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There has been an increase in incidents involving alleged radical Islamism in the Balkans since the 1990s.
| Part of a series on |
| Jihadism |
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| Islamportal |
There has been an increase in incidents involving alleged radical Islamism in the Balkans since the 1990s.
The Iztok neighbourhood of Pazardzhik, inhabited by Muslims (Romani), includes an Islamist community headed by unlicensed imam Ahmed Moussa. [14]
Kosovo has a mainly secular Muslim population, part of a cultural remainder from the Ottoman era. [15] [16] The traditional Islam in Kosovo is the Hanafi school, described as 'liberal' and 'moderate'. [16]
Islamist volunteers in the Kosovo Liberation Army from Western Europe of ethnic Albanian, Turkish, and North African origin, were recruited by Islamist leaders in Western Europe allied to Bin Laden and Zawahiri. [17] Some 175 Yemeni mujahideen arrived in early May 1998. [17] There were also a dozen of Saudi and Egyptian mujahideen. [18]
Since the Kosovo War, there has been an increasing radicalization of Islam in Kosovo. [16] [ verification needed ] Wahhabism, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, has gained a foothold in Kosovo through Saudi diplomacy. [16] Saudi money has paid for new mosques, while Saudi-educated imams have arrived since the end of the war in 1999. [16] During UN administration, Saudi Arabian organizations sought to establish a cultural foothold in Kosovo. [19] 98 Wahhabist schools were set up by Saudi organizations during UN administration. [20]
The Kosovo Police arrested some 40 suspected Islamist militants on 11 August 2014. These were suspected of having fought with Islamist insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq. [21]
By April 2015, a total of 232 Kosovo Albanians had gone to Syria to fight with Islamist groups, most commonly the Islamic State. [22] Forty of these are from the town of Skënderaj , according to Kosovo police reports. [23] As of September 2014, a total of 48 ethnic Albanians have been killed fighting in Syria. [24] The number of fighters from Kosovo is at least 232 and estimated at more than 300 (as of 11 February 2016). [25]
A 2017 UNDP study shows that Islamic extremism has grown in Kosovo. [26]
Groups of ethnic Albanians were arrested by police in November 2016 in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia for planning terrorist attacks. [27] [28] They were coordinated by IS commanders Lavdrim Muhaxheri and Ridvan Haqifi, both Kosovo Albanians, and planned attacks on international and state institutions, ultimately with the intent to establish an Islamic state. They planned to attack the Israeli football team during a match in Albania, and potentially Kosovo government institutions and Serbian Orthodox Church sites. [29] A group of ethnic Albanians, Kosovo-born immigrants to Italy, were arrested by Italian police in Venice on 30 March 2017 for planning blowing up the Rialto Bridge. [30]
The Bosnian War attracted large numbers of foreign fighters and mercenaries from various countries. Volunteers came to fight for a variety of reasons including religious or ethnic loyalties, but mostly for money. Generally, Bosniaks received support from Muslim countries, Serbs from Eastern Orthodox countries, and Croats from Catholic countries. The numbers, activities and significance of the foreign fighters were often misrepresented. However, none of these groups constituted more than five percent of any of the respective armies' total manpower strength.
Bosnian mujahideen, also called El Mudžahid, were foreign Muslim volunteers who fought on the Bosniak side during the 1992–95 Bosnian War. They first arrived in central Bosnia in the second half of 1992 with the aim of helping their Bosnian Muslim co-religionists in fights against Serb and Croat forces. Initially they mainly came from Arab countries, later from other Muslim-majority countries. Estimates of their numbers vary from 500 to 6,000.
Osama bin Laden, a militant Islamist and reported founder of al-Qaeda, in conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, issued two fatawa – in 1996 and then again in 1998—that military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdraw support for Israel and withdraw military forces from Islamic countries. He was indicted in United States federal court for his alleged involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and was on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list until his death.
Mujahideen, or Mujahidin, is the plural form of mujahid, an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in jihad, interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or the community (ummah).
Kosovo–Turkey relations are the historic and current relations between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Turkey. Kosovo has an embassy in Ankara and Turkey has an embassy in Prishtina. Both nations are predominantly Muslim and have sought to join the EU.
Kosovo–Saudi Arabia relations are foreign relations between the Kosovo and Saudi Arabia. Like Saudi Arabia, Kosovo has a mainly Muslim population.
The United States Department of State opened the United States Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on July 4, 1994. Bosnia and Herzegovina had formerly been a part of Yugoslavia; the United States recognized the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina on April 7, 1992.
Foreign fighters have fought on all four sides of the Syrian civil war, as well both sides of the War in Iraq. In addition to Sunni foreign fighters, Shia fighters from several countries have joined pro-government militias in Syria, leftist militants have joined Kurdish fighting forces, and other foreign fighters have joined jihadist organizations and private military contractors recruit globally. Estimates of the total number of foreign Sunnis who have fought for the Syrian rebels over the course of the conflict range from 5,000 to over 10,000, while foreign Shia fighters numbered around 10,000 or less in 2013 rising to between 15,000 and 25,000 in 2017.
The Insurgency in Kosovo began in 1995, following the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War. In 1996, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began attacking Serbian governmental buildings and police stations. This insurgency would lead to the more intense Kosovo War in February of 1998.
Husein Bilal Bosnić is a Bosnian Salafi. He is known for recruiting jihadists from Europe.
Lavdrim Muhaxheri, also known by the nom de guerreAbu Abdullah al Kosova, was a Kosovar Albanian Islamic State (IS) leader and recruiter of ethnic Albanian jihadi foreign fighters fighting in Syria and in Iraq. A former KFOR and NATO employee, he became an extremist and left for Syria in late 2012. He appeared in several propaganda videos, calling Albanians to join jihad, and uploaded photographs of himself appearing to decapitate a man, as well as a video where he kills a captive with a rocket. On 24 September 2014, the U.S. Department of State designated Muhaxheri as a global terrorist.
Al-Qaeda in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the al-Qaeda branch based in Bosnia and Herzegovina, formed during the Bosnian War in 1992. During the Bosnian War, the group contributed volunteers to the Bosnian mujahideen, a volunteer detachment of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the war, the group operated through the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SHC).
The 2015 Zvornik police station shooting happened on April 27, 2015 when a gunman attacked a police station in Zvornik in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He killed a police officer and wounded two others before being shot dead by other police officers. This was the first attack of its kind in Republika Srpska; attacks have occurred in the other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the 1997 Mostar car bombing.
Following the embargo by Arab oil exporters during the Israeli-Arab October 1973 War and the vast increase in petroleum export revenue that followed, the international propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism within Sunni Islam favored by the conservative oil-exporting Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies achieved a "preeminent position of strength in the global expression of Islam." The Saudi interpretation of Islam not only includes Salafiyya but also Islamist/revivalist Islam, and a "hybrid" of the two interpretations.
Foreign support in the Bosnian War included the funding, training or military support by foreign states and organizations outside Yugoslavia to any of the belligerents in the Bosnian War (1992–95).
Ridvan Haqifi, also known by the nom de guerreAbu Muqatil al-Kosovo, was a Kosovo Albanian Islamic State (IS) leader and recruiter of ethnic Albanian jihadi foreign fighters fighting in Syria and in Iraq. He was born in Bukovik, Gjilan, Kosovo. He was a close associate with fellow Kosovo Albanian Lavdrim Muhaxheri. Both Haqifi and Muhaxheri were proteges of radical Kosovar Imam Zekerija Qazimi, who was found guilty and jailed for ten years on May 2016. Haqifi stood beside Muhaxheri and other ethnic Albanian mujahideen in the ISIS propaganda film in which they called Albanians to join their fight and then burnt their passports. His two brothers also fought in Syria. He was killed on 8 February 2017.
A gunman fired with a Kalashnikov rifle on the United States embassy in Sarajevo on 28 October 2011, resulting in one local policeman guarding the embassy being wounded in the arm by the gunman, while the shooter was wounded by a police sniper. The attacker shot 105 bullets, and severely wounded policeman Mirsad Velić. A Ministry of Interior agent neutralized the attacker with a sniper shot. The attacker was identified as Mevlid Jašarević, bosniak who holds Serbian citizenship born in Novi Pazar in southwestern Serbia, living in well-known Wahhabist stronghold Gornja Maoča in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Jašarević lived in Vienna for a period before moving to Gornja Maoča.
Zulfi Hoxha, also known by the nom de guerre (kunya) Abu Hamza al-Amriki, was an Albanian-American Islamic State (IS) senior commander and recruiter of foreign fighters fighting in Syria and in Iraq.
On 8 July 1992, during the Bosnian War and the siege of Sarajevo, six Bosnian Serb civilians were killed in the village of Gornji Velešići, on the city's outskirts. The victims were all members of the Ristović family and were shot dead while having lunch in their home. Petar Ristović, his sister Bosiljka, brother Obren, mother Radosava and cousins Mila and Danilo were killed in the attack. Radosava was 61 years old at the time of the shooting. Danilo was fourteen, and had reportedly only come to the house to bring his cousins fresh bread. The gunmen, wielding automatic weapons, were alleged to have worn uniforms of the Patriotic League, a Bosniak paramilitary unit, and reportedly drove away in a Bosnian police vehicle.
Nusret Imamović is a Bosnian Islamist leader who founded the Salafist community in Gornja Maoča.