Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Last updated

Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Founded1993;31 years ago (1993)
Founder Salman of Saudi Arabia
Dissolved2001;23 years ago (2001)
Area served
Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina was an aid agency operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina funded by Saudi Arabia. [1] Set up in 1993 during the Bosnian War to assist Bosnian Muslims, it was forced to close in 2001 after being linked to Islamist terrorism. [1]

Founded by Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz with support from King Fahd, it reportedly spent $600 million in aid, [2] and was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in 2001. [3] In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, the commission's Sarajevo office was raided by NATO forces, who found material relating to those attacks and the bombings of USS Cole and US embassies in Africa, along with materials for forging US State Department badges. An employee, Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, was detained in Camp X-Ray for an alleged plot to attack the US embassy in Sarajevo [4] and released without charge in 2009. [5] In 2002 U.S. authorities said $46 million of the commission's funds was unaccounted for. [4]

Related Research Articles

The implementation of the Dayton Accords of 1995 has focused the efforts of policymakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the international community, on regional stabilization in the countries-successors of the former Yugoslavia. Relations with its neighbors of Croatia and Serbia have been fairly stable since the signing of the Dayton Agreement in 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osama bin Laden</span> Saudi-born militant and founder of al-Qaeda (1957–2011)

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamic dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. Bin Laden is most widely known as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fahd of Saudi Arabia</span> King of Saudi Arabia from 1982 to 2005

Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 13 June 1982 until his death in 2005. Prior to his ascension, he was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia from 1975 to 1982. He was the eighth son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.

The Benevolence International Foundation, was a purported nonprofit charitable trust based in Saudi Arabia. It was determined to be a front for terrorist group Al-Qaeda and was banned by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 and the US Department of the Treasury in November 2002. The BIF's chief executive officer Enaam Arnaout began a ten-year sentence in 2003 after pleading guilty for racketeering in a U.S. federal court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bosnian War</span> 1992–1995 armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following a number of earlier violent incidents. The war ended on 14 December 1995 when the Dayton accords were signed. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and the Republika Srpska, the latter two entities being proto-states led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zlatko Lagumdžija</span> Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2001 to 2002

Zlatko Lagumdžija is a Bosnian diplomat and former politician who is the current Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations. He previously served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2001 to 2002. Lagumdžija also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2001 to 2002 and from 2012 to 2015. He was the president of the Social Democratic Party from 1997 to 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turki Al-Faisal</span> Saudi royal and government official (born 1945)

Turki bin Faisal Al Saud is a Saudi prince and former government official who served as the head of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency from 1979 to 2001. He is the chairman of the King Faisal Foundation's Center for Research and Islamic Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar</span> Bosnian citizen (born 1969)

Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar is a Bosnian citizen, who won his habeas corpus petition in United States federal court after being held for eight years and eight months in the military Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.

Osama bin Laden, a militant Islamist and co-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.

Active Islamic Youth was a small youth organization based in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was active in the Bosnian postwar period. According to some media reports, it was described as a front for the Saudi High Commission for Relief and the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bosnia and Herzegovina–United States relations</span> Bilateral relations

Relations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States are described as very strong.

Since the 1980s Saudi Arabia has provided foreign assistance to many countries and organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yassin Kadi</span> Saudi Arabian businessman (born 1955)

Yassin Abdullah Kadi is a Saudi Arabian businessman. A multi-millionaire from Jeddah, Kadi trained as an architect in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son-in-law of Sheikh Ahmed Salah Jamjoom, a former Saudi Arabian government minister with close ties to the Saudi royal family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embassy of the United States, Sarajevo</span> Embassy of the United States in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bosnia and Herzegovina–Indonesia relations</span> Bilateral relations

Bosnia and Herzegovina–Indonesia relations refers to the bilateral relations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Indonesia. Bosnia and Herzegovina has an embassy in Jakarta, while Indonesia has an embassy in Sarajevo. The bilateral relations was initially motivated by humanity and religious solidarity. As a nation with the largest Muslim population, Indonesians were shocked by the ethnic cleansing against Muslim Bosniaks during the Bosnian War, and promptly organized and mobilized help. Indonesian support for Bosnia and Herzegovina ranged from collecting donations, sending peacekeeping forces under United Nations, to building the Istiqlal Mosque in Sarajevo.

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).

There has been an increase in incidents involving alleged radical Islamism in the Balkans since the 1990s.

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).

Events in the year 2020 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

References

  1. 1 2 David Pallister "Terrorist material found in Sarajevo charity raid" The Guardian 23 February 2002. Retrieved 21 November 2013
  2. Saudi Charity Dropped From Suit over Sept. 11 Attacks Law
  3. "King Faisal International Prize". Archived from the original on 11 August 2013.
  4. 1 2 Harvard International Review: Eradicating Evil Archived 20 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  5. William Glaberson (20 November 2008). "Judge Declares Five Detainees Held Illegally". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 May 2010.