behest of the US and Saudi
Arabia. [Wall Street Journal, 3/18/2003]
Zahid
Shaikh Mohammed, the brother of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
(KSM), works as the head of the Pakistani branch of the charity Mercy
International. A book published in 1999 will allege that this charity,
based in the US and Switzerland, was used by the CIA to funnel money to
Muslim militants fighting against US enemies in places such as Bosnia
and Afghanistan (see 1989 and After).
It is not known when Zahid got involved with the charity, but he is
heading its Pakistani branch by 1988, when his nephew Ramzi Yousef first
goes to Afghanistan (see Late 1980s). [Reeve, 1999, pp. 120] In the spring of 1993, US investigators raid Zahid’s house while searching for Yousef (see Spring 1993).
Documents and pictures are found suggesting close links and even a
friendship between Zahid and Osama bin Laden. Photos and other evidence
also show close links between Zahid, KSM, and government officials close
to Nawaf Sharif, who is prime minister of Pakistan twice in the 1990s.
The investigators also discover that Zahid was seen talking to Pakistani
President Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari during a Mercy International
ceremony in February 1993. [Reeve, 1999, pp. 48-49, 120] But despite the raid, Zahid apparently keeps his job until about February 1995, when Yousef is arrested in Pakistan (see February 7, 1995).
Investigators learn Yousef had made a phone call to the Mercy office,
and there is an entry in Yousef’s seized telephone directory for a Zahid
Shaikh Mohammed. Pakistani investigators raid the Mercy office, but
Zahid has already fled. [United Press International, 4/11/1995; Guardian, 9/26/2001; McDermott, 2005, pp. 154, 162]
It is unclear what subsequently happens to Zahid. In 1999 it will be
reported that he is believed to be in Kuwait, but in 2002 the Kuwaiti
government will announce he is a member of al-Qaeda, so presumably he is
no longer welcome there. [Reeve, 1999, pp. 48; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002]
Mercy International’s Kenya branch will later be implicated in the 1998
US embassy bombing in that country, as will KSM, Zahid’s brother (see Late August 1998).
Abdullah Anas. [Source: History Channel]According
to author Richard Labeviere, in this year Talaat Fouad Qassem, a leader
of the Egyptian militant group Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, is designated by
a leaders from different radical militant groups to head up the
militant effort in Bosnia. Qassem is living in exile in Denmark and
recruits the help of two Algerian militants also living in exile in
Europe, Kamer Eddine Kherbane and Abdullah Anas. In future years, the
three of them will coordinate all the requests for volunteers from
European countries who want to fight in Bosnia. They will send about
2,000 volunteers to camps in Bosnia near the towns of Zenica and Tuzla.
Kherbane will directly lead the Tuzla group. [Labeviere, 1999, pp. 73]
In 1991, Kherbane will set up a charity front in Croatia that is a
branch of Maktab al-Khidamat/Al-Kifah, which is closely tied to al-Qaeda
(see 1991 and Early 1990s). In 1995, Qassem will be abducted in Croatia by US forces and killed in Egypt (see
September 13, 1995).
The
New York Times reports that US intelligence has created a new National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) predicting Yugoslavia will break apart,
probably within 18 months, and that civil war within Yugoslavia is
likely. The NIE is said to be unusually bold and runs counter to some
analysis in the State Department and elsewhere. It blames Slobodan
Milosevic. president of Serbia, as the principal instigator of trouble.
The Times also notes that, “Late last month, the House and Senate passed
an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriation law that bars any
United States loans or credits for Yugoslavia unless the assistance is
directed to a republic ‘which has held free and fair elections and which
is not engaged in systematic abuse of human rights.’” [New York Times, 11/28/1990]
Abu Hamza al-Masri (left) riding in a car with Haroon Rashid Aswat in January 1999. [Source: Sunday Times]Haroon
Rashid Aswat is a radical Muslim of Indian descent but born and raised
in Britain. Around 1995, when he was about 21 years old, he left Britain
and attended militant training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is
said to have later told investigators that he once served as a
bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. In the late 1990s, he returns to Britain
and becomes a “highly public aide” to radical London imam Abu Hamza
al-Masri. Reda Hassaine, an informant for the French and British
intelligence services (see After March 1997 and Late January 1999),
will later recall regularly seeing Aswat at the Finsbury Park mosque
where Abu Hamza preaches. Hassaine frequently sees Aswat recruiting
young men to join al-Qaeda. “Inside the mosque he would sit with the new
recruits telling them about life after death and the obligation of
every Muslim to do the jihad against the unbelievers. All the talk was
about killing in order to go to paradise and get the 72 virgins.” Aswat
also shows potential recruits videos of the militants fighting in Bosnia
and Chechnya. Hassaine will add: “He was always wearing Afghan or
combat clothes. In the evening he offered some tea to the people who
would sit with him to listen to the heroic action of the mujaheddin
before joining the cleric for the finishing touch of brainwashing. The
British didn’t seem to understand how dangerous these people were.”
Hassaine presumably tells his British handlers about Aswat, as he is
regularly reporting about activities as the mosque around this time, but
the British take no action. [Sunday Times (London), 7/31/2005] It will later be reported that Aswat is the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings (see Late June-July 7, 2005).
Some of the 7/7 suicide bombers regularly attended the Finsbury Park
mosque, and may have been recruited by al-Qaeda there or at another
mosque in Britain. Counterterrorism expert John Loftus will later claim
that Aswat in fact was working with British intelligence. He will say
that in the late 1990s British intelligence was trying to get Islamist
militants to fight in Kosovo against the Serbians and Aswat was part of
this recruitment effort (see July 29, 2005). [Fox News, 7/29/2005]
Alija Izetbegovic. [Source: US Defense Department / Helene C. Stikkel]Alija
Izetbegovic is elected leader of Bosnia, which is still a republic
within the nation of Yugoslavia. He wins the vote because Muslims have a
plurality of about 40 percent in the republic. During World War II,
Izetbegovic supported the Handzar divisions organized by the Nazi SS.
After the war, he was sentenced to three years in prison for his wartime
activities. He wrote a controversial Islamic manifesto in 1970 entitled
“The Islamic Declaration.” [New York Times, 10/20/2003]
In it, he called for “political revolution” and wrote, “There can be no
peace or harmony between the ‘Islamic religion’ and non-Islamic social
and political institutions.” He also wrote, “Our objective is the
Islamization of Muslims” and “Our motto is to have faith and fight.” [Schindler, 2007, pp. 45]
In 1983, the Communist government of Yugoslavia sentenced him to
14-years in prison on charges of conspiring to create a Muslim state,
however he was released in 1988. The New York Times will later say that
the “Muslims of Bosnia were overwhelmingly a secular people. [But] in
his strong religious faith, Mr. Izetbegovic was the exception rather
than the rule.” He win remain the leader of the Bosnian Muslims through
the rest of the 1990s. [New York Times, 10/20/2003]
Lawrence
Eagleburger sends Warren Zimmerman to Sarajevo to encourage Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic to renege on an agreement brokered by Lord
Carrington that would have prevented the breakup of Yugoslavia. Because
of this and other similar incidents, Sir Alfred Sherman, a close
colleague of Margaret Thatcher and a staunch US Cold War ally, later
describes American intervention in the Balkans as a policy of “lying and
cheating, fomenting war in which civilians are the main casualty, and
in which ancient hatreds feed on themselves.” [Sherman, 3/2/1997]
A
2006 analysis compiled jointly by US and Croatian intelligence will
reveal that
al-Qaeda began infiltrating the Balkans region even before the start of
the Bosnian war in 1992. Kamer Eddine Kherbane, a member of Algerian
militant group GIA, moved to Zagreb, Croatia, in 1991 to set up a
charity front at the direct request of Osama bin Laden. The
organization, called Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) or Al-Kifah, is closely
tied to al-Qaeda. Its Brooklyn, New York, branch called the Al-Kifah
Refugee Center is tied to both the 1993 WTC bombers and the CIA (see 1986-1993). [Associated Press, 4/17/2006]
Apparently the Zagreb branch of MAK/Al-Kifah is also called the
Al-Kifah Refugee Center like the Brooklyn branch and has very close ties
with that branch (see Early 1990s). A Spanish police report will later claim that Kherbane is the head of the Zagreb branch. [CNN, 12/8/2002]
The analysis will allege that Kherbane used Al-Kifah “to infiltrate GIA
members into Bosnia,” and that Iran and unnamed Arab countries paid for
the operation through money transfers. [Associated Press, 4/17/2006] Kherbane appears to have begun working with other radical militants in Bosnia in 1990 (see 1990).
Mujaheddin battalions in formation during the Bosnia war. More details are unknown. [Source: History Channel]Saudi
multimillionaire Yassin al-Qadi forms the Muwafaq Foundation (also
known as Blessed Relief). The Muwafaq Foundation is a charitable trust
registered in Jersey, an island off the coast of Britain with lenient
charity regulations. [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 121-123]
Al-Qadi is said to be the chief investor, donating about $15 to $20
million for the charity from his fortune. He also persuades members of
very rich and powerful Saudi families to help out. [Chicago Tribune, 10/29/2001] The foundation’s board of directors will later be called “the creme de la creme of Saudi society.” [New York Times, 10/13/2001][Bin Mahfouz Info, 11/22/2005]
The Muwafaq Foundation opens offices in several African countries, but
it is soon suspected of providing funds for Islamic extremists. For
instance, in 1992 it opens an office in Mogadishu, Somalia, at a time
when al-Qaeda is assisting militants fighting US soldiers there (see October 3-4, 1993).
Burr and Collins will claim “its purpose [there] consisted of
transporting weapons and ammunition to Islamists in the city.” But most
of the foundation’s work appears to center on Bosnia. It opens an office
in neighboring Croatia in 1992, the same year the Bosnian war begins,
and then in Sarajevo, Bosnia, a year later. By June 1993, group of
mujaheddin fighting in the Zenica region of Bosnia form the Al Muwafaq
Brigade. It consists of about 750 Afghan-Arabs and has Iranian advisers.
According to Burr and Collins, it soon becomes well known in the region
that the Muwafaq Foundation is funding the Al Muwafaq Brigade and at
least one camp in Afghanistan training mujaheddin to fight in Bosnia.
One member of the brigade is Ahmed Ressam, who will later be arrested in
an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the Los Angeles airport (see December 14, 1999).
In July 1995, a US Foreign Broadcast Information Service report
indicates that the Muwafaq Foundation’s office in Zagreb, Croatia, is a
bin Laden front. In early 1996, bin Laden will mention in an interview
that he supports the “Muwafaq Society” in Zagreb. However, al-Qadi
denies any ties to fighting mujaheddin. The brigade apparently disbands
after the war ends in 1995 and the Muwafaq Foundation will close its
Bosnia office by 1998. [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 121-123, 137-138]
A secret 1996 CIA report will claim that Muwafaq has ties to the
al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya militant group and helps fund mujaheddin fighting
in Bosnia and at least one training camp in Afghanistan (see January 1996).
The US will declare al-Qadi a terrorist financier shortly after 9/11
but has never taken any action against the Muwafaq Foundation (see 1995-1998).
Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz’s legal team will later state that
bin Mahfouz “was the principal donor to the foundation at its inception
in 1991 but was not involved in the running of the charity.” They also
will state that the foundation was purely humanitarian and had no
terrorist ties.
Morton Abramowitz. [Source: Bradley Olsen]Morton
Abramowitz, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, establishes a number of blue-ribbon commissions, headed by a
select group of foreign policy elite, to create a new post-Cold War
foreign policy framework for the US. Some of the group’s members are
Madeleine Albright, Henry Cisneros, John Deutch, Richard Holbrooke,
Alice Rivlin, David Gergen, Admiral William Crowe, Leon Fuerth, as well
as Richard Perle and James Schlesinger, the two token conservatives who
quickly resign. The commission will issue a number of policy papers
recommending the increased use of military force to intervene in the
domestic conflicts of other countries. Some of the commission’s members
are appointed to brief Democratic presidential candidates on the
commission’s reports ahead of their release. [American Spectator, 6/1999]
Abramowitz is also influential in the career of counterterrorism “tsar”
Richard Clarke, who refers to Abramowitz as his “boss and mentor” at
the State Department. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 48]
Christoph von Bezold. [Source: History Channel]In
1997, it will be reported that the German parliament’s Control
Commission, which oversees Germany’s intelligence services, is
investigating media allegations that the BND German intelligence agency
covertly and illegally armed the Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the
Bosnian war. The BND allegedly infiltrated the European Union’s
monitoring missions that were supposed to help arrange ceasefires and
assist with humanitarian aid. The Germans used that cover to smuggle
weapons and money to Bosnian Muslims. In one instance, Christoph von
Bezold, head of the German EU monitors in Zagreb, Croatia, was allegedly
actually a BND agent and on March 27, 1994, he shipped munitions across
enemy lines to the Bosnian Muslim controlled pocket of Bihac, Bosnia,
in boxes supposedly containing powdered milk. Apparently this was just
one of many such shipments using EU monitors as cover. In addition,
Germany appears to be Croatia’s largest arms supplier during the war,
although this is in violation of German law prohibiting the shipments of
arms to an active war zone and a violation of the UN arms embargo on
Yugoslavia as well. Most of the Croatia military hardware comes from
East German supplies rendered obsolete in Germany after East and West
Germany merged. Germany even smuggled former East German MiG-21 fighters
to Croatia. [Daily Telegraph, 4/20/1997]
There
is a growing conflict within the Bush administration between the
“selective engagers” and an alliance of “hardliners” and “liberal
humanitarianists” over whether or not to intervene militarily in Bosnia.
The selective engagers believe that the US should militarily intervene
only in cases where US strategic interests are directly threatened.
Richard Perle and Albert Wohlstetter are prominently mentioned among the
hardliners. [Western, 7/1999]
Bilal Philips. [Source: Lightuponlight.com]Shortly
after the end of fighting in the US-led Persian Gulf war against Iraq,
the US allows the Saudi government to conduct a massive program to
convert US soldiers still stationed in Saudi Arabia (see March 1991)
to Islam. Huge tents are erected near the barracks of US troops and
Saudi imams lecture the soldiers about Islam and attempt to convert
them. Within months, about 1,000 soldiers, and perhaps as many as 3,000,
convert to Islam. Some US officials express concern about the
aggressive conversion effort and the long term implications it may have,
but the program is not stopped. Radical imam Bilal Philips helps lead
the conversion effort. He will later explain that a special team of
fluent English speakers, some trained in psychology, was amply paid by
the Saudi government to convert the soldiers. Converts had their
pilgrimages to Islamic holy cities paid for and Muslim imams were
assigned to follow up with them when they returned to the US. Philips is
openly hostile to the US, saying such things as, “Western culture led
by the United States is an enemy of Islam.” He will later note that some
of his converts went to fight in Bosnia and others were the subject of
terrorism probes in the US. [US Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, 10/14/2003; Washington Post, 11/2/2003]
Philips will work with the Saudi government and one of the “Landmarks”
bombers to send 14 Muslim ex-US soldiers to fight in Bosnia in 1992 (see
December 1992). Listed as an unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 WTC bombing, he will be deported from the US in 2004. [Australian Associated Press, 4/4/2007]
Hasan Cengic. [Source: Dani]The
SDA, the ruling party of Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic,
decides in private meetings that war in Bosnia is inevitable. They begin
forming their own paramilitary force called the Patriotic League, which
answers to Izetbegovic and his party, not the Bosnian government as a
whole. Hasan Cengic, a radical militant imam, is given control of the
Patriotic League and begins arming it. The Bosnian Muslims have no armed
force at all at this time while the Yugoslavian army they face is very
large and well supplied. Cengic travels to many countries arranging
secret arms deals to supply the new force, planned to be 30,000 soldiers
strong. By the end of the year, he arranges deals with Slovenia,
Lebanon, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 70] Cengic’s efforts will be the start of an illegal arms pipeline into Bosnia of massive proportions (see Mid-1991-1996).
The
provinces of Croatia and Slovenia declare their independence from
Yugoslavia. Slovenia breaks off without violence (it has no border with
Serbia). However, within two days the Yugoslav army, representing
Serbia, attacks Croatia and a long war between the two countries begins.
This is the start of nearly a decade of conflict in the region as
Yugoslavia slowly breaks apart. [US Department of State, 12/6/1995; Time, 12/31/1995]
Elfatih Hassanein (center). [Source: Magyar Iszlam]In
1987, a Sudanese man named Elfatih Hassanein found the Third World
Relief Agency (TWRA). By mid-1991, Bosnian President Izetbegovic
contacts Hassanein, who he has known since the 1970s. The two men agree
to turn TWRA from an obscure charity into what the Washington Post will
later call “the chief broker of black-market weapons deals by Bosnia’s
Muslim-led government and the agent of money and influence in Bosnia for
Islamic movements and governments around the world.” A banker in Vienna
will later call Hassanein the “bagman” for Izetbegovic. “If the Bosnian
government said we need flour, he ran after flour. If they said we need
weapons, he ran after weapons.” [Washington Post, 9/22/1996; Schindler, 2007, pp. 148] The TWRA is controlled by a committee composed of Hassanein and: Hasan Cengic. He is in charge of arming a Bosnian militia run by the SDA party (see June 1991). Irfan Ljevakovic. Husein Zivalj. Dervis Djurdjevic. All
of them are important members of Izetbegovic’s SDA party, and all but
Ljevakovic were codefendants with Izetbegovic in a 1983 trial. Most
payments require the approval of three of the five, except for amounts
greater than $500,000, in which case Izetbegovic has to give approval.
The corruption from these higher-ups is said to be incredible, with up
to half of all money passing through the TWRA going into their pockets. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 148-152]
The TWRA is based in Vienna, Austria, and Izetbegovic personally
guarantees Hassanein’s credentials with banks there. Soon, machine guns,
missiles and other weapons are being shipped into Bosnia in containers
marked as humanitarian aid. Hassanein is a member of Sudan’s government
party and a follower of top Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi. Just like
al-Turabi, he works with bin Laden and the “Blind Sheikh,” Sheikh Omar
Abdul-Rahman. He becomes the main agent in Europe for marketing and
selling video and audio tapes of Abdul-Rahman’s sermons. In March 1992,
the Sudanese government gives him a diplomatic passport and he uses it
to illegally transport large amounts of cash from Austria into Bosnia
without being searched. [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 140-141]
The Saudi Arabian government is the biggest contributor to TWRA, but
many other governments give money to it too, such as Sudan, Iran,
Pakistan, Brunei, Turkey, and Malaysia. Bin Laden is also a major
contributor. [Washington Post, 9/22/1996]
Author John Schindler will later note, “Relations between bin Laden and
TWRA were close, not least because during the Bosnian war the al-Qaeda
leadership was based in Khartoum, Sudan, under the protection of the
Sudanese Islamist regime that was the ultimate backer of Hassanein and
his firm.” TWRA also works closely with the International Islamic Relief
Organization (IIRO) and most other charity fronts in Bosnia. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 151-152]
A later study by the Bosnian government with help from Western
intelligence agencies will determine that at least $2.5 billion passed
through the TWRA to Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. The study will call
the TWRA “a group of Bosnian Muslim wartime leaders who formed an
illegal, isolated ruling oligarchy, comprising three to four hundred
‘reliable’ people in the military commands, the diplomatic service, and a
number of religious dignitaries.… It was this organization, not the
Government [of Bosnia], that controlled all aid that Islamic countries
donated to the Bosnian Muslims throughout the war.” [Schindler, 2007, pp. 149-150]
The
UN Security Council votes to impose an arms embargo on all countries
occupying the region of Yugoslavia. Macedonia, Croatia, and Slovenia
have split from Yugoslavia by this time and Bosnia will in early 1992,
leaving Serbia to dominate what’s left of Yugoslavia. The New York Times
comments, “The resolution is in effect an effort to prevent Croatia and
other successionist republics from buying arms from other countries.
The Yugoslav armed forces have long had a highly developed arms industry
of their own and do not need to import weapons at this time…” [New York Times, 9/26/1991]
Khalil
Deek, a US citizen and al-Qaeda operative mostly living in California,
also works in Bosnia for the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), also known as
the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), during the Bosnia war. [Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2000]
A secret 1996 CIA report will say, “The IARA office in Zagreb [Croatia]
provides weapons to the Bosnian military, according to a clandestine
source. The source claimed the office was controlled by officials of
Sudan’s ruling party, the National Islamic Front.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996]
The Wall Street Journal will later claim that the “US suspects [the
IARA] was involved in smuggling fighters into Bosnia from among the
mujaheddin.” [Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2000] Deek has a Bosnian passport. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 270] Some reports identify him as a US Army veteran. [Orange County Weekly, 6/15/2006] Deek will later reportedly serve similar roles for al-Qaeda in Pakistan, helping to smuggle weapons (see May 2000) and direct recruits to militant training camps in Afghanistan (see 1998-December 11, 1999). While in Bosnia, he will get to know other al-Qaeda operatives later connected to various bomb plots (see January 2000).
Around the same time that he is working in Bosnia, he is also being
monitored by the FBI running militant training camps in California, but
the FBI takes no action against him or his camps (see Early 1990s).
“A Call for Jihad in Bosnia” flyer published by the Al-Kifah Refugee Center’s Boston branch. [Source: Public domain]The
Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, New York, is al-Qaeda’s main
foothold in the US and most of the 1993 WTC bombers are closely tied to
it. It had been formed in the 1980s to send militants to fight in
Afghanistan and also help veteran fighters settle in the US (see 1986-1993).
But the Afghanistan war against the Soviets ended in early 1989 and the
winning factions soon began fighting amongst themselves (see February 15, 1989).
But a new cause is on the horizon as Yugoslavia starts falling apart.
By 1991, the center’s parent organization in Pakistan, Maktab
al-Khidamat(MAK)/Al-Kifah begins setting up al-Qaeda charity fronts in
the Bosnia region (see 1991).
The main regional MAK/Al-Kifah branch in Zagreb, Croatia, is also
called the Al-Kifah Refugee Center like the Brooklyn branch and has very
close ties with that branch (see Early 1990s). In 1992, war breaks out in Bosnia (see April 6, 1992)
and the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn shifts its focus fully to
the Bosnia cause. For instance, the Boston branch publishes “A Call for
Jihad in Bosnia.” It claims that more than 100,000 Bosnians had been
killed and that thousands of Muslim girls had been kidnapped and kept in
Yugoslav army camps for sex. It urges readers who wish “to provide the
emerging jihad movement in Bosnia with more than food and shelter” to
send their donations to Al-Kifah. And just as Al-Kifah led the effort to
send US-based militants to fight in Afghanistan, it appears to do the
same for Bosnia. Vanity Fair will later claim, “Dozens and perhaps
hundreds of US residents are reported to have joined appeals to fight
the Serbs in Bosnia.” [Vanity Fair, 3/2005]
The head of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center’s Zagreb branch, Kamer Eddine
Kherbane, apparently is also one of the leaders of the mujaheddin
fighters in Bosnia around this time (see 1990 and 1991). The CIA had ties to Al-Kifah during the Afghan war (see Late 1980s and After)
and there is some circumstantial evidence of US government ties to it
during the Bosnia war. In 1992, Ali Mohamed, a double agent and ex-US
Special Forces officer with close ties to Al-Kifah, leads a group of US
militants who are all ex-US soldiers to train and fight in Bosnia (see December 1992).
Abu Ubaidah Yahya, an ex-US marine and security chief at the Brooklyn
branch, will lead a second group of US militants to fight in Bosnia (see
Spring 1993).
Yemeni
Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad helps funnel Islamist warriors to
Bosnia for al-Qaeda from 1992 through 1995, prosecutors will allege
during his 2004-2005 trial. [Associated Press, 3/10/2005]
At the trial, a “protected” Croatian witness will testify that
al-Moayad is involved in laundering $800-$900 million from a Saudi
charitable organization through the Croatian Zagrebacka Bank. The stated
purpose of these funds is to aid Muslim refugees from the 1992-1995
Bosnian war, but 90 percent of this money actually goes to al-Qaeda
guerrillas fighting on the Bosnian Muslim side. [Agence France-Presse, 9/21/2005]
Fateh Kamel. [Source: Radio Canada]The
Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn has an office in Zagreb, Croatia,
also called the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, and the links between the two
are very close. Both are connected to Maktab al-Khidamat/Al-Kifah in
Pakistan, which is an al-Qaeda charity front. Hassan Hakim, deputy
director of the Zagreb office, says his office is linked only to the
Brooklyn office. This is important because the Zagreb office is closely
involved in assisting mujaheddin in the Bosnian war and the Brooklyn
office is closely linked to the CIA, suggesting the CIA could be
assisting the Bosnia mujaheddin through the relationship between
Brooklyn and Zagreb offices. [Washington Post, 8/3/1993; Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 41] The Zagreb office will remain open after the Brooklyn office is closed in the wake of the 1993 WTC bombing (see February 26, 1993),
as all of the bombers were connected to that office. A Washington Post
journalist who visits it in August 1993 describes it as being “housed in
a modern, two-story building staffed by Arabs who identified themselves
as Algerians.” [Washington Post, 8/3/1993] Like the Brooklyn office, the Zagreb office appears to be staffed with many militants involved in illegal activities:
Fateh Kamel will reportedly be involved in many attacks and is
considered a leader for Ahmed Ressam, who will attempt to bomb the Los
Angeles airport (see December 14, 1999). Lionel Dumont is involved in numerous al-Qaeda plots, even as far afield as Japan. Hocine Senoussaoui is connected with Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and the GIA and will be arrested in France in 1996. [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 164, 186, 189, 195]
Kamar Eddine Kherbane, head of the Zagreb office, is a known al-Qaeda
operative as well as a leader of an Algerian extremist group, and
allegedly will be involved in the 9/11 attacks (see September 18-20, 2001).
Hassan Hakim. A 1996 CIA report will say that he is a senior member of
Algerian extremist groups and was arrested in France for weapons
smuggling in July 1994.
In 1996, a CIA report will say that an Algerian national connected to
the Zagreb office is “preparing for an unspecified terrorist attack in
Europe…” [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996]
Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) fights and fundraises in Bosnia. The 9/11
Commission will later state, “In 1992, KSM spent some time fighting
alongside the mujaheddin in Bosnia and supporting that effort with
financial donations.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 147] He reportedly fights with the elite El Mujahid battalion, and gains Bosnian citizenship. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 281] He also works for Egypitska Pomoc, an Egyptian aid group in Zenica, Bosnia, and in 1995 becomes one of its directors. [Playboy, 6/1/2005] KSM mostly lives in Qatar for the next three years (see 1992-1996),
but in 1995 he is back fighting in Bosnia as the violence escalates
that year. Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani, Qatar’s Minister of Religious
Affairs, underwrites the costs of the trip. [Los Angeles Times, 12/22/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 147, 488]
This second trip to Bosnia means that KSM fights there at the same time
as 9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, though it is not
known if they meet (see 1993-1999).
The FBI will later suspect that KSM helped build a bomb used to blow up
a police station in neighboring Croatia while KSM was in the area (see October 20, 1995).
Warren Zimmerman. [Source: BBC]The
official US policy at this time is that the US in working to keep
Yugoslavia together. But in an interview with a Croatian newspaper, US
ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman says, “We are aiming for a
dissolution of Yugoslavia into independent states peacefully…” [Danas, 1/21/1992]
In
a meeting held in Lisbon by the European Community, top Bosnian Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic, top Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic,
and top Bosnian Croat leader Stepan Klujic sign an agreement to
partition Bosnia into three ethnically based divisions which would form a
loosely joined independent confederation. But the New York Times will
later report, “A few days later, influenced by what he saw as an
encouraging conversation with Warren Zimmermann, the United States
ambassador, [Izetbegovic] changed his mind.” The Bosnian Muslims and
Croats then quickly hold a referendum on the issue of Bosnian
independence which passes by 99 percent on March 1, but the Bosnian
Serbs boycott the vote. [New York Times, 10/20/2003]
Then, on March 18, the same three leaders hold another meeting in
Lisbon and again agree to the partition plan. But the New York Times
will report a year later, “On returning to Sarajevo, Mr. Izetbegovic was
encouraged by United States and European Community diplomats to choose
instead a sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina under his presidency, saying
that was justified by the referendum on March 1 on independence.” [New York Times, 6/17/1993] War will break out one month later (see April 6, 1992).
The final agreement at the end of the war three years later will
closely resemble the agreement almost signed before it began (see December 14, 1995).
Muhammed
Cengic, who has close ties to Bosnian intelligence, negotiates a
military cooperation agreement with Turkey. According to Prof. Cees
Wiebes, the agreement ostensibly involves Turkish purchases of Bosnian
arms, but “it is reasonable to assume that the Turkish-Bosnian arms
traffic in reality went in the opposite direction.” The Cengic family
is very powerful in Bosnia. Western intelligence sources describe them
as “Mafia.” [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 178-179]
The clan also includes Hasan Cengic, who is one of the key figures in
the Third World Relief Agency charity front and illegal weapons pipeline
(see Mid-1991-1996).
UN
forces begin arriving in Bosnia, where they make their regional
headquarters in the capital of Sarajevo. The UN troops are moving into
the region in an attempt to keep the peace between Croatian and Serb
forces fighting in neighboring Croatia. But within a month, war will
break out in Bosnia and the UN troops will find themselves involved
there as well (see April 6, 1992). [New York Times, 3/15/1992] US troops will soon be forced to withdraw from Bosnia, but are able to establish a truce in Croatia. [New York Times, 5/31/1992]
The
United States recognizes the states of Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia.
The European Union, which has already recognized Croatia and Slovenia,
recognizes Bosnia. [US Department of State, 12/6/1995]
CIA
paramilitary contractor Billy Waugh fights in Bosnia. Details of his
actions, the other members of his team, and the actual operations are
unknown, but in his 2004 autobiography Waugh will say, “I saw combat in
Bosnia and Kosovo, conducting operations I cannot discuss.” [Waugh and Keown, 2004, pp. 307] This may occur during the Bosnian Civil War, at which time no US troops are officially involved in combat in Bosnia. [Nato Review, 9/2005]
Alternatively, according to Time magazine, during the mid and late
1990s CIA paramilitaries hunt Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and
Ratko Mladic, so Waugh may be part of this operation. [Time, 2/3/2003]
Waugh is a covert operations legend—his career began in Vietnam and
will end in Afghanistan in 2002, by which time he is in his 70s. [Waugh and Keown, 2004]
Territory
controlled around the start of the war. White represents the Bosnian
Serbs while gray represents Bosnian Muslims and Croats. [Source: Time / Cowan, Castello, Glanton]Bosnia
declares independence from Yugoslavia (which is now mostly made up of
Serbia). The Bosnian Serbs immediately declare their own separate state,
but remain closely tied to Serbia. War between Bosnia and Serbia begins
immediately, adding to the existing war between Croatia and Serbia.
Within days, the US recognizes the states of Croatia, Slovenia, and
Bosnia. The European Union, which has already recognized Croatia and
Slovenia, recognizes Bosnia as well. Serbia immediately gains the upper
hand and within a month Serbian forces surround most of the area around
the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. [US Department of State, 12/6/1995; Time, 12/31/1995; New York Times, 10/20/2003]
Soon after Bosnian Muslims declare independence from Yugoslavia (see April 6, 1992),
Muslim volunteers from all of the Muslim world come to help fight
against the Bosnian Serbs. These volunteers are generally known as the
mujaheddin, just as they were in the 1980s war in Afghanistan (and many
fought there as well). A military analyst will later call them “pretty
good fighters and certainly ruthless.” However, their numbers are small,
never reaching more than 4,000 (see 1993-1995).
In an interview shortly after 9/11, Richard Holbrooke, Balkans peace
negotiator for the US, will say, “I think the Muslims wouldn’t have
survived without” help from the mujaheddin. But he will also call their
help “a pact with the devil” from which Bosnia is still recovering. [Los Angeles Times, 10/7/2001]
At
the outset of the war in Bosnia, a small three- or four-man team from
the CIA and National Security Agency determine from satellite images
that the Serb’s artillery guns are in vulnerable positions and can be
easily “eliminated in one single day of air strikes-right at the start
of the siege.” When a diplomat who is working with the team sends word
of this to Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Tom Niles, the
intelligence is ignored by US officials who do not want to US to get
militarily involved. Two months later, officials from the Pentagon and
CIA will incorrectly tell the Senate foreign relations committee that
striking Serbian artillery positions would be impossible because of the
dense forests and mountainous terrain. The diplomat will later take his
story to the Guardian, suggesting that claims the Bosnian War was
unexpected by US intelligence were without merit and that the Senate
Committee was deliberately misled. [Guardian, 5/20/1995]
The
US Security Council votes to impose tough sanctions on Yugoslavia,
which effectively refers to Serbia since most other Yugoslav republics
have declared independence. The embargo requires all the countries of
the world to cease trading in any commodity, including oil, and to
freeze all its foreign assets. All air traffic links are suspended as
well. Sales of medicine and food are exempted. The sanctions are meant
to pressure Serbia to agree to a cease fire in the war in Bosnia. [New York Times, 5/31/1992]
Abu Abdel Aziz Barbaros in Bosnia in September 1992. His beard is dyed with henna. [Source: Pascal le Segretain / Corbis]Jamal
al-Fadl, an al-Qaeda financial agent, is sent from bin Laden’s
headquarters in Sudan to Zagreb, Croatia, to gather information about
the Bosnian war and the prospects of buying businesses in Croatia for
al-Qaeda. In Croatia, he meets with Enaam Arnaout (who will soon become
the head of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) in the US),
and al-Qaeda operatives Abu Abdel Aziz Barbaros (a.k.a. Abdel Rahman al
Dosari), and Abu Zubair al Madani, one of bin Laden’s cousins (he will
later be killed fighting in Bosnia). Barbaros tells al-Fadl that
al-Qaeda is seeking to create training camps in Bosnia, develop
relationships with Bosnian charities, and establish businesses to help
finance al-Qaeda activities. He says that BIF is providing money for
al-Qaeda to buy weapons to use in Bosnia and that they have already
obtained some weapons from Germany with the help of BIF and Mohammed
Loay Bayazid (who also works for BIF in the US). According to a later
Justice Department indictment, Barbaros also says that “al-Qaeda’s goal
in Bosnia [is] to establish a base for operations in Europe against
al-Qaeda’s true enemy, the United States.” Around this time, BIF begins
providing food, clothing, money and communications equipment to fighters
in Bosnia, including the elite Black Swans unit. [USA v. Enaam M. Arnaout, 10/6/2003, pp. 24-25 ; Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 16-17] In 1996, al-Fadl will defect from al-Qaeda and tell all he knows to US investigators (see June 1996-April 1997).
Jamal
al-Fadl travels to Vienna and has meetings with the Third World Relief
Agency (TWRA), which has its headquarters in Vienna. He opens up a
Vienna bank account and al-Qaeda operative Wadih El-Hage also opens up a
Vienna bank account around this time. Presumably these accounts are
used by al-Qaeda to send money to TWRA for operations in Bosnia. Around
the same time, al-Qaeda leader Mamdouh Mahmud Salim tells al-Fadl that
al-Qaeda’s goal is to make Bosnia a base for European operations. [United States of America v. Usama bin Laden, et al., Day 21, 3/22/2001; USA v. Enaam M. Arnaout, 10/6/2003, pp. 24-25 ]June 1996-April 1997).
TWRA will funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into Bosnia for
illegal weapons purchases over the next several years while the US
watches but fails to act. In 1996, al-Fadl will defect from al-Qaeda and
tell all he knows to US investigators (see
A
secret weapons pipeline into Bosnia in violation of a UN arms embargo
is exposed. Large transport planes have been arriving once a week for
four weeks from Sudan to Maribor, Slovenia. The cargo is marked as
humanitarian aid but in fact the planes are carrying tons of weapons,
mostly from surplus stocks of old Soviet weapons. The planes are run by a
company belonging to Victor Bout, a notorious illegal arms dealer who
will later work closely with the Taliban in Afghanistan (see October 1996-Late 2001). [Farah and Braun, 2007, pp. 50-51, 268-269]
Such planes have been bringing weapons through Croatia bound for Muslim
Bosnia, but due to deteriorating relations between Croatia and Muslim
Bosnia, the Croatian government stops the flights and impounds 120 tons
of weapons. At the same time, chartered Russian helicopters fly more
weapons directly into Muslim Bosnia. Austrian government agents learn
that the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA) is financing all of these
shipments. They are working with Hasan Cengic, a radical imam who is
also a Bosnian government official. The TWRA and Cengic switch to other
routes. The next year, the German government will stumbled across an
illegal weapons deal being negotiated in Germany by Bosnian Muslims and
Turkish arms dealers and arrest around 30. TWRA was the financial broker
of the deal. But despite the exposure of TWRA as a charity front, no
government takes any action against it and it will continue to be the
main vehicle by which Muslim Bosnia gets illegal weapons. [Washington Post, 9/22/1996; Farah and Braun, 2007, pp. 50-51, 268-269]
Bout and Cengic will apparently continue working together. A 2004
Bosnian intelligence report will say that “Victor Bout in collaboration
with Hasan Cengic is transporting weapons to Chechnya” via a Bout front
company. [Farah and Braun, 2007, pp. 50-51, 268-269]
Ayman al-Zawahiri in disguise. [Source: Interpol]Al-Qaeda
second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri is said to visit Bosnia many times
from around this date. A prominent Muslim Bosnian politician later
claims that al-Zawahiri visited mujaheddin camps in central Bosnia as
early as September 1992. The Egyptian government, which considers
al-Zawahiri an important enemy, claims al-Zawahiri is running several
mujaheddin operations in Bosnia through charity fronts. They also claim
he meets regularly with Bosnian Muslim politicians in Sarajevo. He is
further said to occasionally meet with Iranian government
representatives to discuss the war in Bosnia, as Iran is supplying
weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 123, 141] Anwar Shaaban, a radical imam leading the Bosnian mujaheddin effort from Milan, Italy (see Late 1993-1994), remains in regular contact with al-Zawahiri, according to Italian intelligence. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 164] In 1993, bin Laden reportedly puts al-Zawahiri in charge of the organization’s operations in the Balkans. [Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001] By 1994, al-Zawahiri will settle in Bulgaria to manage operations in Bosnia and the rest of the Balkan region (see September 1994-1996).
Lord
David Owen arrives in Sarajevo as the new European Union peace
negotiator. Owen is initially seen as anti-Serb and had recently
advocated Western air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs. He is outraged
that his arrival coincides with a Serb bombardment of the Kosevo
Hospital in Sarajevo, Bosnia. But within hours, he learns that the
incident was actually provoked by the Bosnian Muslims. He will later
say, “The UN monitors actually saw the Muslim troops enter the hospital
and, from the hospital grounds, firing at Serb positions. Then the
mortar was packed up and removed as the television crew showed up. A few
minutes later a retaliatory fire of course landed in or near the
hospital and all was filmed for television.” UN Gen. Philippe Morillon
immediately writes a letter to Bosnian President Izetbegovic: “I now
have concrete evidence from witnesses of this cowardly and disreputable
act and I must point out the harm such blatant disregard for the Geneva
Convention does to your cause.” But the letter and information about the
incident is not made public and the Serbs are the only ones blamed for
the incident. Owen will later say, “I asked Morillon why didn’t he make
this public, and he shrugged his shoulders [and said], ‘We have to live
here.’” [Rothstein, 1999, pp. 176, 188]
The
Bosnian Serbs have the upper hand in their war with the Bosnian Muslims
and Croats. A UN human rights investigator warns that the Bosnian
Muslims are “virtually threatened with extermination” unless they are
helped by outside forces. But a UN weapons embargo is still in place. [Los Angeles Times, 4/5/1996]
The
UN Security Council votes to impose a naval blockade around Serbia
(which does not have much effect since Serbia is a landlocked country).
While debating the resolution, a number of Islamic countries argue that
Bosnia should be excluded from the arms embargo that was imposed on all
former Yugoslavia republics in September 1991 (see September 26, 1991).
But the US successfully leads an effort to shoot down the proposal.
Former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance tells the Security Council, “It
taxes credulity to suggest that lifting the arms embargo for only one
party is either feasible or desirable.” [New York Times, 11/17/1992]September 1992).
Ironically, around the same time, the US begins to secretly support
Bosnian Muslim efforts to violate the embargo using a charity front
controlled by radical militants (see
Clement
Rodney Hampton-El will later admit that he had been smuggling money
into the US for military training from the Third World Relief Agency
(TWRA). [USA v. Benevolence International Foundation and Enaam M. Arnaout, 4/29/2002, pp. 6-7 ]
Hampton-El is linked to Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman and the Al-Kifah
Refugee Center and will later be given a long prison term for
involvement in the “Landmarks” plot (see June 24, 1993). He makes several trips to Europe in 1992-1993, raising over $150,000 to fund a Pennsylvania training camp (see Late 1992-Early 1993).
After one trip to Vienna, Austria (where TWRA has its headquarters), he
returns to the US with $20,000 hidden in his pants to avoid the
scrutiny of US customs officers. [United Press International, 8/2/1995]
At the time, TWRA is funneling huge amounts of weapons into Bosnia in
violation of a UN embargo but with the tacit approval of the US (see Mid-1991-1996). Hampton-El also travels to Bosnia around this time. [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 73-74]
In
1996, the Washington Post reports that the Saudi Arabian government
spent hundreds of millions of dollars to channel weapons to the Muslim
Bosnians, and that the US government knew about it and assisted it. An
anonymous Saudi official who took part in the effort will say that the
US role “was more than just turning a blind eye to what was going on.…
It was consent combined with stealth cooperation.… American knowledge
began under [President George] Bush and became much greater under
[President] Clinton.” The Bosnian program was modeled on Saudi and US
cooperation to fund the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The
major difference is that if Afghanistan the Saudis and Americans split
the costs, but in Bosnia the Saudis pay for everything. They spend $300
million on illegal weapons deliveries plus around $500 million in Saudi
aid to the Bosnian government. The US helps because Saudi Arabia lacks
the “technical sophistication” to mount the operation on their own. The
Post will report, “The official refused to go into detail about the
American role in the operation, other than to say that the Saudis had
made use of the same ‘network’ of undercover operatives, arms salesmen,
and ‘former this and former that’ set up during the Afghan operation.”
The official does say, “We did not set up a formal structure, the way we
did in Afghanistan. But logic tells you that without the consent of
NATO, the United States, and Germany, there was no way it could have
happened.” Most of the weapons go through Croatia since Bosnia lacks
good access to the sea, and the Croatian government takes a cut of up to
half of all the weapons. Some emergency deliveries are made through
“secret nighttime flights to Tuzla and other airports under the control
of the Bosnian authorities.” Other supplies come by sea, with NATO
apparently turning a blind eye in their naval blockade of the coastline.
The direct aid given to Bosnia is used to buy weapons on the black
market at high prices, sometimes from Serb enemies. US government
officials will later deny any such arrangement took place, but British,
French, and other officials believe the US was secretly involved in
efforts to arm the Bosnians. [Washington Post, 2/2/1996]
Much of the money must go through the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA),
since most illegal weapons get to Bosnia through the TWRA. This charity
front has ties to Osama bin Laden and other radical militants (see Mid-1991-1996).
The
Independent will report in 1998, “In December 1992, a US army official
met one of the Afghan veterans from Al-Kifah [Refugee Center] and
offered help with a covert operation to support the Muslims in Bosnia,
funded with Saudi money, according to one of those jailed for assisting
with the New York bombings. But that effort quickly disintegrated,
leaving a great deal of bad feeling.” [Independent, 11/1/1998]
More details about this are not known. However, the plan may not have
necessarily failed because it will later be reported that that very same
month, double agent Ali Mohamed, an-ex US Special Forces soldier, is
part of a 14-man al-Qaeda team made up of retired US military personnel
that enters Bosnia through Croatia to train and arm mujaheddin fighters
there in 1992 (see December 1992-June 1993). Mohamed is also closely tied to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, which is located in Brooklyn, New York (see 1987-1989). Al-Kifah is closely tied to both al-Qaeda and the CIA (see 1986-1993).
Also that same month, a Bosnian charity front largely funded by Saudi
money begins paying for a militant training camp in Pennsylvania that
trains some of those later arrested for roles in the New York bombing
(see December 1992-Early February 1993).
Clement Rodney Hampton-El, one of the 1993 “Landmarks” bombers (see June 24, 1993),
is summoned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington and told that wealthy
Saudis are sponsoring fighters in Bosnia. Hampton-El has longstanding
links to the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), which is
closely tied to the Saudi government (see October 12, 2001). He is given $150,000 to recruit and train people in the US to fight in Bosnia. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 121-122] He starts a militant training camp in Pennsylvania that same month (see December 1992-Early February 1993)
and gets $150,000 overseas from a bin Laden linked charity front (it is
not known if this is the same $150,000 or additional money) (see Late 1992-Early 1993).
The Saudi embassy also introduces him to a radical imam named Bilal
Philips. Philips, a Canadian citizen and author on Islamic topics, has
been employed by the Saudi government since early 1991 to proselytize
among US soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia (see March-September 1991). Philips gives Hampton-El a list of likely candidates who are ex-US soldiers that Philips recently helped convert to Islam. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 121-122] That same month, 14 ex-US soldiers go to Bosnia to fight and train there (see December 1992-June 1993). They are led by double agent Ali Mohamed, who, like Hampton-El, is closely tied to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in New York.
Double
agent Ali Mohamed spends much of 1992 training al-Qaeda recruits in
Afghanistan. But he also gives specialized training in Sudan, Bosnia,
and other conflict zones. Using the alias Abu ‘Abdallah, he is part of a
14-man al-Qaeda team made up of retired US military personnel that
enters Bosnia through Croatia to train and arm mujaheddin fighters
there. Apparently this will come to light in a 1998 trial in Egypt. [Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 41, 150, 337]
The training takes place at Meskovic, a village near the town of Tuzla.
The 14-man team are smuggled into Bosnia one by one in December 1992.
The team is said to be sponsored by a “mosque in Newark, New Jersey.” [Associated Press, 12/3/1995] Mohamed regularly trained militants at the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, an al-Qaeda
front in the US (see 1987-1989),
and there was a mosque associated to it in Newark. This effort takes
place at a time when Al-Kifah is sending many US-based militants to
fight in Bosnia (see 1992).
It will later be alleged that a US Army official met with people at
Al-Kifah in December 1992 and offered to help with a covert operation to
support Muslims in Bosnia (see December 1992).
Twelve of the Americans leave within two months after training a group
of 25 mujaheddin in insurgency warfare. But Mohamed and another American
only known by the code name Abu Musa remain at Meskovic until June
1993, occasionally accompanying the mujaheddin on attacks behind Serb
lines. [Associated Press, 12/3/1995]
The
Independent reports, “United Nations officials and senior Western
military officers believe some of the worst recent killings in Sarajevo,
including the massacre of at least 16 people in a bread queue, were
carried out by the city’s mainly Muslim defenders - not Serb besiegers -
as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention.
The view has been expressed in confidential reports circulating at UN
headquarters in New York, and in classified briefings to US policymakers
in Washington. All suggest that Sarajevo’s defenders, mainly Muslims
but including Croats and a number of Serb residents, staged several
attacks on their own people in the hope of dramatizing the city’s plight
in the face of insuperable Serbian odds. They emphasize, however, that
these attacks, though bloody, were a tiny minority among regular city
bombardments by Serbian forces.” The reports claim the following events
were likely committed by the Bosnian Muslims: The bombing of a bread line in Sarajevo on May 27, 1992.
A mortar attack on July 17, 1992, hitting a bunker where British
minister Douglas Hurd was meeting with Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic. Ten bystanders were killed or wounded. An August 4, 1992, explosion at a cemetery while two orphans were being buried.
The August 13, 1992, death of ABC News producer David Kaplan near
Sarajevo. One UN military officer says it would have been impossible the
bullet that killed him was fired by a sniper from distant Serbian
positions. “That shot came in horizontal to the ground. Somebody was
down at ground level.”
A Ukrainian soldier killed in Sarajevo on December 3, 1992, was
similarly shot by small arms fire which would imply the Bosnian Muslims.
The UN officials behind these reports claim that are not trying to
exonerate the Serbs, who also have been killing many in sniper attacks,
mortar rounds, and so forth. “But they expressed fears that the
‘self-inflicted’ attacks may not augur well for existing UN forces or
for additional Western troops, including Britons, who have to serve
there.” [Independent, 8/22/1992]
Mohammed Abouhalima. [Source: Corbis]Siddig
Siddig Ali, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, Abu Ubaidah Yahya, Mohammed
Abouhalima, and others train at a militant training camp in New
Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, with weapons and ammunition provided by Yahya
and Clement Rodney Hampton-El (see February 21, 1995). Abouhalima will later be convicted for a role in the 1993 WTC bombing, as will his brother (see February 26, 1993) while the others mentioned will be convicted for roles in the related “Landmarks” plot (see June 24, 1993). [USA v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman et al, 7/13/1995, pp. 9]
Yahya is the chief instructor, as he is an ex-US Marine who served two
tours in Vietnam and teaches at a martial arts academy. Siddig Ali will
later say of Yahya, “[H]e’s decorated and has a lot of medals… [and he
was] a great trainer…” The training even includes mock nighttime
assaults on a nearby electric power substation. [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 73]
An FBI informant named Garrett Wilson helps lead the FBI to the camp,
and the FBI monitors it for two days, January 16 and 17, but the
monitoring team is mysteriously pulled away before the end of the second
day (see January 16-17, 1993).
In a wiretapped conversation with an FBI informant (most likely
Wilson), Siddig Ali says regarding the camp, “Our goal is that these
people get extensive and very, very, very good training, so that we can
get started at anyplace where jihad (holy war) is needed… And after they
receive their training, they go to Bosnia… And whoever survives, I
mean, could come and [instruct] somewhere else, or Egypt, or any other
place, etc…” [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 73]
Hampton-El makes trips to Europe to pick up money from the Third World
Relief Agency (TWRA) charity front to fund the camp (see Late 1992-Early 1993).
TWRA is funneling huge amounts of weapons into Bosnia in violation of a
UN embargo but with the tacit approval of the US (see Mid-1991-1996).
In
a 2005 op-ed in The Guardian, British MP and former cabinet minister
Michael Meacher will claim that Islamist militants from Pakistan were
sent to Bosnia in the early 1990s to fight against Serbia. Citing the
Observer Research Foundation, he will claim that about 200 Pakistani
Muslims living in Britain were sent to Pakistan, where they trained in
camps run by the Pakistani militant group Harkat ul-Ansar (which will
change its name to Harkat ul-Mujahedeen after being banned by the US a
few years later). The Pakistani ISI assisted with their training. They
then joined Harkat ul-Ansar forces in Bosnia “with the full knowledge
and complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies.” [Guardian, 9/10/2005]
Interestingly, Saeed Sheikh, who will later be accused of involvement
in the 9/11 attacks and the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, follows
this pattern. He left Britain to go to Bosnia with Harkat ul-Ansar, and
also attended training camps partly run by the ISI (see April 1993 and June 1993-October 1994). There are also allegations that he worked with British intelligence (see Before April 1993).
Al-Hajj Boudella. [Source: Public domain via National Public Radio]Enaam
Arnaout, head of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) in the
US and an al-Qaeda operative, personally arranges for nine elite
instructors from the Al-Sadda training camp in Afghanistan to be sent to
central Bosnia to train mujaheddin there. One of the trainers is
Al-Hajj Boudella, who will become the long-time director of the BIF’s
office in Bosnia. He will be arrested shortly after 9/11 and renditioned
to the Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002 (see January 18, 2002). [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 19-20, 255]
According
to a senior Western diplomat, in 1993 the Clinton administration learns
about the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA) and its real purpose of
secretly violating the UN embargo to get weapons to Bosnia (see Mid-1991-1996).
But the US takes no action to stop its fund-raising or arms shipments.
The diplomat will later say, “We were told [by Washington] to watch them
but not interfere. Bosnia was trying to get weapons from anybody, and
we weren’t helping much. The least we could do is back off. So we backed
off.” TWRA has key offices in Austria and Germany, but authorities in
both those countries refrain from shutting down TWRA as well. Austrian
officials will later admit that “public pressure to support Bosnia’s
Muslims allowed them to turn a blind eye to the agency’s activities.” [Washington Post, 9/22/1996]
However, it seems probable that the US found out about TWRA’s smuggling
activites earlier, when they were exposed in late 1992 (see September 1992).
Further, there are suggestions that the US may have tacitly agreed to
the illegal smuggling and even helped with it from the very beginning
(see Late 1992-1995).
The TWRA is linked to bin Laden and other radical militants, and in
1993 it helps fund bomb plotters in the US, but the FBI does not act on
that link (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Early April 1993).
The
US government, in collaboration with Hasan Cengic and his father Halid
Cengic, starts work on an airport in Visoko, Bosnia, northwest of
Sarajevo. This will become a major destination of a secret US arms
pipeline into Bosnia. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 179] US Special Forces are apparently secretly involved in the construction. [Scotsman, 12/3/1995]
The Cengics are radical Muslims and Hasan Cengic is heavily involved
with an illegal weapons pipeline into Bosnia controlled by radical
militants (see Mid-1991-1996). The airport will be completed in late 1994 (see Late 1994-Late 1995).
Bin
Laden visits Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic in Sarajevo. He
sponsors some fighters from Arabic countries to fight on the Muslims’
side in Bosnia. [New York Times, 10/20/2003] Izetbegovic gives bin Laden a Bosnian passport the same year as a gesture of appreciation for his support (see 1993).
A CIA report in 1996 will conclude bin Laden did visit the Balkans
region in 1993, though it will not definitively state he went to Bosnia.
[Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 176, 340] Bin Laden will also visit Izetbegovic in 1994 (see November 1994 and 1994).
Ayman
al-Zawahiri, head of Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command,
sends his brother Mohammed al-Zawahiri to the Balkans to help run the
mujaheddin fighters in Bosnia. He is known as a logistics expert and is
said to be the military commander of Islamic Jihad. Mohammed works in
Bosnia, Croatia, and Albania under the cover of being an International
Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) official. He is said to make an
extended stay in central Bosnia, where most of the mujaheddin are based,
in 1993. He sets up an Islamic Jihad cell in Albania with over a dozen
members to support the mujaheddin in Bosnia. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002; Schindler, 2007, pp. 123] Ayman also frequently visits Bosnia (see September 1992 and After) and by 1994 will move to Bulgaria to presumably work with Mohammed to manage operations in the Balkans region (see September 1994-1996).
Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic grants Osama bin Laden a Bosnian passport
“in recognition of his followers’ contributions to Mr. Izetbegovic’s
quest to create a ‘fundamentalist Islamic republic’ in the Balkans,”
according to an account in a Bosnian newspaper in 1999. [Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001]
Renate Flottau, a reporter for Der Spiegel, will later claim that bin
Laden told her he had been given a Bosnian passport when she happened to
meet him in Bosnia in 1994 (see 1994). [Schindler, 2007, pp. 123-125]
Albanian
drug smugglers are found to be playing a prominent role in funding the
Muslim arms buildup in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. In
addition to small arms and machine guns, the criminal arms deals include
surface-to-surface missiles and helicopters. [Independent, 12/10/1993; San Francisco Chronicle, 6/10/1994]
Agim Ceku. [Source: Viewimages.com]Croatian
General Agim Ceku’s troops in Croatia are responsible for many
atrocities against the Croatian Serbs, witnessed by Canadian
peace-keeping forces. The Canadian testimony ultimately leads to a
sealed indictment against Ceku being issued by the Hague Tribunal. [Taylor, 2002, pp. 164] Ceku will be elected prime minister of Kosovo in 2006 despite the still pending war crimes charges (see January 1999).
The
caption for this picture published in newspapers on December 11, 1995,
reads, “One of the Bosnian Army Muslim brigades marches through Zenica
in a demonstration of strength by 10,000 soldiers.” [Source: Reuters] (click image to enlarge)The
number of Mujaheddin fighting in Bosnia plateau at around several
thousand.
Estimates of mujaheddin numbers in Bosnia vary from as few as a couple
of hundred to as many as 4,000. However, most put the number somewhere
between 1,000 and 2,000. The difficulty in pinning down an exact figure
stems from fact that there are a variety of foreign mercenary groups in
Bosnia and it is not entirely clear who is and who isn’t mujaheddin.
Furthermore, these groups are not all present in Bosnia at the same
time. According to Cees Wiebes, a professor at Amsterdam University,
mujaheddin forces in Bosnia are not controlled by Bosnian authorities,
but rather by their countries of origin, Islamic militant organizations,
and criminal organizations. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 207-208]
While the mujaheddin’s presence in Bosnia is said to be of only limited
military value, they are considered a valuable “political tool” for
obtaining the support from Arab countries. According to a UN report,
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic sees the fighters as “a conduit for
funds from the Gulf and the Middle East.” [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 208, 215]
A Pakistani vessel carrying ten containers of arms, destined for the Bosnian army, is intercepted in the Adriatic Sea. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 195]
During this same time frame (between March 1992 and May 1993), Pakistan
also airlifts sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles to the Bosnian
Muslims, according to the later testimony of Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir, who
is head of Pakistan’s ISI during this period. [South Asia Tribune (Great Falls, VA), 12/23/2002]
Lord
David Owen, European Union peace negotiator for the Bosnian conflict,
will later write in a book, “Around this time [January 1993] the UN had
clear evidence that Muslim forces would from time to time shell the
airport to stop the relief flights and refocus world attention on the
siege of Sarajevo. As the Deputy Commander in Chief US European Command
from 1992 to 1995 [Gen. Charles Boyd] describes it, “The press and some
governments, including that of the United States, usually attribute all
such fire to the Serbs, but no seasoned observer in Sarajevo doubts for a
moment that Muslim forces have found it in their interest to shell
friendly targets. In this case, the shelling usually closes the airport
for a time, driving up the price of black-market goods that enter the
city via routes controlled by Bosnian army commanders and government
officials.” [Owen, 1997, pp. 262]
In September 1994, it is reported the UN believe the Muslim Bosnians
again shelled their own Sarajevo airport on August 18, 1994. UN
spokesman Lieutenant- Colonel Pierre Duclos says, “The result of all our
investigations show the shell clearly came from [Bosnian] government
lines,” he said. Another UN official says, “This was a direct and
intentional targeting of the airport.” [Independent, 9/6/1994]
In
June 1993, Abu Ubaidah Yahya will tell the New York Times that early in
the year he went to Bosnia with several other Muslims from the New York
region to help embattled Bosnian Muslims “with technical advice and
medical aid.” [New York Times, 6/26/1993]
Yahya is an ex-US Marine connected to numerous figures in the 1993 WTC
bombing and “Landmarks” bombing plots, and US intelligence had him under
surveillance since January 1993 (see January 7-13, 1993),
although how intensive the surveillance was is unknown. The FBI is
aware that Yahya repeatedly travels in the spring of 1993 to Vienna,
Austria, to pick up money from the Bosnian-linked Third World Relief
Agency charity front (see Early April 1993),
so presumably he goes to nearby Bosnia on some or all of those trips.
It is likely he and his group actually go to Bosnia to fight, since one
of his associates told an FBI informant that Yahya and a group of about
ten men he trained were going to fight in Bosnia once their training
session was over, and the training ended in February 1993 (see December 1992-Early February 1993).
Saudis also gave Yahya’s close associate Clement Rodney Hampton-El a
considerable amount of money to train militants in the US to fight in
Bosnia (see December 1992). [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 113] Yahya is the security chief of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, a charity front linked to both al-Qaeda and the CIA (see 1986-1993).
A group of US militants linked to Al-Kifah go fight in Bosnia starting
in December 1992, but this must be a different group since Yahya is
still training his group for another two months (see December 1992-June 1993 and December 1992-Early February 1993).
The
Bosnian Croats and Muslims have been fighting Bosnian Serb forces and
are slowly losing. The Serbs control about 70 percent of Bosnia. But
despite this, the Croats and Muslims begin fighting each other as well. [Time, 12/31/1995]
Saeed Sheikh during his London School of Economics days. [Source: CNN]Saeed
Sheikh, a British citizen and student at the London School of
Economics, goes to Bosnia on a trip sponsored by the “Convoy of Mercy” [New York Times, 2/25/2002] , a front for the newly formed militant Islamic fundamentalist group, Harkat ul-Ansar. [Jane's International Security News, 9/20/2001] There he joins Harkat ul-Ansar. [New York Times, 2/25/2002] Aukai Collins, who will meet Saeed Sheikh in a camp in Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan some months later (see June 1993-October 1994), will later confirm that Saeed is a member of Harkat ul-Ansar. [Collins, 2003, pp. 33]
Harkat ul-Ansar will change its name to Harkat ul-Mujahedeen in 1997
after Harkat ul-Ansar is named a terrorist organization by the US State
Department. [South Asia Analysis Group, 2/18/2002] Collins will also claim Harkat ul-Ansar was funded by bin Laden. [South Asia Analysis Group, 2/18/2002]
The
Bosnian Serbs have the upper hand in their war against Bosnian Muslims
and there is international concern that large numbers of Muslim
civilians could be killed. The UN Security Council declares six “safe
areas” for Bosnian Muslims: Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Srebrenica, Zepa and
Gorazde. However, despite UN promises, in 1995 the Serbs will begin
shelling the Muslim safe areas and conquer Srebrenica and Zepa. [Time, 12/31/1995]
Clement Rodney Hampton-El. [Source: Jolie Stahl]FBI
investigators begin monitoring Clement Rodney Hampton-El’s house in New
York as they close in on the militants involved in the “Landmarks” plot
(see June 24, 1993).
They listen in on a call from Hampton-El’s right-hand man, Abu Ubaidah
Yahya, as he is in Vienna, Austria, picking up money from the Third
World Relief Agency (TWRA) for the militants in the US tied to the
Landmarks plot. Over the next few months, Yahya is tracked as he makes
several trips from the US to Vienna, picking up about $100,000. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 113] Hampton-El had also been in Vienna earlier in the year, picking up more money from TWRA for the plotters (see Late 1992-Early 1993).
TWRA is funneling a huge amount of weapons to Muslim Bosnia in
violation of a UN embargo but with the tacit approval of the US
government (see Mid-1991-1996).
It also has ties to radical militants like bin Laden and Sheikh Omar
Abdul-Rahman. The Washington Post will later report that, “Intelligence
agencies say they have tapes of telephone calls by Abdul-Rahman to
[TWRA’s] office.” The “Landmarks” bombers are closely associated with
Abdul-Rahman and will be convicted along with him. [Washington Post, 9/22/1996]
A secret 1996 CIA report will state that “according to a foreign
government service” Elfatih Hassanein, the head of TWRA, “supports US
Muslim extremists in Bosnia.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996]
But apparently the US does not go after TWRA for its ties to the
“Landmarks” plotters and the connection will not be publicized for
years.
Anwar Shaaban. [Source: Evan Kohlmann]The
Islamic Cultural Institute mosque in Milan, Italy is dominated by
Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, the Egyptian militant group led by Sheikh Omar
Abdul-Rahman. The imam of the mosque, Anwar Shaaban, is a leader of that
group and also a leader of the mujaheddin efforts in Bosnia. The
Islamic Cultural Institute serves as a transit and logistical base for
mujaheddin coming or going to Bosnia (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995).
After the 1993 WTC bombing, US investigators will discover heavy phone
traffic between the Milan mosque and the Jersey City mosque run by
Abdul-Rahman. Furthermore, they learn that bomber mastermind Ramzi
Yousef used the Milan mosque as a logistical base as well. [Chicago Tribune, 10/22/2001] Yousef also prayed at the Milan mosque prior to the WTC bombing. [Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 171]
Shaaban is a close friend of Talaat Fouad Qassem, another leader of
Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya and one of the highest ranking leaders of the
mujaheddin fighting in Bosnia. Qassem is directing the flow of
volunteers to Bosnia while living in political asylum in Denmark (see 1990). [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 25]
In April 1994, seven Arab men living in Denmark, including Qassem, are
arrested. US prosecutors will later claim that fingerprints on documents
and videotapes seized from the men match fingerprints on bomb manuals
that Ahmad Ajaj was carrying when he entered the US with Yousef (see September 1, 1992).
A raid on one apartment in Denmark uncovers bomb formulas, bomb making
chemical, sketches of attack targets, some videotapes of Abdul-Rahman’s
sermons, and a pamphlet claiming responsibility for the WTC bombing and
promising more attacks. Also, phone records and documents found in
Abdul-Rahman’s Jersey City apartment show the men in Denmark were
communicating regularly with Abdul-Rahman. [New York Times, 4/15/1995]
But no one in either Milan or Denmark will be charged with a role in
the WTC bombing. Danish police will later say that none of the seized
documents indicated that the Arab men personally took part in the
bombing. The men all are released and ironically, two of them are
granted political asylum in Denmark because they are members of
Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, which the Danish consider to be a persecuted
group. [Associated Press, 6/28/1995] In 1995, an Italian magistrate will issue arrest warrants for Shaaban and 60 other extremists (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995), but Shaaban will flee to Bosnia, where he will die of bullet wounds in unexplained circumstances (see December 14, 1995). [Chicago Tribune, 10/22/2001]
The US government will later call the Islamic Cultural Institute
al-Qaeda’s main logistical base in Europe and some evidence will link
figures connected to it to the 9/11 plot (see Late 1998-September 11, 2001).
In
late 1993, the FBI discovers that WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef used a mosque
in Milan, Italy, known as the Islamic Cultural Institute, as a
logistical base (see Late 1993-1994).
The Italian government begins investigating the mosque and soon
discovers that it is the main European headquarters for Al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya, a radical Egyptian militant group, and is also the
logistical base for mujaheddin traveling to fight in Bosnia. The mosque
is run by Anwar Shaaban, who has a close working relationship with
Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, and who also stays in regular contact with
al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. Shaaban runs a training
camp thirty miles outside of Milan where fighters heading to Bosnia can
practice using weapons and explosives. The mosque also helps smuggle
men, money, and weapons to Bosnia. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 163-164]
On June 25, 1995, Italian police raid the mosque and over 70 other
locations in northern Italy. Seventeen people are indicted and eleven of
them are arrested, but that is only a fraction of the hundreds
investigated. Inside the mosque, police find forgery tools, letters to
wanted radicals around the world, and hundreds of false documents. Plots
to bomb targets in other countries and a US target elsewhere in Italy
are averted. Shaaban escapes arrest, as he had already left the country,
but he is killed in Croatia a short time later (see December 14, 1995). [United Press International, 6/26/1995; Vidino, 2006, pp. 216-218]Late 1998-September 11, 2001).
But the Islamic Cultural Institute will soon reopen and continue to be a
focal point for radical militants in Europe. It will be linked the 9/11
attacks and other violent plots (see
The
British newspaper The Independent publishes the first interview of
Osama bin Laden in Western countries. Veteran journalist Robert Fisk
interviews bin Laden in Sudan, where bin Laden is ostensibly living a
peaceful life. Fisk does note that the “Western embassy circuit in
Khartoum has suggested that some of the ‘Afghans’ whom this Saudi
entrepreneur flew to Sudan are now busy training for further jihad wars
in Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt,” but generally bin Laden is portrayed as a
former mujaheddin fighter turned peaceful businessman. This is
reflected in the title of the article: “Anti-Soviet Warrior Puts His
Army on the Road to Peace.” Bin Laden talks some about his role in the
Soviet-Afghan war, boasting that he helped thousands of mujaheddin go
there to fight. Fisk comments, “When the history of the Afghan
resistance movement is written, Mr. bin Laden’s own contribution to the
mujaheddin - and the indirect result of his training and assistance -
may turn out to be a turning-point in the recent history of militant
fundamentalism…” Fisk tells bin Laden that his name has recently been
mentioned by Muslim fighters in Bosnia. Bin Laden acknowledges his
influence there, but complains about how difficult it is for fighters to
cross into Bosnia. [Independent, 12/6/1993]
Intelligence
services operating in the Balkans, especially US intelligence, become
increasingly politicized and are under pressure to produce reports with a
pro-Bosnian, anti-Serb slant. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 86, 141]
For instance, one CIA report in 1995 blaming the Bosnian Serbs for the
vast majority of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia will later be accused of
distorting the facts to fit an anti-Serb slant (see March 9, 1995).
Renate Flottau. [Source: Public domain]Renate
Flottau, a reporter for Der Spiegel, later claims she meets Osama bin
Laden in Bosnia some time in 1994. She is in a waiting room of Bosnian
Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic’s office in order to interview him
when she runs into bin Laden. He gives her a business card but at the
time she does not recognize the name. They speak for about ten minutes
and he talks to her in excellent English. He asks no questions but
reveals that he is in Bosnia to help bring Muslim fighters into the
country and that he has a Bosnian passport. Izetbegovic’s staffers seem
displeased that bin Laden is speaking to a Western journalist. One tells
her that bin Laden is “here every day and we don’t know how to make him
go away.” She sees bin Laden at Izetbegovic’s office again one week
later. This time he is accompanied by several senior members of
Izetbegovic’s political party that she recognizes, including members
from the secret police. She later calls the encounter “incredibly
bizarre.” [Schindler, 2007, pp. 123-125]
A journalist for the London Times will witness Flottau’s first
encounter with bin Laden and testify about it in a later court trial
(see November 1994).
Members of the SDA, Izetbegovic’s political party, will later deny the
existence of such visits. But one Muslim politician, Sejfudin Tokic,
speaker of the upper house of the Bosnian parliament, will say that such
visits were “not a fabrication,” and that photos exist of bin Laden and
Izetbegovic together. One such photo will later appear in a local
magazine. Author John Schindler will say the photo is “fuzzy but appears
to be genuine.” [Schindler, 2007, pp. 124-125, 342] According to one account, bin Laden continues to visit the Balkan region as late as 1996. [Wall Street Journal (Europe), 1/11/2001]
In
a 2004 book, former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will mention
that by 1994, bin Laden’s name “popped up in intelligence in connection
with terrorist activity” in Bosnia. “European and US intelligence
services began to trace the funding and support of [mujaheddin fighters
in Bosnia] to bin Laden in Sudan” and to support networks in Western
Europe. However, he also says that “What we saw unfold in Bosnia was a
guidebook to the bin Laden network, though we didn’t recognize it as
such at the time.” He states that “The hard-pressed Bosnians clearly
wished they could do without these uncontrollable savages, but Bosnian
President Alija Izetbegovic decided to take aid where he could.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 96, 137]
Author John Schindler, who was involved in the Bosnian war as an NSA
intelligence officer, will later note Clarke’s comments and say, “even
professional counterterrorists, not usually a wishful thinking bunch,
have shown an unwillingness to admit that [Bosnia] invited the
mujaheddin, for political as much as military purposes, and that they
were quite welcome guests of [Izetbegovic’s ruling party].” [Schindler, 2007, pp. 191]
The
US begins flying spy planes over Serbia and Bosnia. In March 1994, the
CIA begins flying Gnat-750 drone aircraft from Glader, a remote Albanian
air force base in north-central Albania. [Associated Press, 5/7/1994] In December 1994, the CIA begins flying more drone aircraft from the Croatian island of Brac. [Associated Press, 2/3/1995] In July 1995, the US begins using the Predator remote spy drone over Bosnia, from the Glader base. [Associated Press, 7/21/1995]
Such surveillance information is allegedly shared with Croat and Muslim
forces, allowing them to bypass Serb defensive positions in battle. The
US officially denies the existence of all these flights since the US is
supposed to be neutral in the war. [Observer, 11/5/1995]
Bosnian Muslims and Croats have been fighting each other, as well as Bosnian Serbs, for the past year (see March 1993). But at the urging of the US, a peace deal is agreed to and the Muslim federation of Croatia and Bosnia is formed.
Croats and Muslims now concentrate on fighting the Serbs in Bosnia. [Time, 12/31/1995; Wiebes, 2003, pp. 165-166]
US
ambassador Peter Galbraith speaks with Iman Sefko Omerbasic, the
religious leader of the small Muslim community in Zagreb, Croatia. Sefko
later informs the Iranian ambassador that American diplomats want him
to purchase arms for the Bosnian army. The CIA keeps tabs on Galbraith,
concerned that he might be engaged in a secret operation. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 166] The CIA fears that another Iran-Contra scandal is brewing. [APF Reporter, 1997]
Bin
Laden visits Albania as a member of a Saudi government delegation. He
is introduced as a friend of the Saudi government who could finance
humanitarian projects. Yet, earlier the same month, the Saudi government
supposedly cut all ties with bin Laden (see April 9, 1994).
One former US intelligence officer will complain in 1999, “Why was he a
member of that delegation? The Saudis are supposed to be our allies.
They told us he was persona non grata, and yet here he was working the
crowds on an official visit.” Bin Laden strengthens ties with the
Albanian secret service, with an eye to assisting the fight against
Serbia in the neighboring country of Bosnia. [Reeve, 1999, pp. 180-181; Washington Times, 9/18/2001; Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001]
Peter Galbraith. [Source: CBC]US
President Bill Clinton and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake
decide that they will give the Bosnians a “green light” for the arms
supply pipeline from Iran to Croatia. The CIA is not consulted. Lake
passes the word on to US ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith by
“cleverly” telling him that they have “no instructions” for him with
regard to the Iranian arms shipments. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 167- 168]
Two days later, Galbraith passes the “no instructions” message on to
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, making it clear that the US
government is giving him a green light for Croatia to conduct arms deals
with Iran. [APF Reporter, 1997]
Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Richard Holbrooke
persuades the State Department to license Military Professional
Resources Inc. (MPRI), a private military contractor, to provide
training to the Croatian army. [Ripley, 1999, pp. 81-82, 90; Scotsman, 3/2/2001]
According to MPRI information officer Joseph Allred, the firm exists so
that “the US can have influence as part of its national strategy on
other nations without employing its own army.” [New American, 5/10/1999; Serbian National Federation, 8/1999]
Ayman al-Zawahiri. [Source: Interpol]In
1996 it will be reported that the Egyptian government has been
investigating Ayman al-Zawahiri and has determined he has been living in
Sofia, Bulgaria, since September 1994 under an alias. Al-Zawahiri, head
of Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, is considered one of
Egypt’s top enemies. The Egyptians pass on details of al-Zawahiri’s
whereabouts to the Bulgarian government, but Bulgaria has no extradition
treaty with Egypt and he is not believed to have broken any Bulgarian
laws. Al-Zawahiri is living there mainly to help manage the mujaheddin
effort in nearby Bosnia. Prior to that, it is believed he mostly lived
in Switzerland for about a year. [BBC, 2/29/1996; Intelligence Newsletter, 3/21/1996]
A Wall Street Journal article will later claim that al-Zawahiri was in
charge of al-Qaeda’s Balkans operations, running training camps,
money-laundering, and drug running networks in the region. Supposedly
there was an “elaborate command-and-control center” in Sofia, Bulgaria. [Wall Street Journal (Europe), 1/11/2001] His brother Mohammed al-Zawahiri also helps manage operations in the region, mostly from a base in Albania (see 1993).
With the war in Bosnia over, Ayman al-Zawahiri will attempt to enter
Chechnya in late 1996, only to be arrested and held by the Russians (see
December 1, 1996-June 1997).
Brigadier
Gen. Michael Hayden (left, with glasses), US Marine Corps Gen. David
Mize (front and center), and US Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Edward Hanlon Jr.
(behind Mize) in Gornji Vakuf, Bosnia, on September 4, 1994. [Source: Paul Harris] (click image to enlarge)US
ambassador Charles Thomas; Assistant Secretary of State for Europe
Richard Holbrooke, his deputy Robert Frasure, head of intelligence for
US European Command Brigadier Gen. Michael Hayden, US Air Force Gen.
Charles Boyd, US Marine Corps Gen. David Mize, and US Marine Corps Lt.
Gen. Edward Hanlon Jr., meet with the Muslim Bosnian army commander for
Central Bosnia, Mehmet Alagic, in the town of Gornji Vakuf. The US group
also visits Mostar, which is also controlled by the Bosnian Muslims.
The Pentagon claims the US diplomats are there to familiarize themselves
with the situation on the ground and the generals “just happened to be
along,” but in appears in fact these meetings are part of a US effort to
help the Croats and Muslims work together in upcoming offensives.
Following this visit, US “logistics advisers” move into key locations
throughout Bosnia, including the UN-controlled Tuzla airport. US Special
Forces help build a secret airstrip in Visoko, central Bosnia, to land
heavy transport aircraft (see Late 1994-Late 1995), and mysterious flights begin arriving at the Tuzla airports a few months later (see February-March 1995). [Observer, 11/20/1994; Scotsman, 12/3/1995] Hayden will later become head of the NSA and then head of the CIA.
Pressure
from the Clinton administration for NATO air strikes in Bosnia leads to
a crisis within the NATO alliance. Ivo H. Daalder, who is responsible
for coordinating Bosnia policy on the National Security Council, later
writes: “By Thanksgiving 1994, the differences within the NATO that had
simmered for months below the surface had come to a full boil, creating
the worst crisis within the Atlantic alliance since 1956… Faced with the
possibility that NATO might be torn asunder by the rift over Bosnia
policy, the administration decided to put NATO unity first and abandon
any effort to convince the allies or the United Nations that air strikes
remained necessary to turn the military tide in Bosnia.” [Daalder, 2000, pp. 33]
Eve-Ann Prentice. [Source: BBC]In
2006, London Times reporter Eve-Ann Prentice will testify under oath
during Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s international war crimes
tribunal that she saw Osama bin Laden go into a meeting with Muslim
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic. Prentice was there with Der Speigel
reporter Renate Flottau waiting for an interview with Izetbegovic when
bin Laden walked by (see 1994).
Prentice will later recall, “[T]here was a very important looking
Arabic looking person is the best way I can describe it who came in and
went ahead just before I was supposed to go in to interview, and I was
curious because it obviously looked as if it was somebody very, very
important, and they were shown straight through to Mr. Izetbegovic’s
office.” Curious, Prentice asked around and found out from Flottau and
another eyewitness that the person was bin Laden, then Prentice
confirmed this for herself when she later saw pictures of bin Laden.
Interestingly, the judge at Milosevic’s trial will cut off questions
about the incident and there will be no mentions of it by journalists
covering the trial, though a transcript of the exchange will eventually
appear on the United Nation’s International Criminal Tribunal website. [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, 2/3/2006]
Prentice apparently will no longer be reporting by 2006, but in 2002
she mentioned in passing in a Times article, “Osama bin Laden visited
the Balkans several times in the 1980s and 1990s and is widely believed
by Serbs to have aided Muslims in the Bosnian war and the Kosovo
conflict.” [London Times, 3/5/2002] Bin Laden also visited Izetbegovic in 1993 (see 1993).
Bernard Janvier. [Source: Dani]Roughly
around this time, a new airport is completed in the Muslim Bosnian town
of Visoko, northwest of Sarajevo. UN soldiers frequently report seeing
C-130 transport planes landing there, and they say the runway is
constantly being improved to handle more aircraft. One UN soldiers later
says to the British newspaper the Observer, “Why don’t you write about
Visoko airport? Planes land there all the time and we think they’re
American.” [Observer, 11/5/1995; Schindler, 2007, pp. 184-185]
Visoko is said to be the logistics center of the Bosnian army and the
airport and area is run by Halid Cengic. Author and former NSA officer
John Schindler will later call him head of the “fanatical and thievish
Cengic clan.” He is said to make great profits on the materiel coming
through the airport. He is also the father of Hasan Cengic, who is one
of the key figures smuggling huge amounts of weapons into Bosnia through
the Third World Relief Agency, a charity front tied to Osama bin Laden
and other radical militants (see Mid-1991-1996). [Observer, 11/5/1995; Schindler, 2007, pp. 195]
By March 1995, General Bernard Janvier, commander of UN forces in
Bosnia, reports to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the Visoko
airport is in operation and illegal supply flights are landing there.
The report notes that the airport was built by Hasan Cengic with help
from Iran. Canadian peacekeepers allege that unmarked flights coming
into Visoko are American. However, this UN report is not made public. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 184-185]
According to the Observer in November 1995, some Bosnian politicians
say that the US is the “number one donor of all weapons into Bosnia” and
British political sources say the Visoko airport was built with US
help. Furthermore, UN officials complain that they frequently report
flights into Visoko, but these flights are never cited as violations of
the no-fly zone over all of Bosnia. One UN source says, “The Awacs (air
warning and control systems planes) have sighted only two flights into
Visoko in the last five months. There have been dozen of flights
reported from the ground.” These UN officials believe that these flights
in Visoko take place on days when Awacs flights are manned by all US
crews instead of NATO crews. Another UN source says, “Only the US has
the theater control to put certain aircraft in the air at certain
times.” [Observer, 11/5/1995]
Extremist
imam Abu Hamza al-Masri makes three trips to Bosnia to meet the
mujaheddin there. Before leaving Britain, where he lives, he changes his
name and travels on a passport in his new name, as he is worried about
surveillance by the security services. He cannot actually fight, due to
injuries suffered in Afghanistan (see 1991-Late 1993),
but, after entering the country with a relief convoy, Abu Hamza spends
time with groups of radical fighters, in particular those from Algeria. [O'Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 30-31]
In
1994 Albanian Premier Sali Berisha reportedly helps bin Laden set up a
network in Albania through Saudi charity fronts after bin Laden visits
Albania (see Shortly After April 9, 1994). Berisha later uses his property to train the KLA militant group. [London Times, 11/29/1998]
9/11 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi fight in the Bosnian civil war against the Serbs. [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 131 ]
The 9/11 Commission will later say that the two “traveled together to
fight in Bosnia in a group that journeyed to the Balkans in 1995,” but
will not give any other details. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 155] Ramzi bin al-Shibh fights there too, and a witness later recounts traveling to Hamburg from Bosnia with bin al-Shibh in 1996. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 281-282] 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) fights in Bosnia in 1995 as well (see 1992-1995),
but it is not known if any of them are ever there together. Under
interrogation, KSM will say that in 1999 he did not know Almihdhar.
However, doubts will be expressed about the reliability of statements
made by KSM in detention, because of the methods used to extract them
(see June 16, 2004). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006, pp. 17 ] Alhazmi and Almihdhar will later go on to fight in Chechnya (see 1993-1999).
Beginning
in 1995, evidence begins to appear in the media suggesting that a Saudi
charity named the Muwafaq Foundation has ties to radical militants.
The foundation is run by a Saudi multimillionaire named Yassin al-Qadi. In 1995, media reports claim that Muwafaq is being used to fund mujaheddin fighters in Bosnia (see 1991-1995). Also in 1995, Pakistani police raid the foundation’s Pakistan branch in the wake of the arrest of WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef (see February 7, 1995). The head of the branch is held for several months, and then the branch is closed down. [Chicago Tribune, 10/29/2001]
A secret CIA report in January 1996 says that Muwafaq is has ties to
the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya militant group and helps fund mujaheddin
fighting in Bosnia and at least one training camp in Afghanistan (see January 1996).
In February 1996, bin Laden says in an interview that he supports the
Muwafaq branch in Zagreb, Croatia (which is close to the fighting in
neighboring Bosnia). [Guardian, 10/16/2001]
A senior US official will later claim that in 1998, the National
Commercial Bank, one of the largest banks in Saudi Arabia, ran an audit
and determined that the Muwafaq Foundation gave $3 million to al-Qaeda.
Both al-Qadi and the bank later claim that the audit never existed.
Al-Qadi asserts he has no ties to any terrorist group. [Chicago Tribune, 10/29/2001]
In 2003, former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will elaborate
on this allegation, saying to a Senate committee, “Al-Qadi was the head
of Muwafaq, a Saudi ‘relief organization’ that reportedly transferred at
least $3 million, on behalf of Khalid bin Mahfouz, to Osama bin Laden
and assisted al-Qaeda fighters in Bosnia.” [US Congress, 10/22/2003]
(Note that bin Mahfouz, a Saudi billionaire, denies that he ever had
any sort of tie to bin Laden or al-Qaeda and has not been officially
charged of such ties anywhere.) [Bin Mahfouz Info, 11/22/2005]
Al-Qadi will claim that he shut down Muwafaq in 1996, but it is
referred to in UN and German charity documents as doing work in Sudan
and Bosnia through 1998. [Guardian, 10/16/2001; BBC, 10/20/2001]
Shortly after 9/11, the US Treasury Department will claim that Muwafaq
funded Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK)/Al-Kifah (the predecessor of al-Qaeda),
al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Abu Sayyaf (a Philippines militant group with ties
to al-Qaeda), and other militant Islamic groups. [FrontPage Magazine, 6/17/2005] However,
despite all of these alleged connections, and the fact that the US will
officially label al-Qadi a terrorism financier shortly after 9/11 (see October 12, 2001),
the Muwafaq Foundation has never been officially declared a terrorist
supporting entity. An October 2001 New York Times article will say that
the reason, “administration officials said, was the inability of United
States officials to locate the charity or determine whether it is still
in operation.” But the same article will also quote a news editor, who
calls Muwafaq’s board of directors “the creme de la creme of Saudi
society.” [New York Times, 10/13/2001]
Bosnian
leaders, including Deputy President Ejup Ganic, tell the BBC that
their war strategy is to use anti-Serb propaganda in the mass media to
force a massive military intervention. [Ripley, 1999, pp. 33]
Former
US president Jimmy Carter brokers a truce between Bosnian Serbs and
Muslims. The truce is set to last four months and does, but then
fighting resumes and intensifies. [US Department of State, 12/6/1995; Time, 12/31/1995]
According
to a report in Jane’s Intelligence Review, Albanian narco-terrorism,
gun-running, and smuggling organizations are becoming a dominant
economic, political, and military force in the Balkans. Jane’s
expresses the concern that if left unchecked, the Albanian mafia will
become powerful enough to control one or more states in the region.
Albanian President Sali Berisha “is now widely suspected of tolerating
and even directly profiting from drug-trafficking for wider
political-economic reasons, namely the financing of secessionist
political parties and other groupings in Kosovo and Macedonia.” [Jane's Intelligence Review, 2/1/1995]
Apparent footage of one of the mysterious Tuzla flights, from a BBC documentary on the subject. [Source: BBC]UN
observers and others report that frequent flights entering Bosnia are
supplying weapons to the Bosnian Muslims in violation of the UN arms
embargo. The flights clearly have the support of the US. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 177- 198] A UN official who witnesses the flights is physically threatened by three American officers and warned to keep silent. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 192]
Journalists are also pressured and threatened by the US embassy, which
is later said to have been acting on instructions from the State
Department. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 192]
A subsequent investigation conducted with the support of the
Netherlands government will conclude that the operation was conducted by
a third party, probably Turkey, with “the assent of parts of the US
government.” [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 195-198]
Tim Ripley, who covers the military conflicts in Yugoslavia for Jane’s
Intelligence Review, blames the Tuzla flights and similar operations on
“‘covert warriors’ of the NSC [National Security Council] and State
Department.” [Ripley, 1999, pp. 93]
Prof. Cees Wiebes, who conducts the Netherlands investigation, agrees
saying that “the State Department and National Security Council (NSC)
were involved, but not the CIA or the DIA.” According to a confidential
source, “the operation was… paid for from a Pentagon Special Operations
budget, with the complete assent of the White House. Probably the most
important members of Congress were informed in the deepest of
secrecy, and they were therefore ‘in the loop’ concerning the events.” [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 193]
Ripley says that US NATO officers were not involved, but points out
that NATO Commander Admiral Leighton Smith was careful to only deny
“uniformed” US military involvement. Ripley suggests that American
“freelance operatives” were brought in by “senior members of the Clinton
Administration.” [Ripley, 1999, pp. 62-63]
According to Ripley, “Senior US military commanders and CIA officials
were just staggered by the ‘duplicity’ and ‘deceit’ at the heart of the
Clinton Administration’s policies.” [Ripley, 1999, pp. 91]
On
March 9, 1995, it is revealed in the New York Times that a CIA report
completed earlier in the year has concluded that 90 percent of the
“ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia has been carried out by the Bosnian Serbs
and that leading politicians in Bosnian Serbia and possibly Serbia
itself almost certainly played a role in these war crimes. One anonymous
US official says, “To those who think the parties are equally guilty,
this report is pretty devastating. The scale of what the Serbs did is so
different.” [New York Times, 3/9/1995]
However, three months later, the Telegraph reports that ” authoritative
diplomatic sources in Europe” believe that pro-Bosnian Muslim factions
in Washington, including parts of the CIA, are “blatantly distorting”
intelligence summaries to push for US intervention on the Bosnian Muslim
side. [Daily Telegraph, 6/2/1995]
Peter Viggers, a senior Conservative British Member of Parliament,
claims the report was leaked at a diplomatically important moment to
influence policy. Viggers is a member of the British House of Commons
Defence Committee and says the report conflicted with the committee’s
own experience in visits to Bosnia, where it was clear that ethnic
cleansing had been carried out by all sides. [Daily Telegraph, 6/3/1995]
The 1999 documentary “Yugoslavia: the Avoidable War” later shown on the
History Channel will claim that the CIA report only looked at areas
held by the Bosnian Serbs and that international agencies later
determined that 40 percent of the war refugees were Serbian, suggesting
that Serbians were the target of a similar percentage of “ethnic
cleansing” war crimes. [George Bogdanich, 4/14/2001]
Bosnian
boundaries during the four month cease fire in early 1995. The area
controlled by Bosnian Muslims and Croats is shown in gray while the area
controlled by Bosnian Serbs is shown in white. UN safe zones are
circled in red. [Source: Time / Cowan, Castello, Glanton]Serb
forces ignore a UN order to remove heavy weapons from the Sarajevo area
of Bosnia. NATO aircraft then attack a Serb ammunition depot. The Serbs
begin shelling UN protected Muslim safe areas in response (see April-May 1993). Despite the UN protection, Serbs conquer two of the six safe areas, Zepa and Srebrenica, in July (see July 1995). [Time, 12/31/1995]
Nasir Oric. [Source: Reuters / Corbis]Bosnian
Serb forces enter Srebrenica, capturing the Dutch peacekeeping forces
there. Thousands of Muslim civilians are brutally executed by the Serbs.
[Christian Science Monitor, 10/2/1995; Christian Science Monitor, 10/24/1995; New York Review of Books, 9/24/1998; BBC, 6/9/2005]
The commander of the Bosnian Muslim forces based in Srebrenica, Nasir
Oric, forcibly prevented Muslim civilians from leaving Srebrenica prior
to the Serb attack. [Globe and Mail, 7/12/1995][New York Times, 7/24/1995]
The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) will announce in
2005 that they have been able to identify the remains of 2032 victims
of the Serb assault. [International Commission on Missing Persons, 6/21/2005]
However, Oric and his troops quietly withdrew from Srebrenica just two
days before the Serbs arrived, leaving the civilians to fend for
themselves. There is fighting between Muslim forces who favor the
retreat, and those who want to stay and defend the city.
The
Croatian military launches Operation Storm, a massive assault aimed at
seizing Krajina, a Serb-populated region located within Croatia’s
borders that, a year and a half earlier, had declared itself an
independent state. As the Croatian force of 200,000 approaches the city
of Knin, Krajina’s 40,000-strong army quickly retreats. Over the next
two days, the Croatian army fires some 3,000 shells on Knin. According
to two senior Canadian military officers who are present during the
attack, the shelling is indiscriminate and targets civilians. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998; New York Times, 3/21/1999; International Review of the Red Cross, 12/31/2000]
Col. Andrew Leslie, one of the Canadians, will later say that no more
than 250 shells hit military targets, leading him to believe that “the
fire was deliberately directed against civilian buildings.” He will also
recall seeing corpses of dead Serbians at Knin Hospital “stacked in the
corridors… in piles.” [Canada National Post, 4/9/1999]
The operation results in a mass exodus of as many as 150,000 Serbian
residents, who flee their homes in tractors, cars, and horse-drawn
carts. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998; New York Times, 3/21/1999; International Review of the Red Cross, 12/31/2000] This event will be remembered as the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing to have occurred during the Yugoslav war. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998]
A 150-page report later issued by an international war crimes tribunal
in The Hague, titled “The Indictment. Operation Storm, A Prima Facie
Case,” finds that the Croatians were responsible for a number of
atrocities. “During the course of the military offensive, the Croatian
armed forces and special police committed numerous violations of
international humanitarian law, including but not limited to, shelling
of Knin and other cities. During, and in the 100 days following the
military offensive, at least 150 Serb civilians were summarily executed,
and many hundreds disappeared,” the report will say. “In a widespread
and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other
inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs.” [New York Times, 3/21/1999]
During the preceding year, Military Professionals Resources, Inc.
(MPRI), a private military contractor, had been providing Croatian
military officers with training—ostensibly in “Democracy Transition.”
After the assault on Krajina, observers will suggest that MPRI’s team of
instructors, made up of former US military generals, had actually
trained the Croatians in a set of military tactics, known as “AirLand
Battle 2000,” which were then used against the Serbs in Krajina. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998]
A number of media accounts will even report that MPRI personnel helped
plan the Croatian occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Serb-populated
region. “Even the Foreign Military Training Report published by both the
State Department and Department of Defense in May refers to these
allegations against MPRI not entirely disparagingly,” UPI reports. [United Press International, 7/18/2002]
There is also evidence that the US provided Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman with a green light just a few days before the operation. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998]
In September 1995, USAF General Charles Boyd, who was Deputy Commander
in Chief European Command at the time condemns the Clinton
Administration for having “watched approvingly as Muslim offensives
began this spring, even though these attacks destroyed a cease-fire
Washington has supported. This duplicity, so crude and obvious to all in
Europe, has weakened America’s moral authority to provide any kind of
effective diplomatic leadership. Worse, because of this, the impact of
US actions has been to prolong the conflict while bringing it no closer
to resolution.” [Foreign Affairs, 9/1995]
The
differences on Bosnia policy between Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake,
and Richard Holbrooke on the one hand and the Pentagon on the other,
are aired at a cabinet meeting. Albright et. al. argue for a firm
commitment to military intervention. “They maintained that the stakes
went far beyond the particulars in Bosnia. The issue was not one state
or two, three, or none. Rather, the issue was US credibility as a world
leader, its credibility in NATO, the United Nations, and at home.”
Meanwhile, “the Pentagon was most concerned about avoiding a sustained
military involvement, and saw in arm, train, and strike the shades of
Vietnam.” Clinton comes down firmly on the side of intervention. After
the meeting, Anthony Lake is dispatched to Europe to brief US allies on
the new policy on Bosnia. [Daalder, 2000, pp. 106 - 110]
On
July 26, 1995, the US Senate votes for the US to defy a UN weapons
embargo against Bosnia. On August 1, the House of Representatives also
votes to defy the embargo. But on August 11, President Clinton vetoes
the legislation. According to the Los Angeles Times, he argues that “the
measure would backfire by increasing atrocities, torpedoing diplomacy
and ultimately converting the complex ethnic war into ‘an American
responsibility.’” [CNN, 8/5/1995; Los Angeles Times, 4/5/1996]
The
CIA and Albanian intelligence recruit an informer knowledgeable about
al-Qaeda in the Balkans. The informer, whose name is Hassan Mustafa
Osama Nasr, but is known as Abu Omar, is recruited by a special unit of
the Albanian National Intelligence Service (ShIK) created at the behest
of the CIA. An officer in the unit, Astrit Nasufi, will say that the
unit is actually run by a CIA agent known as “Mike” who is based on the
US embassy in Tirana, Albania, and who teaches them intelligence
techniques. The CIA and ShIK are worried about a possible assassination
attempt against the Egyptian foreign minister, who is to visit Albania
soon, so about twelve radical Egyptians, members of Al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad, are detained beforehand. Nasr is not on
the list, but is detained because of a link to a suspect charity, the
Human Relief and Construction Agency (HRCA). He is held for about 10
days and, although he initially refuses to talk, ShIK has a “full file”
on him after a week. He provides information about around ten fellow
Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya members working for HRCA and two other charities,
the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Revival of Islamic Heritage
Society, both of which will be declared designated supporters of
terrorism after 9/11. However, he says there are no plans to kill the
Egyptian foreign minister, as this would mean Albania would no longer be
a safe haven for fundamentalist Muslims. The intelligence Nasr goes on
to provide is regarded as good quality and includes the identities of
operatives monitoring the US embassy and entering and leaving Albania.
The CIA is most interested in monitoring former mujaheddin joining the
Bosnian Muslims, and Nasr also provides intelligence on Al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya branches in Britain, Germany, and Italy, in particular the
Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, which is a base for mujaheddin
operations in the Balkans and is raided by the Italian government around
this time (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995).
Even though cooperation appears to be good, after a few weeks Nasr
suddenly disappears and the CIA tells ShIK that Nasr has moved to
Germany. [Chicago Tribune, 7/2/2005] Nasr will later surface in Italy and will become close to Islamic militants in Milan (see Summer 2000), but will be kidnapped by the CIA after 9/11 (see Noon February 17, 2003).
German
and Austrian police raid the Vienna, Austria, office of the Third World
Relief Agency (TWRA). Investigators fill three vans with documents,
enabling them to gain a full picture of the illegal weapons network the
TWRA has been running. But by this time, TWRA appears to be winding down
most of its activities. The need for TWRA’s smuggling routes greatly
declined after a direct weapons pipeline opened between Iran and Bosnia
with the tacit approval of the US. But the raid results in no charges
and TWRA’s Vienna office remains open. One Austrian investigator will
later say, “They did a lot of talking here but as long as they did not
move weapons through our territory, we could not arrest them.” [Washington Post, 9/22/1996]
Authors J. Millard Burr and Robert Collins will later question that
rationale, noting that, “The TWRA ledgers, however, gave a full
accounting of the transfer of huge sums for arms trafficking through the
First Austrian Bank.” The Bosnian government officially shuts down TWRA
after the Austrian raid, but in fact it remains open and active in
Bosnia, and continuing to ship weapons. In fact, TWRA will still remain
open and active there and elsewhere long after 9/11 (see January 25, 2002). The US government has yet to take any official action against TWRA as well. [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 143]
Paris-based American columnist William Pfaff writes with regard to NATO’s bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs (see August 30, 1995):
“The humiliation of Europe in what may prove the Yugoslav endgame has
yet to be fully appreciated in Europe’s capitals. The United States
today is again Europe’s leader; there is no other. Both the Bush and
Clinton administrations tried and failed to convince the European
governments to take over Europe’s leadership.” Pfaff’s words will later
be cited approvingly by Richard Holbrooke in his book, “To End a War.”
Holbrooke will recall that the “[p]ress and public reaction was highly
positive” to the operation. [Holbrooke, 1999, pp. 102-103]
Talaat
Fouad Qassem, 38, a known leader of the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (the
Islamic Group), an Egyptian extremist organization, is arrested and
detained in Croatia as he travels to Bosnia from Denmark, where he has
been been living after being granted political asylum. He is suspected
of clandestine support of terrorist operations, including the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993). He also allegedly led mujaheddin efforts in Bosnia since 1990 (see 1990).
In a joint operation, he is arrested by Croatian intelligence agents
and handed over to the CIA. Qassem is then interrogated by US officials
aboard a US ship off the Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea and sent to
Egypt, which has a rendition agreement with the US (see Summer 1995). An Egyptian military tribunal has already sentenced him to death in absentia, and he is executed soon after he arrives. [Associated Press, 10/31/1995; Washington Post, 3/11/2002, pp. A01; Mahle, 2005, pp. 204-205; New Yorker, 2/8/2005]Dollars for Terror,
two weeks before his abduction, Qassem was in Switzerland negotiating
against Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Some Muslim Brotherhood exiles were
negotiating with the Egyptian government to be allowed to return to
Egypt if they agreed not to use Muslim Brotherhood Swiss bank accounts
to fund Egyptian militant groups like Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, but Qassem
and other radicals oppose this deal. So the removal of Qassem helps the
Muslim Brotherhood in their conflict with more militant groups. [Labeviere, 1999, pp. 70-71] According to the 1999 book
The
Foreign Military Studies Office publishes a piece by Army Lt. Col. John
E. Sray who writes that advocates of a US intervention in Bosnia have
formed a “prolific propaganda machine” to increase public support for
deploying NATO forces to Bosnia. The propaganda machine is made up of a
“strange combination of three major spin doctors, including public
relations (PR) firms in the employ of the Bosniacs, media pundits, and
sympathetic elements of the US State Department,” he says, who use
“[d]iffering styles, approaches, and emphases” to advance their views.
He notes how some of them have gone so far as to attack
anti-interventionists as harboring “pro-Serb” or even “Nazi” sympathies.
The United States’ European allies, who do not favor an intervention,
are informed “from different information and a more realistic historical
perspective,” he says. “They retain the advantages of more in-depth,
professional, and probing journalism and better reporting from their
embassies. Furthermore, they pay less attention to the constant
propaganda themes emanating from the Bosniacs [Bosnian Muslim
government] and their agents—the PR firms.” [Foreign Military Studies Office, 10/1995]
A
suicide bombing destroys the police station in the town of Rijeka,
Croatia, wounding 29 people. The Egyptian militant group Al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya takes credit for the bombing, saying it is revenge for the
abduction of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya leader Talaat Fouad Qassem in
Croatia the month before (see September 13, 1995).
The Croatians will later determine that the mastermind, Hassan
al-Sharif Mahmud Saad, and the suicide bomber were both tied to
Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. They also were tied to the Islamic Cultural
Institute in Milan, Italy, which in turn has ties to many militant
attacks, some committed Ramzi Yousef (see 1995-1997). CIA soon discovers that the suicide bomber also worked for the Third World Refugee Center charity front (see January 1996). [Kohlmann, 2004, pp. 153-155]
In 1999, the FBI’s Bojinka investigation will notice that Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed (KSM) was believed to be in neighboring Bosnia at the time and
that the timing device of the bomb (a modified Casio watch) closely
resembled those used by KSM and his nephew Yousef in the Bojinka plot
(see January 6, 1995). Presumably, this would have increased the importance of catching KSM. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 489]
Richard
Perle and Douglas Feith act as advisers to the government of Bosnia
during the Dayton peace talks. They do not register with the Justice
Department, as required by US law. Richard Holbrooke is the chief NATO
civilian negotiator and Wesley Clark the chief NATO military negotiator.
[Washington Watch, 5/13/2001] After the Dayton peace talks, Richard Perle then serves as a military adviser to the Bosnian government. [AFP Reporter, 1997]
Final
boundaries in the Bosnian war. Gray represents the area controlled by
Bosnian Muslims and Croats while white represents the area controlled by
Bosnian Serbs. [Source: Time / Cowan, Castello, Glanton]On
November 1, 1995, peace talks begin Croats, Muslims, and Serbs in
Yugoslavia begin at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. A
cease-fire holds while the talks continue. On November 22, the leaders
of the three factions agree to a settlement. The peace accord is signed
several weeks later (see December 14, 1995). [Time, 12/31/1995]
In
the front row from right to left: Slobodan Milosevic, Franjo Tudjman,
and Alija Izetbegovic, sign the Dayton accords. In the back row stands,
from right to left, Felipe Gonzalez, Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac,
Helmut Kohl, John Major and Viktor Tchernomyrdine. [Source: Reuters] (click image to enlarge)A
peace agreement between the Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs fighting in
Bosnia is signed in Paris. Known as the Dayton Accords, the agreement
was hammered out in Dayton, Ohio, the month before (see November 1-22, 1995).
As part of the agreement, thousands of NATO troops begin arriving in
Bosnia immediately to help keep the peace. UN peacekeepers turn their
job over to NATO forces on December 20. The peace does hold in the
Bosnia and Croatia regions, thus ending a war that began in 1992 (see April 6, 1992). It claimed more than 200,000 lives and made six million people homeless. [Time, 12/31/1995] Fifty-one percent of Bosnia goes to an alliance of Muslims and Croats and 49 percent goes to a Serbian republic. [New York Times, 10/20/2003]
As part of the deal, all foreign fighters are required to leave Bosnia
within 30 days. In practical terms, this means the mujaheddin who have
been fighting for the Bosnian Muslims (see January 14, 1996). [Washington Post, 3/11/2000]
Anwar
Shaaban, an Islamist militant in charge of logistics for mujaheddin
fighting in Bosnia, is killed in Croatia. Shaaban had been based at the
Islamic Cultural Institute mosque in Milan, but managed to avoid arrest
when it was raided (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995).
On December 14, 1995, the same day a peace accord is signed ending the
Bosnian war, Shaaban is killed by Croatian troops in what mujaheddin
claim is an ambush. Shaaban’s diary is found, and it cites regular
meetings between al-Qaeda leaders and leaders of the Bosnian Muslim
government, including General Staff Chief Rasim Delic and Interior
Minister Bakir Alispahic. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 216-217]
Shaaban, a leader of the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya militant group, had
been in regular contact with Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman and al-Qaeda
second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 163-164]
In
2006, popular Sarajevo magazine Slobodna Bosna will report that Bosnian
Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic received nearly $200,000 from Yassin
al-Qadi, who will later be officially designated a terrorist financier
(see October 12, 2001).
Bosnian authorities reportedly discovered the money transfer from a
British bank while investigating the Muwafaq Foundation, a charity
headed by al-Qadi. The investigation also learned that Muwafaq channeled
$15 to 20 million to various organizations, and at least $3 million of
that went into bank accounts controlled by Osama bin Laden. [AKI, 9/8/2006]
Muwafaq reportedly helped finance the mujaheddin during the Bosnian
war, especially supporting a mujaheddin brigade fighting for
Izetbegovic’s government that was also called Muwafaq (see 1991-1995).
Mohammed Haydar Zammar. [Source: Knut Mueller]Turkish
intelligence informs German’s domestic intelligence service that
Mohammed Haydar Zammar is a radical militant who has been traveling to
trouble spots around the world. He has already made more than 40
journeys to places like Bosnia and Chechnya. Turkey explains that Zammar
is running a dubious travel agency in Hamburg, organizing flights for
radical militants to Afghanistan. As a result, by early 1997 German
intelligence will launch Operation Zartheit, an investigation of Islamic
militants in the Hamburg area. The Germans will use a full range of
intelligence techniques, including wiretaps and informants. [Stern, 8/13/2003; Vanity Fair, 11/2004]
Apparently, while Zammar was a teenager in Syria, he became friends
with Mamoun Darkazanli and the two of them joined the Muslim
Brotherhood, a radical Muslim group banned in Egypt. In 1991, Zammar
trained and fought in Afghanistan with the forces of the warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 1995, he fought in Bosnia against the Serbs,
while based in Zenica with other mujaheddin. German intelligence
apparently is familiar with at least some of Zammar’s background,
because the New York Times will later report that Zammar “had been
identified [in the late 1980s] by German authorities as a militant who
frequented mosques in Hamburg and elsewhere.” [Washington Post, 9/11/2002; New York Times, 1/18/2003] Operation Zartheit will run at least three years and connect Zammar to many of the 9/11 plotters.
In 1996, Zacarias Moussaoui begins recruiting other young Muslims to fight for Islamic militant causes in Chechnya and Kosovo. [Time, 9/24/2001] He recruits for Chechen warlord Ibn Khattab, the Chechen leader most closely linked to al-Qaeda (see August 24, 2001).
Details on his Kosovo links are still unknown. For most of this time,
he is living in London and is often seen at the Finsbury Park mosque run
by Abu Hamza al-Masri. For a time, Moussaoui has two French Caucasian
roommates, Jerome and David Courtailler. The family of these brothers
later believes that Moussaoui recruits them to become radical militants.
The brothers will later be arrested for suspected roles in plotting
attacks on the US embassy in Paris and NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. [Scotsman, 10/1/2001]
David Courtailler will later confess that at the Finsbury Park mosque
he was given cash, a fake passport, and the number of a contact in
Pakistan who would take him to an al-Qaeda camp. [London Times, 1/5/2002] French intelligence later learns that one friend he recruits, Masooud Al-Benin, dies in Chechnya in 2000 (see Late 1999-Late 2000).
Shortly before 9/11, Moussaoui will try to recruit his US roommate at
the time, Hussein al-Attas, to fight in Chechnya. Al-Attas will also see
Moussaoui frequently looking at websites about the Chechnya conflict. [Daily Oklahoman, 3/22/2006]1996-Early 1997). Moussaoui also goes to Chechnya himself in 1996-1997 (see
Albanian
Mafia and KLA take control of Balkan route heroin trafficking from
Turkish criminal groups. In 1998, Italian police are able to arrest
several major traffickers. Many of the criminals involved are also
activists for the Kosovo independence movement, and some are KLA
leaders. Much of the money is funneled through the KLA (see 1997),
which is also receiving support and protection from the US. The
Islamic influence is obvious in the drug operations, which for example
shut down during the month of Ramadan. Intercepted telephone messages
speak of the desire “to submerge Christian infidels in drugs.” [Agence France-Presse, 6/9/1998; Corriere della Sera (Milan), 10/15/1998; Corriere della Sera (Milan), 1/19/1999]
Testifying to Congress in December 2000, Interpol Assistant Director
Ralph Mutschke states that “Albanian organized crime groups are hybrid
organizations, often involved both in criminal activity of an organized
nature and in political activities, mainly relating to Kosovo. There is
evidence that the political and criminal activities are deeply
intertwined.” Mutschke also says that there is also strong evidence that
bin Laden is involved in funding and organizing criminal activity
through links to the Albanian mafia and the KLA.(see Early 1999) [US Congress, 12/13/2000 ]
Slobodan Milosevic speaking in Kosovo on June 28, 1989, to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. [Source: Tomislav Peternek/ Polaris] (click image to enlarge)Professor
Gil White will point out in 2002 that Slobodan Milosevic’s 1989 speech
in Kosovo in front of a huge crowd is consistently misrepresented as a
call to ethnic war, when in fact it was the exact opposite—a call for
racial tolerance and reconciliation. [Gil-White, 2/9/2002]
In the speech itself, Milosevic said, “Equal and harmonious relations
among Yugoslav peoples are a necessary condition for the existence of
Yugoslavia… Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more
than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live
in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that
it is its advantage. The national composition of almost all countries in
the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in
this direction. Citizens of different nationalilties, religions and
races have been living together more and more frequently and more and
more successfully… Yugoslavia is a multinational community and it can
survive only under the conditions of full equality for all nations that
live in it.” Milosevic ended the speech, saying “Long live peace and
brotherhood among peoples!” [National Technical Information Service, 6/28/1989; BBC, 6/28/1989]
In 1996, the New York Times describes this speech as follows: “In a
fervent speech before a million Serbs, [Milosevic] galvanized the
nationalist passions that two years later fueled the Balkan conflict” [New York Times, 7/28/1996]
On the anniversary of the speech in 1998 the Washington Post reports,
“Nine years ago today, Milosevic’s fiery speech [in Kosovo] to a million
angry Serbs was a rallying cry for nationalism and boosted his
popularity enough to make him the country’s uncontested leader.” [Washington Post, 7/29/1998] In 1999, the Economist described this as “a stirringly virulent nationalist speech.” [Economist, 6/5/1999]
In 2001, Time Magazine reported that with this speech, “Milosevic
whipped a million Serbs into a nationalist frenzy in the speech that
capped his ascent to power.” [Time (Europe), 7/9/2001]
Also in 2001, the BBC, which in 1989 provided the translation of
Milosevic’s speech quoted above, claims that in 1989, “on the 600-year
anniversary of the battle of Kosovo Polje, [Milosevic] gathered a
million Serbs at the site of the battle to tell them to prepare for a
new struggle.” [BBC, 4/1/2001]
Richard Holbrooke repeats these misrepresentations in his 1999 book,
referring to the speech as “racist” and “inflammatory.” Holbrooke even
calls Milosevic a liar for denying the false accusations. [Holbrooke, 1999, pp. 29]
Saber Lahmar. [Source: Public domain]Author
Roland Jacquard will later claim that in 1996, al-Qaeda revives its
militant network in Bosnia in the wake of the Bosnian war and uses the
Saudi High Commission (SHC) as its main charity front to do so. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 69]
This charity was founded in 1993 by Saudi Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz
and is so closely linked to and funded by the Saudi government that a US
judge will later render it immune to a 9/11-related lawsuit after
concluding that it is an organ of the Saudi government. [New York Law Journal, 9/28/2005]
In 1994, British aid worker Paul Goodall is killed in Bosnia
execution-style by multiple shots to the back of the head. A SHC
employee, Abdul Hadi al-Gahtani, is arrested for the murder and admits
the gun used was his, but the Bosnian government lets him go without a
trial. Al-Gahtani will later be killed fighting with al-Qaeda and the
Taliban in Afghanistan. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 143-144]
In 1995, the Bosnian Ministry of Finance raids SHC’s offices and
discovers documents that show SHC is “clearly a front for radical and
terrorism-related activities.” [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 145]
In 1995, US aid worker William Jefferson is killed in Bosnia. One of
the likely suspects, Ahmed Zuhair Handala, is linked to the SHC. He also
is let go, despite evidence linking him to massacres of civilians in
Bosnia. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 263-264]
In 1997, a Croatian apartment building is bombed, and Handala and two
other SHC employees are suspected of the bombing. They escape, but
Handala will be captured after 9/11 and sent to Guantanamo prison. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 266]
In 1997, SHC employee Saber Lahmar is arrested for plotting to blow up
the US embassy in Saravejo. He is convicted, but pardoned and released
by the Bosnian government two years later. He will be arrested again in
2002 for involvement in an al-Qaeda plot in Bosnia and sent to
Guantanamo prison (see January 18, 2002). By 1996, NSA wiretaps reveal that Prince Salman is funding Islamic militants using charity fronts (Between 1994 and July 1996).
A 1996 CIA report mentions, “We continue to have evidence that even
high ranking members of the collecting or monitoring agencies in Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan - such as the Saudi High Commission - are
involved in illicit activities, including support for terrorists” (see January 1996).
Jacquard claims that most of the leadership of the SHC supports bin
Laden. The SHC, while participating in some legitimate charitable
functions, uses its cover to ship illicit goods, drugs, and weapons in
and out of Bosnia. In May 1997, a French military report concludes:
”(T)he Saudi High Commission, under cover of humanitarian aid, is
helping to foster the lasting Islamization of Bosnia by acting on the
youth of the country. The successful conclusion of this plan would
provide Islamic fundamentalism with a perfectly positioned platform in
Europe and would provide cover for members of the bin Laden
organization.” [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 69-71] However,
the US will take no action until shortly after 9/11, when it will lead a
raid on the SHC’s Bosnia offices. Incriminating documents will be
found, including information on how to counterfeit US State Department
ID badges, and handwritten notes about meetings with bin Laden. Evidence
of a planned attack using crop duster planes is found as well. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 129, 284]
Yet even after all this, the Bosnian government will still refuse to
shut down SHC’s offices and they apparently remain open (see January 25, 2002).
International Islamic Relief Organization logo.
[Source: International Islamic Relief Organization]The
CIA creates a report for the State Department detailing support for
terrorism from prominent Islamic charities. The report, completed just
as the Bosnian war is winding down, focuses on charity fronts that have
helped the mujaheddin in Bosnia. It concludes that of more than 50
Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in existence, “available
information indicates that approximately one-third… support terrorist
groups or employ individuals who are suspected of having terrorist
connections.” The report notes that most of the offices of NGOs active
in Bosnia are located in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Zenica, and Tuzla. There are
coordination councils there organizing the work of the charity fronts.
The report notes that some charities may be “backed by powerful interest
groups,” including governments. “We continue to have evidence that even
high ranking members of the collecting or monitoring agencies in Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan - such as the Saudi High Commission - are
involved in illicit activities, including support for terrorists.” The
Wall Street Journal will later comment, “Disclosure of the report may
raise new questions about whether enough was done to cut off support for
terrorism before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001… and about possible
involvement in terrorism by Saudi Arabian officials.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996; Wall Street Journal, 5/9/2003] The below list of organizations paraphrases or quotes the report, except for informational asides in parentheses.
The International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). “The IIRO is
affiliated with the Muslim World League, a major international
organization largely financed by the government of Saudi Arabia.” The
IIRO has funded Hamas, Algerian radicals, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (a.k.a.
the Islamic Group, an Egyptian radical militant group led by Sheikh
Omar Abdul-Rahman), Ramzi Yousef, and six militant training camps in
Afghanistan. “The former head of the IIRO office in the Philippines,
Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, has been linked to Manila-based plots to target
the Pope and US airlines; his brother-in-law is Osama bin Laden.”
Al Haramain Islamic Foundation. It has connections to Al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya and helps support the mujaheddin battalion in Zenica. Their
offices have been connected to smuggling, drug running, and
prostitution.
Human Concern International, headquartered in Canada. Its Swedish
branch is said to be smuggling weapons to Bosnia. It is claimed “the
entire Peshawar office is made up of [Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya] members.”
The head of its Pakistan office (Ahmed Said Khadr) was arrested recently
for a role in the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan (see November 19, 1995). (It will later be discovered that Khadr is a founder and major leader of al-Qaeda (see Summer 2001 and January 1996-September 10, 2001).)
Third World Relief Agency (TWRA). Headquartered in Sudan, it has ties
to Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. “The regional director of the organization,
Elfatih Hassanein, is the most influential [charity] official in Bosnia.
He is a major arms supplier to the government, according to clandestine
and press reporting, and was forced to relocate his office from Zagreb
in 1994 after his weapons smuggling operations were exposed. According
to a foreign government service, Hassanein supports US Muslim extremists
in Bosnia.” One TWRA employee alleged to also be a member of Al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya carried out a suicide car bombing in Rijeka, Croatia (see October 20, 1995).
The Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA). Based in Sudan, it has
offices in 30 countries. It is said to be controlled by Sudan’s ruling
party and gives weapons to the Bosnian military in concert with the
TWRA. (The US government will give the IARA $4 million in aid in 1998
(see February 19, 2000).)
Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) (the report refers to it by
an alternate name, Lajnat al-Birr al-Islamiyya (LBI)). It supports
mujaheddin in Bosnia. It mentions “one Zagreb employee, identified as
Syrian-born US citizen Abu Mahmud,” as involved in a kidnapping in
Pakistan (see July 4, 1995). [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996] (This is a known alias (Abu Mahmoud al Suri) for Enaam Arnaout, the head of BIF’s US office.) [USA v. Enaam M. Arnaout, 10/6/2003, pp. 37 ]
This person “matches the description… of a man who was allegedly
involved in the kidnapping of six Westerners in Kashmir in July 1995,
and who left Pakistan in early October for Bosnia via the United
States.”
Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), a.k.a. Al-Kifah. This group has ties to Ramzi
Yousef, Osama bin Laden, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, and possibly
Hezbollah. Both the former director of its Zagreb office [Kamer Eddine
Kherbane] and his deputy [Hassan Hakim] were senior members of Algerian
extremist groups. Its main office in Peshawar, Pakistan, funds at least
nine training camps in Afghanistan. “The press has reported that some
employees of MAK’s New York branch were involved in the World Trade
Center bombing [in 1993].” (Indeed, the New York branch, known as the
Al-Kifah Refugee Center, is closely linked to the WTC bombing and the
CIA used it as a conduit to send money to Afghanistan (see January 24, 1994).
Muwafaq Foundation. Registered in Britain but based in Sudan, it has
many offices in Bosnia. It has ties to Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and “helps
fund the Egyptian Mujahedin Battalion in Bosnia” and “at least one
training camp in Afghanistan” (see 1991-1995).
Qatar Charitable Society, based in Qatar. It has possible ties to Hamas
and Algerian militants. A staff member in Qatar is known to be a Hamas
operative who has been monitored discussing militant operations. (An
al-Qaeda defector will later reveal that in 1993 he was told this was
one of al-Qaeda’s three most important charity fronts (see 1993)).
Red Crescent (Iran branch). Linked to the Iranian government, it is
“Often used by the Iranian [intelligence agency] as cover for
intelligence officers, agents, and arms shipments.”
Saudi High Commission. “The official Saudi government organization for
collecting and disbursing humanitarian aid.” Some members possibly have
ties to Hamas and Algerian militants (see 1996 and After).
Other organizations mentioned are the Foundation for Human Rights,
Liberties, and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) (a.k.a. the International
Humanitarian Relief Organization), Kuwait Joint Relief Committee (KJRC),
the Islamic World Committee, and Human Appeal International. [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996] After
9/11, former National Security Council official Daniel Benjamin will
say that the NSC repeatedly questioned the CIA with inquiries about
charity fronts.
“We knew there was a big problem between [charities] and militants. The
CIA report “suggests they were on the job, and, frankly, they were on
the job.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/9/2003]
However, very little action is taken on the information before 9/11.
None of the groups mentioned will be shut down or have their assets
seized.
Prominent
neoconservative Richard Perle tells the Turkish Daily News that the
arming and training of Bosnian Muslims is of “vital interest” to the US
and suggests that “among the NATO allies Turkey is [the] number one
candidate for the job.” He says that Turkey would need perhaps $50
million in financing to do the work. [Turkish Daily News, 1/22/1996]
The
New York Times publishes an op-ed piece by Jacob Heilbrunn and Michael
Lind titled, “The Third American Empire,” in which the authors assert
that US military involvement in the Balkans should not be seen as the
assertion of US influence in Europe, but as part of a strategy to exert
US dominance in the Middle East and Central Asia. “[W]e should view the
Balkans as the western frontier of America’s rapidly expanding sphere of
influence in the Middle East,” they write. [New York Times, 1/2/1996]
As part of the peace agreement ending the Bosnian war (see December 14, 1995),
all foreign fighters are required to leave Bosnia by this time, which
is thirty days after the signing of the peace agreement. Effectively
this refers to the mujaheddin who have been fighting for the Bosnian
Muslims. [Time, 12/31/1995]
However, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic kicks out the Serbians
living in the small village of Bocinja Donja 60 miles north of the
capital of Sarajevo and gives the houses there to several hundred
mujaheddin. Most of them marry local women, allowing them to stay in the
country (see January 2000). [Washington Post, 3/11/2000]
A
Bosnian Muslim named Munib Zahiragic joins Bosnia’s Muslim secret
police by mid-1995, while he is also working for the Sarajevo office of
the US-based charity Benevolence International Foundation (BIF). By
September 1996, he is stealing top secret documents and giving them to
Enaam Arnaout, the US executive director of BIF and also linked to
al-Qaeda. He gives Arnaout hundreds of documents about mujaheddin and
al-Qaeda operatives. Arnaout then passes them on to al-Qaeda, allowing
many to avoid capture. For instance, high-ranking al-Qaeda leader
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim is tipped off that investigators are onto him when
he visits Bosnia in 1998 (see May 7, 1998).
After Zahiragic leaves the secret police in June 2000, he works full
time for BIF. In March 2002, Bosnian police will raid the BIF’s Sarajevo
office, arrest Zahiragic, and discover weapons, booby traps, fake
passports, and bomb making plans. A raid on another BIF office at the
same time will uncover the stolen documents. Zahiragic is convicted of
espionage in Bosnia a year later but he is only sentenced to two years
in prison. [Associated Press, 6/30/2003; Schindler, 2007, pp. 288-289]
Despite his arrest, Bosnian intelligence agencies remain completely
penetrated by others. Highly classified Bosnian documents are sometimes
found with Islamist militants in Bosnia and are even published in
militant newsletters. [Schindler, 2007, pp. 312-313]
The
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) emerges to resist Serbia’s campaign
against Yugoslavia’s Albanian population. The force is financed by
Albanian expatriates and Kosovar smugglers (see 1996-1999)
(see Early 1999).
According to news reports, the KLA receives some $1.5 billion in drug
and arms smuggling profits from Kosovar Albanian traffickers each year. [Mother Jones, 1/2000]
The US Drug Enforcement Agency office in Rome tells the Philadelphia
Inquirer in March 1999 that the KLA is “financing [its] war through drug
trafficking activities, weapons trafficking, and the trafficking of
other illegal goods, as well as contributions of their countrymen
working abroad.” [Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/15/1999]
Less than a year later, Mother Jones magazine will report that it
obtained a congressional briefing paper which states: “We would be
remiss to dismiss allegations that between 30 and 50 percent of the
KLA’s money comes from drugs.” [Mother Jones, 1/2000]
Sali Berisha. [Source: Albanian government website]The
regime of Sali Berisha in Albania collapses due to a widespread failed
pyramid scheme that greatly angers the population. This leads to the
looting of 10,000 heavy weapons from government armories and 100,000
passports. Many of these are taken by al-Qaeda. [Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001]
Subsequently, organized crime has a very strong influence in Albania.
For example, in 1999, when Albanian police confiscate speed boats being
used in smuggling operations, the angry gang barricades the main coastal
road, beats up the police chief, and retakes the boats. Police, even
though backed up by the Army, do not dare to intervene. [Reuters, 1/23/1999] Thousands of Albanians are driven into hiding to try to escape vendettas and blood-feuds. [Guardian, 9/30/1998] After the collapse of his government, Berisha turns his family farm into a KLA base. [New York Times, 6/9/1998] He will become prime minister in Albania in 2005.
Having
already entered into its controversial relationship with the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), the US gives in to the organization’s demands
that it be removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist
organizations. [Wall Street Journal (Europe), 11/1/2001]
Near the end of that same month, Robert Gelbard, America’s special
envoy to Bosnia, says the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is an Islamic
terrorist organization. [BBC, 6/28/1998] “We condemn very strongly terrorist actions in Kosovo. The UCK [KLA] is, without any question, a terrorist group.” [Agence France-Presse, 4/1999] “I know a terrorist when I see one and these men are terrorists,” he says. [BBC, 6/28/1998]
Robert Gelbard, America’s special envoy to Bosnia, says the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is an Islamic terrorist organization. [BBC, 6/28/1998]
“We condemn very strongly terrorist actions in Kosovo. The UCK [KLA] is, without any question, a terrorist group.”
[Agence France-Presse, 4/1999]
“I know a terrorist when I see one and these men are terrorists,” he says. [BBC, 6/28/1998]
Essam
Marzouk, an explosives expert and training camp instructor, goes to
Kosovo to support the Muslim cause there. He is there at some time
between March and August 1998, though how long he stays exactly is
unknown. During this same time, he also goes to Afghanistan and trains
the men who will bomb two US embassies in Africa in August (see June 16, 1993-February 1998). He is closely linked to both al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad. [Globe and Mail, 11/15/2001; Globe and Mail, 9/7/2002] He will be arrested in Azerbaijan in late August 1998 (see Late August 1998). It has not been reported who he met in Kosovo or what he did there exactly.
Mamdouh
Mahmud Salim (a.k.a. Abu Hajer), a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader, visits
Bosnia for unknown reasons and connects with a charity suspected of
financing bin Laden’s organization. Salim was one of the founders of
al-Qaeda and will be arrested in Germany later in the year (see September 20, 1998) and charged in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998).
Records show that the Bosnia branch of the US-based Benevolence
International Foundation (BIF) sponsored Salim’s visa, reserved him an
apartment, and identified him as one of its directors. A BIF mole in
Bosnian intelligence is able to tip off Salim that investigators are
onto him, so he is not caught (see September 1996-June 2000).
Intelligence officials will question BIF officers about Salim’s trip in
early 2000, but the reason for the trip remains a mystery. [New York Times, 6/14/2002]
A
joint surveillance operation conducted by the CIA and Albanian
intelligence identifies an Islamic Jihad cell that is allegedly planning
to bomb the US Embassy in Tirana, Albania’s capital. The cell was
created in the early 1990s by Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of Islamic
Jihad and al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The operation intercepts
lengthy discussions between the cell and Ayman. [New Yorker, 2/8/2005; Wright, 2006, pp. 269] At the behest of the US government, Egypt, which is co-operating with the US over renditions (see Summer 1995),
issues an arrest warrant for Shawki Salama Attiya, one of the militants
in the cell. Albanian forces then arrest Attiya and four of the other
suspected militants. A sixth suspect is killed, but two more escape. The
men are taken to an abandoned airbase, where they are interrogated by
the CIA, and then flown by a CIA-chartered plane to Cairo, Egypt, for
further interrogation. The men are tortured after arriving in Egypt:
Ahmed Saleh is suspended from the ceiling and given electric shocks; he
is later hanged for a conviction resulting from a trial held in his
absence; Mohamed Hassan Tita is hung from his wrists and given electric shocks to his feet and back;
Attiya is given electric shocks to his genitals, suspended by his limbs
and made to stand for hours in filthy water up to his knees;
Ahmed al-Naggar is kept in a room for 35 days with water up to his
knees, and has electric shocks to his nipples and penis; he is later
hanged for an offence for which he was convicted in absentia; Essam Abdel-Tawwab will also describe more torture for which prosecutors later find “recovered wounds.” On August 5, 1998, a letter by Ayman al-Zawahiri will be published that threatens retaliation for the Albanian abductions (see August 5, 1998). Two US embassies in Africa will be bombed two days later (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). [Washington Post, 3/11/2002, pp. A01; New Yorker, 2/8/2005; Grey, 2007, pp. 128]
The US State Department will later speculate that the timing of the
embassy bombings was in fact in retaliation for these arrests. [Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001]
The
Project for a New American Century publishes an open letter to
President Clinton urging him put an end to diplomatic efforts attempting
to resolve the situation in the Balkans. Instead, they argue, he should
take “decisive action” against the Serbs. The US must “distance itself
from Milosevic and actively support in every way possible his
replacement by a democratic government committed to ending ethnic
violence,” the group writes. [Century, 9/11/1998]
An
annual international Islamic conference in Pakistan formally
characterizes the Kosovo Liberation Army’s struggle as a “jihad.” [Wall Street Journal (Europe), 11/1/2001]
A
list of Al Taqwa Bank shareholders as of December 1999 includes
Khaldoun Dia Eddine, who is also president of the Committee to Aid
Refugees of Bosnia-Herzegovina. [Salon, 3/15/2002]
He is said to work closely with Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, one of the top
Al Taqwa figures. In 1999, it is alleged that Eddine was also the head
of the Gulf Office, an Al Taqwa subsidiary that the Italian government
investigated in 1994 for its ties with the GIA, an Algerian militant
group connected to al-Qaeda. Eddine also works for Mercy International, a
Muslim charity with numerous ties to al-Qaeda and also alleged ties to
the CIA (see 1989 and After).
By 1999, Eddine is managing the Mercy International office in Tirana,
Albania, and is said to be managing “one of the principal channels for
weapons delivery for the Kosovo Liberation Army, with the financial and
logistic support of the Muslim World League.” [Labeviere, 1999] There is no indication that Eddine is ever later arrested or charged with any crime.
The
police forces of three Western European countries, as well as Europol,
the European police authority, are separately investigating a growing
pool of evidence that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is being funded
by drug money. And on March 24, 1999, the London Times reports that
“Europol… is preparing a report for European interior and justice
ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.”
(see 1996-1999) [London Times, 3/24/1999]
Morton
Abramowitz writes a column in the Wall Street Journal calling for a
drastic change in US policy toward Kosovo. Abramowitz is highly
influential with the US foreign policy elite (see 1991-1997).
He argues that the US should support full independence for Kosovo and
outlines options the US should consider including bombing Serbia,
removing Milosevic, arming and training the KLA, and turning Kosovo into
a NATO protectorate through the use of ground forces. [American Spectator, 6/1999]
From
left to right: Hashim Thaci, UCK leader; Bernard Kouchner, UN
Administrator of Kosovo; Gen. Sir Michael Jackson, KFOR Commander; Agim
Ceku, Commander of KLA; Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO Commander.
[Source: Vojin Joksimovich]General Agim Ceku
retires his commission in the Croatian armed forces to take command of
the KLA. Despite the fact that Ceku is an indicted war criminal (see 1993-1995),
this move has the blessing of the US State Department. As head of the
KLA, Ceku is viewed by NATO and presented in the mainstream media as a
loyal and valuable NATO ally. He is a frequent participant in NATO
briefings along with top generals such as Wesley Clark and Michael
Jackson. [Taylor, 2002, pp. 164] Ceku will be elected prime minister of Kosovo in 2006 despite the still pending war crimes charges (see March 2006).
The
Greek press reports that Afghan mujaheddin are entering Albania in
large numbers. Osama bin Laden is named as one of those who have
organized groups to fight in Kosovo to fight alongside the Albanians.
According to the Arab-language news service Al-Hayat, an Albanian
commander in Kosovo code named Monia is directly linked to bin Laden,
and commands a force that includes at least 100 mujaheddin. An Interpol
report released on October 23, 2001 also reveals that a senior bin Laden
associate led an elite KLA fighting unit in Kosovo. According to the
report, bin Laden also maintained extensive ties with the Albanian
mafia. [Ottawa Citizen, 12/15/2001]
The
six-nation “Contact Group,” comprised of delegations from the United
States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, meets in London to
discuss a resolution to the Kosovo conflict. At the conclusion of the
conference, they issue an ultimatum to the Yugoslavian government and
Kosovar Albanians, requiring them to attend peace talks in Rambouillet,
France beginning on February 6 (see February 6-23, 1999). [Press Association (London), 1/29/1999; BBC, 1/30/1999]
However, It appears only the KLA is invited to speak on behalf of the
Kosovar Albanians, not Ibrahim Rugova—the only democratically elected
leader of Kosovo—or any other member of the Kosovo Democratic League.
“Western diplomats have described Rugova as increasingly irrelevant,
while the key players in Kosovo are now the rebels of the KLA,” the BBC
reports. [BBC, 1/31/1999]
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) says it will send representatives to the peace talks in Rambouillet, France on February 6 (see February 6-23, 1999).
Representing the KLA, will be Supreme Commander Hashim Thaci, also
known as “The Snake,” and four other Kosovars, all militants. [BBC, 2/3/1999] On Febuary 4, the Yugoslav government (essentially Serbia) agrees to join the peace talks. [US Information Agency, 4/13/1999]
In
Rambouillet, France, the Kosovo peace talks are held between the
Kosovar Albanians and the Serbs under the auspices of the “Contact
Group,” which is comprised of delegations from the United States,
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. [Guardian, 2/15/1999; New York Times, 4/1/1999; CNN, 4/6/1999]
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrives in Rambouillet during the
latter half of the talks and brings both sides together for the first
time. The Guardian reports that she has “‘abrupt’ and largely one-sided
exchanges with the Serbian president, Milan Milutinovic,” and declares
“that the threat of NATO attacks ‘remains real.’” The British, on the
other hand, apparently disagree with Albright, believing that the use of
force is not necessary. The Russians strongly oppose any military
action. [Guardian, 2/15/1999; Guardian, 2/24/1999]
Albright also works closely with the Kosovar Albanians, who are being
advised by Americans Morton Abramowitz, Marshall Harris, and Paul
Williams. [Christian Science Monitor, 2/10/1999]
Albright offers the Albanians “incentives intended to show that
Washington is a friend of Kosovo,” the New York Times reports. “Officers
in the Kosovo Liberation Army would… be sent to the United States for
training in transforming themselves from a guerrilla group into a police
force or a political entity.”
[New York Times, 2/24/1999] Madeleine Albright shakes hands with “freedom fighter” 20-year-old Hashim Thaci, a leader of the KLA [Wall Street Journal (Europe), 11/1/2001] who had previously been labeled a terrorist leader by the US. [Chicago Tribune, 7/11/2004]
Toward the end of the conference, the Contact Group provides the two
parties with a final draft of the Rambouillet Accords. The Kosovars have
a number of issues with the document, especially a provision that would
require them to disarm. Another problem is that the proposed accords
would not require a referendum on the independence of Kosovo.
Notwithstanding these reservations, the Kosovars do not reject the
document outright. Rather they say they will accept the agreement after
holding “technical consultations” back in Kosovo. The Serbs also refuse
to sign the accords because it would give NATO almost complete control
of the Yugoslavia. [Guardian, 2/24/1999]
Article 8 of Appendix B, titled “Status of Multi-National Military
Implementation Force,” states: “NATO personnel shall enjoy, together
with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and
unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia] including associated airspace and territorial
waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac,
maneuver, billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as
required for support, training, and operations.” Article 6 would grant
NATO troops operating in Yugoslavia immunity from prosecution, and
Article 10 would allow NATO to have cost-free access to all streets,
airports, and ports. [Rambouillet Accords: Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, 2/23/1999]
As the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung notes, “This passage sounds
like a surrender treaty following a war that was lost… The fact that
Yugoslavian President Milosevic did not want to sign such a paper is
understandable.”
[Chicago Tribune, 7/11/2004] With neither party agreeing to sign the accords, the talks end with plans to reconvene on March 15 (see March 15, 1999). [Guardian, 2/24/1999]
The
Kosovo Liberation Army agrees to the provisions of the Rambouillet
Accords proposed during last month’s peace talks in Rambouillet (see February 6-23, 1999). [Guardian, 3/16/1999]
The
Kosovo peace talks end in failure with the Yugoslav government refusing
to agree to Appendix B of the Rambouillet Accords (see February 6-23, 1999), which would require the Serbs to provide 28,000 NATO troops “unimpeded” access to the country. [Guardian, 3/16/1999]
NATO
launches a bombing campaign on Serbia in an attempt to force Serbian
troops to withdraw from Kosovo. Kosovo is part of Serbia, but 90%
ethnically Albanian and agitating for autonomy or independence. The air
campaign begins just days after the collapse of peace talks (see March 19, 1999). [Washington Post, 9/19/1999] US General Wesley Clark leads the bombing campaign. [BBC, 12/25/2003]
An
unnamed European intelligence agency secretly reports that al-Qaeda has
provided financial support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Documents found on a KLA militant further reveal that he has been
smuggling combatants into Kosovo, mostly Saudis with Albanian passports.
The report further notes that the KLA is largely financed by drug
trafficking, bringing drugs from Afghanistan into Europe with the
blessing of the Taliban. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 71-72]
The
US State Department temporarily suspends cooperation between the
Bosnian army and the US private mercenary company MPRI. No official
reason is given, but media reports indicate that the Bosnian Muslims
being trained by MPRI were caught sending weapons to Muslim rebels in
the regions of Kosovo and Sandzak in Serbia. Supposedly, millions of
dollars of weapons were smuggled to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in
Kosovo. [BBC, 4/5/1999; Progressive, 8/1/1999; Center for Public Integrity, 10/28/2002]
Speaking
in front of a small public rally in Washington in favor of an
independent Kosovo, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D) says that the “United
States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same
human values and principles.… Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human
rights and American values.” [Washington Post, 4/28/1999]
The
US-led NATO alliance begins bombing Serbia in March, pressuring it to
withdraw from Kosovo, which is part of Serbia but ethnically dominated
by Albanians (see March 24, 1999).
During the war, the US publicly denies working with the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), the dominant political group in Kosovo. However,
it will later be revealed that the CIA works closely with the KLA,
starting at least from late April 1999. At that time, the CIA and US
Special Forces troops begin working with the KLA to defeat the Serbians.
The KLA passes on useful information about Serbian positions, allowing
NATO forces to bomb them. But since the KLA has a reputation for drug
running, civilian atrocities, and links to al-Qaeda, the US military
generally uses the Albanian army as an intermediary. KLA representatives
meet daily with Albanian military officers in Albania, but CIA and US
Army officers are usually present as well. In addition, there is a
secret NATO operations center in the town of Kukes, Albania, near the
border with Kosovo. Most of the KLA liaison work takes place there. US
officials begin considering using the KLA as a light-infantry force if
NATO needs to invade Kosovo with ground troops. But the war ends in June
1999 before that becomes necessary (see June 9, 1999). [Washington Post, 9/19/1999]
The same month that the CIA begins working closely with the KLA, a
European intelligence report indicates the KLA is being funded by
al-Qaeda and drugs from Afghanistan (see April 1999).
On June 9, 1999, NATO has been bombing Serbia for 78 days (see March 24, 1999).
Serbian ruler Slobodan Milosevic capitulates, agreeing to withdraw
Serbian forces from Kosovo. Kosovo technically remains part of Serbia
(which is still called Yugoslavia) but it is essentially taken over by
NATO. Within months, nearly 50,000 NATO peacekeeping troops occupy
Kosovo, and the United Nations takes over its administration. [Washington Post, 9/19/1999]
NATO troops patrol the village of Bocinja Donja in 2001. [Source: NATO / Paul Hanson]In
the wake of the failed al-Qaeda millennium bomb plots, US investigators
will discover that a number of suspects in the plots have connections
to an obscure village in Bosnia named Bocinja Donja. At the end of the
Bosnian war in late 1995, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic kicked out
the Serbians living in this small village 60 miles north of the capital
of Sarajevo and gave their houses to about 100 former mujaheddin who
fought in Bosnia. Most of them married local women, allowing them to
stay despite a treaty requiring all foreign fighters to leave Bosnia. In
contrast to the rest of Bosnia, the village is governed by strict
Islamic law. Suspects who lived in or visited the village include:
Karim Said Atmani. A former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, he is believed to
be the document forger for Ressam’s group that attempted to bomb the
Los Angeles airport (see December 14, 1999). He was a frequent visitor to Bosnia until late 1999. [Washington Post, 3/11/2000] Khalil Deek. Suspected of masterminding the Los Angeles airport plot (see December 15-31, 1999) and a Jordanian millennium plot (see December 11, 1999), Deek was investigated by US intelligence since the late 1980s (see Late 1980s) but inexplicably never even watchlisted until 2004 (see Spring 2004). Deek’s brother says Khalil lived in Bosnia for a while, working for a “Muslim relief organization.” [Washington Post, 3/11/2000; Orange County Weekly, 6/15/2006] He worked for the IARA, which reportedly funneled weapons and recruits into Bosnia (see Early 1990s).
Hisham Diab. While he has not been explicitly connected to this
village, he fought in Bosnia and was Deek’s next door neighbor and close
al-Qaeda associate all through the 1990s (see March 1993-1996 and December 14-25, 1999), so presumably they spent time in Bosnia together. [New Yorker, 1/22/2007] Hamid Aich. He lived in Canada and is connected to Ressam’s group (see December 21, 1999).
He also will openly live in Ireland and apparently fund a wide variety
of militant groups and plots there before escaping to Afghanistan just
before 9/11 (see June 3, 2001-July 24, 2001). Other
mujaheddin connected to this village are wanted by authorities in other
countries for other alleged crimes. A senior US official will say, “We
have been concerned about this community for years. We flushed out a lot
of them [after the end of the war].… [But] we find the whole group of
them a threat, and we want them out of there.” [Washington Post, 3/11/2000]
Others tied to the millennium plots have ties to Bosnian war generally
because Ressam belonged to a group of armed robbers called the “Roubaix
gang” that trained in Islamic camps in Bosnia. [Los Angeles Times, 1/13/2000] Izetbegovic will step down as leader of Muslim Bosnia in October 2000. [New York Times, 10/20/2003]
In late 2000 and early 2001, the mujaheddin will gradually be moved out
of the village and replaced by the original Serbian inhabitants.
United
Nations police raid a house in Pristina, Kosovo, rented by the Saudi
Joint Relief Committee (SJRC). The house was rented by Wael Hamza
Julaidan, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, and is discovered to be an
al-Qaeda safe house. Shortly after the raid, the BBC reports that the US
sent UN police a secret document asking them to monitor those connected
to the house. It states that Julaidan is an associate of Osama bin
Laden, and helped him “move money and men to and from the Balkans.” The
SJRC is an umbrella body for several other Saudi charities and is partly
financed by the Saudi government. [BBC, 4/3/2000]
In a 1999 interview broadcast on the Al Jazeera television network, bin
Laden referred to the origins of al-Qaeda and said, “We were all in one
boat, as is known to you, including our brother, Wael Julaidan.” [Kohlmann, 2004] However, despite this openly shown interest in Julaidan, the US will not freeze his assets until late 2002 (see September 6, 2002).
Julaidan has just been made director general of the Rabita Trust, a
charity with many prominent Pakistanis on its board of directors,
including Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf (see Mid-September-October 12, 2001).
The
KLA launches an offensive in Macedonia. Many of the KLA commanders
involved in the offensive also held appointments in the UN’s Kosovo
Protection Corps. The regular Macedonian security forces are forced to
withdraw, and the Macedonian military and elite police forces engage the
KLA. [Taylor, 2002, pp. 119-120]
At
the end of June, the KLA had captured the Macedonian town of Aracinovo
on the outskirts of Kopje. However, within a few days 500 KLA fighters
are surrounded by the Macedonian military and elite police units, cut
off from re-supply and hopelessly outnumbered. The Macedonian forces are
closing in and could easily capture or kill the entire KLA force there,
except NATO intervenes. NATO brokers a deal with the Macedonians, under
the threat of extreme economic sanctions, under which NATO would
oversee the demilitarization of Aracinovo and transport the captured KLA
members to internment camps in Kosovo. US troops then enter Aracinovo
with 15 buses to evacuate the trapped KLA fighters. They are escorted
safely away from the surrounding Macedonian forces, and then, contrary
to the agreement, the KLA members are released to rejoin other KLA
forces and fight again. The American forces involved in the rescue
include 16 members of MPRI (see August 1994)
(see 1999), who had been assisting and training the KLA forces. [Taylor, 2002, pp. 120-121]
Macedonia’s
Prime Minister Ljubo Geogievski accuses US State Department special
envoy James Pardew of “forcing Macedonia to cave in to the demands of
the Albanian guerrillas.” In 1993, Pardew had served as a senior
intelligence officer responsible for the covert operation arming the
Bosnian Muslim forces. [Taylor, 2002, pp. 121]
By
mid-July the Macedonian police and military are no longer able to
contain the KLA in the Tetovo-Kosovo corridor. The fighting intensifies
and the KLA establishes secure bases in this region. On the evening of
July 15, local KLA commanders notify Macedonian residents that they must
flee or face execution. It is estimated that over 30,000 Macedonians
are forced to flee their homes and become refugees. [Taylor, 2002, pp. 121-122]
Kamar Eddine Kherbane. [Source: Marco Hebdo]A
militant leader named Kamar Eddine Kherbane is arrested in Morocco, but
he has been given political asylum in Britain since 1994 and he is
quickly deported to Britain and freed. Agence France-Presse claims that
his arrest was “apparently in connection with the [9/11] attacks on the
US.” The Moroccan government also questions him about arms smuggling. [Agence France-Presse, 9/20/2001]
But by sending him back to Britain, the Moroccan government ignores an
extradition request by the Algerian government who claim Kherbane is a
wanted criminal and an al-Qaeda operative. [BBC, 9/21/2001]
Kherbane was a founding member of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an
Algerian political party outlawed in the early 1990s. He is also a
known al-Qaeda operative said to have met bin Laden on several
occasions, most recently in 1998. He appears to have been a key leader
of mujaheddin fighting in Bosnia (see 1990 and 1991). [Agence France-Presse, 9/20/2001] A Spanish police report will later claim that he was the head of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center’s Zabreb, Croatia, office (see Early 1990s).
Al-Kifah was a US-based al-Qaeda charity front until the early 1990s
that had ties to both the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the CIA
(see 1986-1993). [CNN, 12/8/2002] Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna says Kherbane is “close to both the [Algerian] GIA and al-Qaeda’s leaderships.” [Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 183]
In an interview shortly after the Moroccan incident, Kherbane claims
that he was released there because “Britain put a lot of pressure, which
reached the point of threatening to expel the Moroccan ambassador from
London.” He also admits to having met bin Laden in the 1990s. [BBC, 9/26/2001]
It is not known why the British government helps him avoid being sent
to Algeria. But a few days after his return to Britain, The London Times
will report, “More than 20 Islamic terrorists, including those wanted
for the murders of at least 100 people abroad, are living freely in
Britain. Many on the global terror ‘wanted list’ have been granted
political asylum despite being close to Osama bin Laden’s organization.”
[London Times, 9/23/2001] A 2005 article will indicate Kherbane is still living openly in Britain. [BBC, 2/24/2005]
Bensayah Belkacem. The blotchy nature of the image appears to be an artifact of poor photocopying. [Source: US Defense Department]US
intelligence intercepts numerous phone calls between Abu Zubaida and
other al-Qaeda leaders and Bensayah Belkacem, an operative living in
Bosnia. The New York Times will later report that shortly after 9/11,
“American intelligence agencies, working closely with the government of
neighboring Croatia, listened in as Mr. Belkacem and others discussed
plans for attacks.” One US official says, “He was apparently on the
phone constantly to Afghanistan, with Zubaida and others. There were
dozens of calls to Afghanistan.” Belkacem, an Algerian, had moved to
Bosnia to fight in the early 1990s war there, then obtained Bosnian
citizenship and settled in Zenica, working for an Islamic charity. [New York Times, 1/23/2002]
On October 8, 2001, Bosnian police detain Belkacem. While searching his
home, they find a piece of note listing the name “Abu Zubeida” and
Zubaida’s phone number. [Washington Post, 8/21/2006]
It is later revealed that Belkacem made 70 calls to Zubaida between
9/11 and his arrest and more calls before then. He had repeatedly sought
a visa to leave Bosnia for Germany just before 9/11. Phone transcripts
show Zubaida and Belkacem discussed procuring passports. [Time, 11/12/2001]
A US official will later claim that it was believed Zubaida was in
Afghanistan with bin Laden at the time of Belkacem’s arrest. [New York Times, 1/23/2002]
It has not been explained why this knowledge was not used to capture or
kill Zubaida and/or bin Laden. It appears that Western intelligence
agencies had been monitoring Zubaida’s calls as far back as 1996 (see (Mid-1996) and October 1998 and After). Belkacem and five of his associates will be renditioned to Guantanamo Bay prison in 2002 and remain imprisoned there (see January 18, 2002).
It
is reported that four charities operating in Bosnia are due to be shut
down there within weeks. The four are Saudi High Relief Commission,
Global Relief Foundation (GRF), Active Islamic Youth (AIO), and the
Third World Relief Agency (TWRA). The Saudi High Commission is closely
tied to the Saudi government and has given out hundreds of millions of
dollars in aid to Bosnia. At least three suspects recently arrested by
the US worked for the Commission, and it had a long history of known
militant links (see 1996 and After). In late 2001, GRF was shut down in the US and the UN shut its offices in nearby Kosovo (see December 14, 2001).
In the early 1990s, TWRA funneled hundreds of millions of dollars worth
of weapons to Bosnia in violation of a UN embargo (see Mid-1991-1996).
A Bosnian police official says, “We have information that these groups
are used to finance and support terrorism. There is also definitely
money laundering here. And this laundering definitely shows evidence of
sources in the narcotics and arms trades.” Bosnian Deputy Minister Rasim
Kadic says, “A series of searches and other intelligence gathering
proved activities and evidence that has no relationship to humanitarian
work. Four groups have very suspicious financial dealings and other
issues have made police very suspicious about these four groups.… We
expect to make the hard decision to close some of these groups. We will
say ‘Thank you for your help, but now you must go.’” Officials say have
also discovered evidence of drug and weapons trafficking by the four
charities. [United Press International, 1/25/2002]
But in fact, the four charities are not shut down in Bosnia, except for
GRF, which will have its offices there shut near the end of 2002. [BBC, 11/28/2002] In 2004, there will be reports that TWRA is operating in the Czech Republic. [BBC, 3/15/2004]
And in 2005, counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna will tell an
Austrian newspaper that TWRA is still tied to radical militants and
still active there. [BBC, 6/14/2005]
In
March 2002, the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF) office in
Sarajevo, Bosnia, is raided by US and Bosnian agents and a “treasure
trove” of documents are found. One document found is the “Golden Chain,”
a list of early al-Qaeda funders (see 1988-1989).
Enaam Arnaout is living in the US as head of BIF, but the Sarajevo
investigators discover letters between him and bin Laden, including a
handwritten note by bin Laden authorizing Arnaout to sign documents on
his behalf. Arnaout prepares to flee the US, but is arrested. On
November 19, 2002, the US declares BIF a terrorist financier and its
Chicago office is closed down. In February 2003, Arnaout pleas guilty to
working with al-Qaeda, but US prosecutors agree to drop the charges
against him in return for information. [Burr and Collins, 2006, pp. 46-47]
Victims of the “Rastanski Lozja” action [Source: New York Times]Seven
men are gunned down by Macedonian police near the country’s capital,
Skopje. Authorities initially claim they were jihadists who took on the
police in a gun battle. In an early report, “Interior Minister Ljube
Boskovski said the dead men were ‘probably Pakistanis’ and had been
planning attacks on vital installations and embassies.” [BBC, 3/2/2002][BBC, 3/20/2002]
The full truth will emerge in April 2004 after a new government
launches an investigation: it is revealed that the men, six from
Pakistan and one from India, were innocent illegal immigrants who were
lured over from Bulgaria, housed in Skopje for several days, and then
shot in the middle of the night in an isolated spot. The conspiracy,
which has become known as the “Rastanski Lozja” action, involved
Boskovski and other politicians, as well as members of a special police
unit. Their motive for the plot was to gain US support, in particular
against rebellious ethnic Albanians. [Associated Press, 4/30/2004; BBC, 4/30/2004]
According to the New York Times, “In late 2001, after a six-month
guerrilla war with ethnic Albanian rebels, relations between Macedonia’s
nationalist government and the outside world were at a low ebb.
Diplomats, government officials and investigators here have suggested
that the government hoped to use the post-Sept. 11 campaign against
terror to give the government a free hand in its conflict with the
mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians.” [New York Times, 5/17/2004]
However, doubts quickly develop about the official story. The BBC
reports, “Sources inside the government have briefed journalists saying
they believe that the group were illegal immigrants attempting to cross
Macedonia on the well trodden path into Europe.”
A
Bosnian government probe connects the Saudi charity Talibah
International Aid Association to the funding of Islamic militant groups
and an al-Qaeda front group. Talibah has been under investigation since
shortly after 9/11 due to a foiled attack in Bosnia that has been
connected to Talibah and al-Qaeda. Abdullah Awad bin Laden, one of bin
Laden’s nephews, is a Talibah officer in its Virginia office. An
investigation into him was cancelled in September 1996 (see February-September 11, 1996). The US has been criticized for failing to list Talibah as a sponsor of terrorism and for not freezing its assets. [Wall Street Journal, 9/20/2002]
Munir Alibabic. [Source: Dani]By
2002, the Muslim Bosnian government is controlled by the Social
Democrats, now that Alija Izetbegovic has retired and his SDA party is
out of power. To deal with the issues of corruption and terrorism, in
July 2002 the new government brings Munir Alibabic out of retirement to
run Bosnia’s intelligence agency. Alibabic had been fired in 1994 as
head of the secret police in Sarajevo for opposing government corruption
and the support of the mujaheddin, and he is widely respected for his
integrity. He vows to stop the cover-up of Bosnian Muslim ties to
terrorism, stating, “A crime is a crime, regardless which side commits
it.” He works aggressively with other intelligence agencies to uncover
the al-Qaeda network in Bosnia. He soon completes a report detailing
ties between the SDA party and organized crime. The report names Elfatih
Hassanein, Hasan Cengic, Irfan Ljevakovic, Bakir Alispahic, and Alija
Delimustafic as key co-consiprators. The first three were central
figures in the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a bin Laden-linked
charity front active in the early 1990s (see Mid-1991-1996).
But in October 2002 elections, the SDA returns to power. Paddy Ashdown,
a British politician serving as the Office of the High Representative
in Bosnia, publicly supported the SDA over secularists and reformers in
the election and shortly after they win he fires Alibabic. Author John
Schindler will later write that “By the end of 2002, it was evident that
the post-9/11 drive to run al-Qaeda out of Bosnia and force its local
supporters to heel had run out of steam.” [Schindler, 2007, pp. 289-291]
The Telegraph will later report that Ashdown fired Alibabic on the
advice of the British intelligence agency MI6, but it isn’t clear why. [Daily Telegraph, 9/27/2004]
The King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo, Bosnia. [Source: Ca adian Broadcasting Corporation]Abdurahman Khadr is a CIA informant (see November 10, 2001-Early 2003) and has been posing as a prisoner in Guantanamo so he can inform on the other prisoners there (see Spring 2003).
But in September 2003, he leaves Guantanamo because the CIA gives him a
new assignment, to infiltrate al-Qaeda-linked groups in Bosnia. He is
given a brief training course in undercover work and then sent to Bosnia
on a false passport. US intelligence believes that Bosnia has become an
important pipeline for al-Qaeda volunteers who want to fight in Iraq.
Khadr spends time at the King Fahd mosque, a large Sarajevo mosque which
the US believes is a center of al-Qaeda activity. He becomes friendly
with a suspected recruiter for al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. The CIA then
wants him to follow the pipeline to Iraq and inform on al-Qaeda
operations there. But Khadr considers Iraq far too dangerous. He is a
Canadian citizen, and he contacts his grandmother in Canada and has her
go public with part of his story so he will not be of use as an
informant any more. In November 2003, he returns to Canada, after the
CIA fails to give him most of his promised salary for his informant
work. In February 2004, he contacts Canadian reporters and tells them
his full story about being a CIA informant. His father, Ahmed Said
Khadr, was a founding member of al-Qaeda, and his family disowns him
when they find out about his involvement with the CIA. [PBS Frontline, 4/22/2004]
Richard Holbrooke (left), Florin Krasniqi (middle), and Wesley Clark (right). [Source: Channel 3]Richard
Holbrooke, now Kerry’s senior foreign policy advisor, and Wesley Clark
are filmed laughing and conversing with KLA gun runner and fundraiser
Florin Krasniqi at a fundraising event for the Kerry presidential
campaign. Krasniqi is a registered campaign donor to the Kerry campaign.
[Scotland on Sunday, 10/24/2004]
Krasniqi is an Albanian who illegally emigrated to the US in 1989. He
now runs a construction business in Brooklyn and raises money and
supplies weapons to the KLA. [Washington Post, 5/26/1998; CBS News, 3/21/2005]
Agim
Ceku is elected prime minister of Kosovo. Kosovo is still part of
Serbia but is veering towards independence. Ceku was reportedly
responsible for many atrocities while a Croatian general in 1993-1995
(see 1993-1995).
He then became a top leader of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group, the
Kosovo Liberation Army. Interpol removes Ceku from its list of wanted
persons simply because of his new status as prime minister. [Associated Press, 3/24/2006]
Haris Silajdzic [Source: Public domain]Press
reports indicate that the Muslim leader of Bosnia’s tripartite
presidency, Haris Silajdzic, is under investigation for international
arms smuggling. Police are also said to be investigating former Bosnian
Deputy Defense Minister Hasan Cengic, Elfatih Hassanein, and Turkish
businessman Nedim Suljak. Hassanein was the head of the Third World
Relief Agency (TWRA) and Cengic was closely tied to TWRA. During the
Bosnian war in the early 1990s, TWRA was a radical militant charity
front providing cover for a massive illegal arms pipeline into Bosnia
(see Mid-1991-1996).
Silajdzic was Bosnian foreign minister during the war. Bosnian state
prosecutors confirm that a weapons smuggling investigation into
international illegal weapons smuggling had opened but refuse to say who
is being targeted. [Agence France-Presse, 5/5/2007] TWRA has remained active and there are reports that it is still connected to radical militants (see January 25, 2002). In late 2006, it was announced that Hassanein was opening a new charity in Bosnia. [BBC, 12/29/2006]
Abu Mansoor al-Amriki. [Source: Al-Jazeera]A
militant in a video message released this month has an interesting
background. The message supports Shabab, one of two radical Islamic
groups fighting for power in war-torn Somalia. According to a US
intelligence source, the militant in the video, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki,
is an ex-US soldier who fought in Bosnia in the early 1990s. No US
soldiers officially fought in the Bosnia war, but about a dozen Muslim
ex-US Special Forces soldiers fought in Bosnia and trained al-Qaeda and
other mujaheddin forces there around 1993 (see December 1992-June 1993). At the time, the US military and Saudi government apparently had an interest in sending Muslim ex-Special Forces there (see December 1992-June 1993 and December 1992).
Mansoor is said to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda’s East Africa
leadership, and is a lead trainer for Somali insurgent forces. Although
he only appears on video wearing a face mask, it is clear that he is
Caucasian. [Middle East Times, 2/28/2008]
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The “Bin Laden brothers.” Their first names are not mentioned. They
give money to Osama bin Laden. UPI will later point out that “the
discovery of this document in Sarajevo calls into question whether
al-Qaeda has received support from one of Osama’s scores of wealthy
brothers.” 
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