CIA - Al-Qaeda Operative Employed in States as Bosnian Muslim Diplomat

Al-Qaeda Operative Employed in States as Bosnian Muslim Diplomat

Sep 17th, 2008 | By De-Construct.net | In Current

Safet Catovic

Abdel Kadeer Moktari Abu Mali

Main Al-Qaeda Operative for the Balkans Enjoys a Diplomatic Cover

Al-Qaeda operative Safet Catovic [pdf. document] is employed as a counselor in one of three diplomatic-consular offices of the Bosnian federation in U.S., the experts for radical Islam said, as reported by the Serbian media.

The man regarded by the anti-terrorist experts as a key figure of the terrorist Islamic network in the Muslim part of Bosnia is considered a coordinator of all the extremist terrorist actions and operations conducted from the Balkan cells of the Islamic terrorist organizations.

“The key al-Qaeda operative for the Balkans, Safet Catovic works as an ‘adviser’ in a Bosnian Muslim diplomatic office in the United States,” said Darko Trifunovic, professor at Belgrade Faculty of Security.

“Together with Muhamed Sacirbey, Catovic was running the non-governmental organization Global Medical Fund, which was involved in bringing over [to former Yugoslavia] mujahedin mercenaries — the operation known under the codename Winter ‘94,” Trifunovic said.

El Mujahedin and Summer Jihad Camp in the Heart of U.S.

The El Mujahedin unit comprised of Arab mercenaries sent over to Bosnia-Herzegovina to help Izetbegovic exterminate the Serbs during Bosnian civil war counted 3,500 troops. Overall, it is estimated that there were 10,000-15,000 Muslim mercenaries from the Islamic countries operating in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-1995 civil war. Many were promptly given citizenship by the Izetbegovic regime and settled on the property of the ethnically cleansed Serb population after the war.

“On August 2001, Safet Catovic organized the summer Jihad Camp at the place where one of the planes which targeted the twin towers was downed, together with imam Sirai Fahai, suspect in the first attack on New York Trade Center, in 1993″, Trifunovic explained.

One of Serbia’s main anti-terrorism experts isn’t the only one who raised the red flag over the man behind a Bosnian Muslim “diplomatic counselor”. Bosnia’s Dzevad Galijasevic also claims Catovic is an intruder, hiding behind the false identity.

“Catovic is of African-Asian origin, most likely from Algeria. He is a member of the GIA (Group Islamic of Algeria). Safet Abid Catovic is a false identity he took from the Bosnian Muslim who died in 1992. He is a very important link in the chain, a link between the formal part of the [Bosnian Muslim] government and the informal organizational units,” Dzevad Galijasevic told Bosnian Serb Glas Srpske.

He added that Catovic is probably Abdel Kadeer Moktari Abu Mali, former commander of the Bosnian El Mujahedin unit.

However, Bosnian Muslim officials claim that after his arrival to war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina, Safet Catovic was first issued documents on the name Halid Ibn Abdullah, after which he changed his last name first to Catic (Chatich) and then to Catovic (Chatovich), while all the other data in his documents remained unchanged.

Islamic and American Mercenaries Work Hand-in-Hand in the Balkans

Galijasevic further revealed that this al-Qaeda mercenary was approached in Bosnia by the members of the American mercenary organization MPRI — Military Professional Resources Incorporated — an unofficial Pentagon army with more four-star-generals than the official U.S. Army, for training and militarily aiding terrorists in civil wars around the world, involved on the Croat side in extermination of Krajina Serbs, on the Kosovo Albanian side in terrorizing Serbian police and civilian population to trigger the civil war, on the Bosnian Muslim side to push the Serbs out of most of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the Georgian side to try to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the recent assault, etc. At the request of a high U.S. official, Catovic was pulled to United States because of the information he possessed and, since then, he is officially an employee of Bosnian Muslim diplomatic-consular office.

“He’s an operative who links troops on the ground with the leadership, financial circles and headquarters. He is always in the positions of the informal nature, at the posts of the military attache, adviser, etc,” Galijasevic stressed.

Assertions [.pdf document] that Catovic is the key al-Qaeda operative for the Balkans, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, are not new. It is assumed that the American security services also possess the information about Catovic to whom Bosnian Muslim leadership issued false documents, conveniently providing him with the identity of a dead man.

Catovic was a deputy director of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Permanent Mission in the UN, and he was also a spokesman for two Islamic “humanitarian” organizations FBI closed due to terrorist activities: Benevolence International Federation and the Global Relief Agency.

According to the earlier information, it was Catovic who enabled Husein Zivalj and Hasan Chengic to get in contact with the international Islamic organization TWRA, Faith’s Third World Relief Agency, through which Bosnian Muslim regime started smuggling weapons for the Muslim army at the start of the Bosnian civil war, in 1992.

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(Debka ist eine professionelle Informationsquelle zur Terrorbekämpfung)

New Jihadist Army Forming in Balkans

June 24, 2002, 5:12 PM (GMT+02:00)

The next radical Islamic terror attack in America could well originate in a corner of the Balkans, where a new jihad force is taking shape quietly and unhindered. In its last issue, published on Friday, June 21, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources reported that close to 20,000 fighters, battled-hardened veterans and eager young recruits, are already under arms, with more joining up all the time.

An Islamist bloc of nations (whose formation has been reported in the past byDEBKAfile) - made up of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, al Qaeda and Hizballah, with active Palestinian support - is behind the new Muslim Balkan army. Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi intelligence services and al Qaeda operations officers in Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Albania are tasked with recruitment, training and organization. The units are armed with modern weaponry, including missiles and artillery, while handpicked young Muslim recruits have been sent to sign up at private flying schools, especially in the CzechRepublic and Bulgaria, as the nucleus of an air force.

Having learned the lessons of the war in Afghanistan, planners and commanders keep their heads well down, their training bases and facilities well hidden.

Recruitment is brisk among the ethnic Albanian Muslim populations of Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia, as well as Albania proper. Hundreds of mosques are sprouting in these countries, funded from deep Saudi pockets. The mosques open cultural societies to attract boys aged 15 to 16 and enroll them at medressas which, like their Pakistani prototypes, integrate military training in their curricula. The result is an expanding recruiting pool for terrorists, the same as Pakistan’s medressas, before the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's Balkan connections: Al-Qaeda fighters have been quietly infiltrating the ranks of ethnic Albanian guerrilla forces in Macedonia Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo for years

Posted in the Ottawa Citizen

By Scott Taylor

As the U.S. manhunt for Osama bin Laden and his followers intensifies in the wake of the Taliban's fall, the Americans will turn their attention to other countries suspected of harbouring terrorists -- Sudan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and areas under Palestinian control.

Foremost among these trouble spots will be the Balkans, where al-Qaeda fighters have been quietly infiltrating the ranks of ethnic Albanian forces in Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo for years.

Macedonian intelligence officials say mujahedeen, or Islamic freedom fighters, especially Mr. bin Laden's followers, form the veteran core of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla army known as the National Liberation Army, or UCK, which has mounted a successful military offensive against Macedonian security forces from their base in Kosovo since last March: By the time a shaky peace was brokered in September, the UCK controlled nearly 30 per cent of Macedonian territory. Macedonian security forces attribute the success of the UCK, which was initially inexperienced and ill-equipped, to the support of as many as 120 mujahedeen among them.

On Nov. 20, when extremists from around the world were volunteering to join the ranks of the Taliban, Pakistani police apprehended five Muslim "fighters" carrying Macedonian passports at the Afghan border -- further proof, Macedonian authorities say, of Mr. bin Laden's Balkan connection.

, a senior director with Macedonian intelligence services, confirmed that, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his agency "supplied a substantive dossier to the CIA," outlining the activities of Mr. bin Laden's followers in the Balkans. The information included accounts by Macedonian civilians who had been held hostage by mujahedeen, along with photos and videos captured from Albanian guerrillas.

Ljubo Boskovski, the Macedonian minister of interior, is anxious for his police forces to return to areas controlled by the Albanian guerrillas to uncover more evidence of mujahedeen involvement. Since Nov. 13, Macedonian security forces have been exhuming a mass grave outside the ethnic Albanian village of Trebos. To date, the police have unearthed the bodies of six Macedonians (in all, 21 civilians in the area disappeared following UCK attacks). Intelligence officer believes mujahedeen perpetrated the Trebos massacre "because of the manner in which the bodies were cut up and scattered."

He also suspects Islamic extremists were behind a brutal ambush of security forces last April, in which eight policemen were shot outside the village of Vejce, and their bodies dismembered to provide the victors with grisly trophies.

The Macedonian authorities are not the only ones who suspect the mujahedeen in the Vejce atrocities. During the summer offensive around Tetovo, Albanian guerrillas admitted they had gained combat experience in previous conflicts. Twenty-three-year-old Commander "Jimmy" claimed he was a veteran of Chechnya and Kosovo, while "Snake" Arifaq bragged of service in Bosnia and displayed a scar he had received during the fighting in Croatia. The two Albanians acknowledged "volunteers" from Afghanistan and other Arab countries had helped train members of the UCK. As for the Vejce incident, Commander Jimmy said such an atrocity could "only have been committed by the foreigners because Albanians do not cut up bodies."

When the Albanian insurrection began, the Macedonian government hastily acquired

a fleet of six Ukrainian helicopter gunships. "Shortly after that, our pilots reported being tracked by sophisticated (U.S.-made) Stinger missiles" said , adding that, according to Macedonian Intelligence, "the UCK received these Stingers from their mujahedeen connections in Afghanistan."

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Since Sept. 11 the Macedonians have noted a shift in U.S. foreign policy. "The CIA have been much more receptive to our reports about the al-Qaeda," said . "Particularly after they discovered that one of the suicide hijackers had been active in both Kosovo and Macedonia."

Macedonian police have been working closely with their Yugoslavian counterparts to neutralize the Albanian terrorists. More importantly, as part of the U.S.-led global initiative to combat terror, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been reinstated in Interpol -- after a 10-year banishment. Intelligence officers from the Yugoslavian Army have supplied a wealth of information outlining mujahedeen activity in both Bosnia and Kosovo. Yugoslav intelligence officers believe at least 50 of the 150 mujahedeen who fought in Kosovo remain active members of the UCK.

Even before they got the information from Yugoslavia, Interpol had been tracking al-Qaeda's activities in the Balkans. On Oct. 23 this year, the agency released a report outlining Mr. bin Laden's personal links to the Albanian Mafia. Interpol alleges that a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant had been the commander of an elite UCK unit in Kosovo during the fighting in 1999, when NATO intervened to support the ethnic Albanians, largely at the urging of the U.S.

The CIA was aware of Mr. bin Laden's Albanian connections well before NATO's commitment in Kosovo, numerous media reports clearly show.

On Jan. 17, 1999, an alleged massacre of 45 Albanian Kosovars in the village of Racak made headlines around the world. Pointing to this incident (later proved by UN pathologists to have been an Albanian hoax), former U.S. president Bill Clinton proclaimed the West could no longer overlook "Serbian atrocities," setting the wheels in motion for NATO's confrontation with Yugoslavia.

That same day, Greek media outlets revealed that Taliban members were pouring into

Albania, at the invitation of

ex-president Sali Berisa and former head of intelligence Bashkim Gazidede. According to The Tribune, an Athens daily paper, Albanian security official Fatos Klozi confirmed that "bin Laden was one of those who had organized and sent groups to fight in Kosovo. There were Egyptians, Saudis, Algerians, Tunisians, Sudanese and Kuwaitis from different organizations among the (UCK) mercenaries."

Ten days later, on Jan. 27, 1999, the Arab-language news service Al Hayat reported that an Albanian commander in Kosovo, code-named Monia, was directly connected to Osama bin Laden. The piece also reported that "at least 100 Muslim mujahedeen" were serving with Monia's force in Kosovo.

In August 1998, the Washington Post reported that the CIA was not only aware of Mr. bin Laden's association with the Albanian regime, but that U.S. operatives had been "prominent" in the arrest of four al-Qaeda agents in Tirana. At the time, U.S. State Department officials even speculated that the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania might have been Mr. bin Laden's revenge for the Tirana arrests.

The al-Qaeda suspects detained by the CIA in Albania had been operating the Islamic Revival Foundation, "a charitable organization that official sources say provided a useful cover for the (suspects') efforts on behalf of bin Laden," the Washington Post reported.

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In February 1998, the U.S. State Department had removed the UCK from their list of terrorist organizations. However later that same year, the CIA and their Albanian SHIK intelligence counterparts successfully shut down an Islamic terrorist cell operating with the help of Albanians in Kosovo.

Some of the most revealing links between Albanian fighters and Mr. bin Laden surfaced in December 1998, when al-Qaeda agent Claude Sheik Abdel-Kader was arrested in Tirana for the murder of his Albanian translator. During his trial,

Mr. Abdel-Kader confessed to being a senior commander in Mr. bin Laden's network, and claimed he had recruited a force of some 300 mujahedeen to fight in Kosovo.

European media covering the trial reported his revelation that Osama bin Laden -- although a wanted terrorist -- had travelled freely to Tirana in 1994 and 1998 to meet with senior Albanian officials. Mr. Abdel-Kader also confessed that when the Albanian regime of Sali Berisa collapsed into anarchy in 1997, state armouries and government offices were looted. According to Mr. Abdel-Kader, many of the 10,000 heavy weapons and 100,000 passports that went missing fell into the hands of al-Qaeda members.

Osama bin Laden -- stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 -- is alleged to have retained the Bosnian passport he was issued in Vienna in 1993. According to a Sept. 1999 report in Dani, a Bosnian Muslim weekly paper, Alija Izetbegovic, then president of Bosnia, granted Mr. bin Laden a passport in recognition of his followers' contributions to Mr. Izetbegovic's quest to create a "fundamentalist Islamic republic" in the Balkans.

Dani also reported that al-Qaeda terrorist Mehrez Aodouni had been arrested in Istanbul while carrying a Bosnian passport. Like Mr. bin Laden, his citizenship had been granted "because he was a member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army."

Canadian soldiers serving with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) were among the first to report the presence of mujahedeen among the Bosnian Muslims as early as 1992.

The Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal reported that, in 1993, Mr. bin Laden had appointed Sheik Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda's second-in-command, to direct his operations in the Balkans.

While no exact numbers exist, it is estimated that between 1,500 and 3,500 Arab volunteers participated in the Bosnian civil war. Their main area of operation was the region of Zenica, with most serving in a brigade under Gen. Sakib Mahmuljin, nicknamed "the Guerrillas." Identified by red and green "Rambo" bandannas emblazoned with a crest that read, "our road is Jihad," this unit quickly gained a reputation for brutality.

On June 27, 1993, the Sunday Times reported that even Bosnian Muslim officers had reservations about the mujahedeen

volunteers. Col. Stjepan Siber, then deputy commander of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army, admitted to the Times that "It was a mistake to let (the mujahedeen) in here. They commit most of the atrocities and work against the interests of the Muslim people. They have been killing, looting and stealing."

According to reports, it was the mujahedeen who committed some of the worst atrocities of the war, under Gen. Nasir Oric in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. Beheadings of Serbian civilians were commonplace, and in some villages the mujahedeen would dynamite homes with the inhabitants trapped inside.

No attempt was made to hide such atrocities. In fact, Gen. Oric would often address the media at the site of the massacres. On one such occasion, while standing in front of mujahedeen displaying decapitated human heads as trophies, Gen. Oric pointed to a smouldering building in ruins and proudly announced to reporters, "We blew those Serbs to the moon."

Alija Izetbegovic was also proud to display the fighting prowess of his mujahedeen volunteers. Following a successful attack against Serbian positions around Vozuce on Sept. 10, 1995, the Bosnian president held a televised medal presentation. Mujahedeen warriors had served as the vanguard of the assault force, and were awarded 11 decorations for valour, including the Golden Crescent, Bosnia's highest honour.

Yugoslav intelligence estimates that citizenship was granted to more than 1,500 mujahedeen, including al-Qaeda members, following the Dayton Peace Accord in 1995. Most of those soldiers are believed to have settled in the Zenica region.

According to Miroslav Lazanski, author of the new book, Osama bin Laden Against America, al-Qaeda members still maintain two bases in Bosnia, one of them reserved for top fighters.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI and CIA agents uncovered evidence that two of the suicide hijackers had originated from this Bosnian camp. The commander of the camp, an Algerian named Abu Mali, was subsequently arrested while travelling in Istanbul on a Bosnian passport.

The U.S. military has taken a keen interest in mujahedeen activities in the Balkans since Sept. 11. Late last month, U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers visited NATO troops in Bosnia to warn them against a possible al-Qaeda retaliation attack. And on Dec. 4, the White House added two Albanian terrorist groups operating in Macedonia and Kosovo to its list of outlawed organizations.

And so, Mr. Clinton's dubious decisions in the Balkan conflagration two years ago have come back to haunt the U.S.

 

This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event 1993: Bosnian President Izetbegovic Grants Bin Laden Passport as Gesture of Appreciation. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.

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).

Entity Tags: Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Alija Izetbegovic, Eve-Ann Prentice, Renate Flottau

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans
Bin Laden’s Balkan Connections

September 2001

IN MEMORIAM
Dedicated to all victims of terrorism, including a member of The Centre for Peace in the Balkans who is still listed as missing in the World Trade Centre bombing.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 2, 1999, CIA Director George Tenet warned of the worldwide threat posed by the Bin Laden network:

"There is not the slightest doubt that Osama Bin Laden, his worldwide allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against us. Despite progress against his networks, Bin Laden´s organization has contacts virtually worldwide, including in the United States. And he has stated unequivocally that all Americans are targets. Bin Laden´s overreaching aim is to get the United States out of the Persian Gulf, but he will strike wherever in the world he thinks we are vulnerable. We are anticipating bombing attempts with conventional explosives, but his operatives are also capable of kidnappings and assassinations. We have noted recent activities similar to what occurred prior to the African embassy bombings, Mr. Chairman, and I must tell you that we are concerned that one or more of Bin Laden´s attacks could occur at any time."

According to the September 15, 2001 issue of the New York Times (U.S. Demands Arab Countries ´Choose Sides´ by Jane Perlez) the United States has issued a communiqué to its embassies around the world "…listing the conditions that nations were expected to meet in order to qualify for membership in the anti-terror coalition." Considering that the US supports countries where many terrorists originate or are trained (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania), we are concerned about the fallout should those countries fail to meet the stated US demands.

Furthermore, we must note with tragic irony that the United States trained and financed Islamicist “freedom fighters” during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, to the tune of $10 billion (September 13, 2001, Washington Times). Osama Bin Laden was part and parcel of that military “aid” program.

Yet, it would be willful blindness to suggest that the roots of terror begin and end in Afghanistan or the Middle East. When examining events that have transpired in the Balkans over the past ten years, Osama Bin Laden’s name appears prominently. Bin Laden directly aided the Bosnian Muslims, both financially (weapons procurement) and with training. In addition, that same “aid” was extended to the separatist Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia. Ironically, the US found Bin Laden and his supporters “convenient” allies when dealing with Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians, again in another so-called struggle for “freedom”.

Bosnia

Bosnian Muslim weekly “Dani” reported on September 24, 1999, that Osama Bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist in the world, was issued a Bosnia-Herzegovina passport. Bin Laden was issued the Bosnian passport by the Bosnian embassy in Vienna in 1993. However, Bin Laden was not the only one. A number of suspected terrorists have traveled the globe utilizing “legally issued” Bosnia-Herzegovina documents.

According to ‘Dani’, the Bosnian Foreign Ministry was seized by panic when Mehrez Aodouni, another Bosnian passport bearer, was arrested in Istanbul on September 09, 1999. Aodouni was believed to have close ties with Bin Laden. The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) [Bosnia´s main Muslim party led by Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegovic] issued a statement that on September 23, 1999, Audouni obtained the Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and a passport because he was a member of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Army.

The Bosnian Muslim daily "Oslobodjenje" published that three men, believed linked to Saudi extremist Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.

The arrest, carried out by police from Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation, was requested by the United States, Oslobodjenje said.

The Dayton peace agreement, that ended Bosnia’s civil war, ordered all foreign soldiers to leave the country, including those who fought alongside the mainly Muslim government army. Many of those who fought in the Bosnian Muslim Army included ranks of Islamicist radicals from the Arab world, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South East Asia. However, an undisclosed number remained, obtaining Bosnian citizenship as members of the army or by marrying Bosnian women.

At the end of the civil war many of these so-called mujahadeen remained on territories controlled by the Bosnian-Croat Federation, instructing Muslim forces in terrorist activities. Those activities came to light on December 18, 1995, with the premature detonation of an automobile bomb in Zenica. It is widely speculated that the bomb was meant for U.S. NATO troops serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina as revenge for the life sentence given to Sheik Omah Abdel Rahman, the brain behind the World Trade Centre bombing in New York.

Also noteworthy is the raid conducted by NATO forces on the training center of the Bosnian Muslim secret police (AID), located in the ski center near Fojnica in February of 1996, and the arrest of several persons for preparing to conduct terrorist actions. Iranian instructors were teaching future terrorists from AID how to disguise bombs as children’s toys, dolls, and plastic ice cream cones.

In its June 26, 1997 Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the terrorists also admitted to ties with Osama Bin Laden.

Defence and Foreign Affairs analyst Yossef Bodansky wrote in 1997 that Iran, from its terrorist bases in Bosnia-Herzegovina, planned the assassination of Pope John Paul II. The assassination was planned towards the end of September 1997. A terrorist group consisting of 20 members holding Croatian, Bosnia-Herzegovinian, Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan passports were to assassinate the Pope during his Bologna visit. The leaders of the group were all former mujahadeen from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Logistical support for the group was secured through a local terrorist network which was closely associated with GIA. Italian authorities discovered the assassination attempt in time and managed to arrest 14 members of the terrorist cell.

Many mujahadeen in Bosnia are now located in what was the pre-war Serbian village of Bocinja Donja. Today, a sign on the road into the town warns visitors to "be afraid of Allah."

The village´s 600 residents include 60 to 100 former mujahadeen, Islamicist guerrillas from the Middle East and elsewhere who came to help Bosnia´s Muslims during the 1992-95 civil war. Since the conflict ended, they and their families have organized a community that stands apart from the rest of Bosnia, whose Muslim majority largely follows a relaxed version of Islam. Bocinja Donja´s affairs, in contrast, are governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Women must wear veils and long black robes; men must have long beards. Smoking and drink is forbidden, as well speaking to visitors.

Washington and its allies have complained periodically about the mujahadeen, who were technically obligated by international treaty to leave the country in 1995. But Western complaints lacked urgency until late 1999, when U.S. law enforcement authorities discovered that a handful of the men who have visited or lived in this area were associated with a suspected terrorist plot to bomb targets in the United States on New Year´s Day.

Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings. He is a former roommate of Ahmet Ressemi, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a carload of explosives. Atmani has been a frequent visitor to Bosnia, even after Ressmi´s arrest.

A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records--conducted at the urging of the United States--revealed other former mujahadeen who are linked to the same Algerian group or to other suspected terrorist groups and who have lived in this area 60 miles north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years.

One man, a Palestinian named Khalil Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden.

A third suspect, an Algerian named Abu Mali who was regarded as a community leader in Bocinja, was asked to leave the country with his family in spring of 1999 after Washington accumulated evidence that he worked for a terrorist organization. Mehrez Amdouni, another former resident, was arrested by Turkish police in September of 1999 in Istanbul, where he arrived with a Bosnian passport. Amdouni was charged with counterfeiting and possessing stolen goods.

The Centre for Peace in the Balkans wrote in Spring of 2000:

The December 14, 1999, arrest of Algerian national Ahmet Ressemi at a U.S.-Canada border crossing in British Columbia – he was in a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials – was headline news in North America. Many theorized that Ressemi planned to blow up a major structure in the U.S. to start the new millenium.

The theorists could have saved themselves some time by taking a closer look at Ressemi’s past ties, especially those with terrorists trained in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Ressemi fought as a mujahadeen.

It has been confirmed that Ahmet Ressemi had ties with Said Atmani, another terrorist who fought in the "El Mujahadeen" unit in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Canadian authorities deported Atmani back to Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 18, 1998, supposedly without knowing of his alleged participation in terrorist activities through Europe.

The NY Times, in it´s "Magazine" edition of February 6, 2000 published that: "Last year, sources in Jordan say, the Mukhabarat, the intelligence service, alerted the C.I.A. to at least three plots by Bosnia-based Islamic terrorists to attack U.S. targets in Europe."

Recently, Kenneth Katzman, of the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service, released an updated report on terrorism. That report identified cells of the Bin Laden Al-Quaida Network in the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia, and Albania.

Albania/ Kosovo Albanians

Osama Bin Laden’s activities in Albania are well known and documented. As a matter of fact at one point the presence of his network in that country was so powerful that US Defence Secretary William Cohen cancelled a scheduled visit July 1999 for fear of being assassinated.

It is believed that Bin Laden solidified his organization in Albania in 1994 with the help of then premier Sali Berisha. Albania’s ties to the Islamicist terrorist blossomed during Berisha´s rule when the main Kosovo Albanian KLA training base was on Berisha´s property in northern Albania.

Fundamentalists were well established in Albania, despite several raids by the CIA and Albanian security forces that seized five key members of Islamic Jihad and other Middle Eastern groups in summer of 1998.

Around that time, a joint CIA-Albanian intelligence operation has reported mujahadeen units from at least half a dozen Middle East countries streaming across the border into Kosovo from bases in Albania. The American request came at a meeting of US envoys with the leaders of the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army at their headquarters in Geneva.

A few years ago, Albanian authorities working with the Central Intelligence Agency claimed to have uncovered a terrorist network operated by Osama Bin Laden. The network is said to have been set up to use Albania, a nominally Muslim country, as a springboard for operations in Europe.

Fatos Klosi, the head of Shik, the Albanian intelligence service, said that Bin Laden had visited Albania himself.

Bin Laden’s organization was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, the neighboring province of Serbia. Apparent confirmation of Bin Laden´s activities came when Claude Kader, 27, a French national and self-confessed member of Bin Laden´s Albanian network, was jailed for the murder of a local translator. He claimed during his trial that he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo, and that four of his associates were still at large.

Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 after telling the government that he was head of a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency keen to help Europe´s poorest nation.

In April 2000 the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said the "notorious international terrorist" and "Islamic fanatic" arrived in Kosovo from Albania.

"Until recently, Bin Laden was training a group of almost 500 mujahadeen [Muslim fighters] from Arab countries around the Albanian towns of Podgrade and Korce for terrorist actions in Kosovo."

The report added that an eventual 2000-strong group of "extremists" planned "to set off a new wave of violence in southern Serbia (the area linked by the towns Presevo, Bujanovac, Medvedja)."

In March of 2000, the BBC reported that KFOR raided a Saudi charity operating in Kosovo after being tipped off by U.S. officials that it may have links to Bin Laden. The Islamic relief organization strongly denied the allegations.

Before the NATO air campaign, the Yugoslav government said on its website that KLA fighters from Kosovo had been attending terrorist training camps in Arab states, "financed by some renegade Saudi businessmen" - an apparent reference to Bin Laden.

In May of 1999, the Washington Times reported that the KLA had borrowed money "from known terrorists like Osama Bin Laden."

Two months earlier, Israeli investigative journalist Steve Rodan wrote that, according to European security and diplomatic sources, "Kosovo has become the latest and most significant arena for radical Islamic states and groups that seek to widen their influence in Europe."

Macedonia

The danger exhibited by Macedonia was foreseen by Henry Kissinger in his Washington Post article of February 22, 1999 ("No U.S. Ground Forces for Kosovo: Leadership Doesn´t Mean That We Must Do Everything for Ourselves"):

"Ironically, the projected peace agreement increases the likelihood of the various possible escalations sketched by the president as justifications for a U.S. deployment. An independent Albanian Kosovo surely would seek to incorporate the neighboring Albanian minorities -- mostly in Macedonia -- and perhaps even Albania itself. And a Macedonian conflict would land us precisely back in the Balkan wars of earlier in this century. Will Kosovo then become the premise for a NATO move into Macedonia, just as the deployment in Bosnia is invoked as justification for the move into Kosovo? Is NATO to be the home for a whole series of Balkan NATO protectorates?"

The connection between Macedonia, its conflict and Bin Laden’s involvement can be gleaned from a Washington Times editorial on June 22, 2001, ("Bin Laden´s new special envoys"):

"[The NLA] is fighting to keep control over the region’s drug trafficking, which has grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war. In addition to drug money, the NLA also has another prominent venture capitalist: Osama Bin Laden.

The Muslim terrorist leader, according to a document obtained by The Washington Times and written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, puts out the front money for the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia: "This person is representative of Osama Bin Laden, who is the main financial supporter of the National Liberation Army, where to date he has paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army.”

It is important to point out that in Macedonia, local drug-trafficking is now out of control. Osama Bin Laden is realizing that this growing reality of Albanian narco-terrorism could lead to the emergence of a situation in which his venture may become powerful enough to control one or more states in the region. In practical terms, this will involve either Albania or Macedonia, or both. Politically, this is now being done by channeling profits from narco-terrorism into local governments and political parties.

Strategically, Macedonia is very important to Osama Bin Laden and his followers from another perspective as well. It closes the loop between East and West, and more particularly it gives him an open hand when it comes to control of the new pipeline that is planned to stretch from Bulgaria to Albania ports. This way Osama Bin Laden would have the ability to control the distribution of oil to the United States.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to deliver the reader with the evidence of the influence gained by Osama Bin Laden in the Balkans. The Centre for Peace in the Balkans, throughout its existence, has warned that tacit cooperation with terrorists like Osama Bin Laden would undoubtedly result in catastrophic consequences around the globe. Turning a blind-eye while Bosnian Muslims and Albanians in Yugoslavia and Macedonia actively worked with Islamicist terrorist elements, right under the nose of NATO, was bound to destabilize other parts of the world. Strengthened and emboldened by success in the Balkans, these terrorists have now gone on to fulfill what in essence was the Crown Jewel of terror, terror over the whole of North America. In fact, it is certain that the New York and Washington catastrophes served as a recruitment advertisement for the movement.

Yesterday it was the Balkans, today the USA, tomorrow it’s anybody’s guess. After the events of September 11th, it appears that our imagination is too conservative for the minds of terror. The United States and NATO countries found these terrorist elements “useful” in the service of past policy objectives, whether it was Afghanistan, Bosnia or Kosovo. The real question now is who was using whom? Radical terrorists, whether Islamicist or not, are tigers which cannot be ridden. The foolishness of how any Pentagon, CIA or State Department analyst could have viewed otherwise became horrifically apparent on September 11, 2001.










Links


Balkan wars and terrorist ties

Director of the U.S. Congress' Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional warfare: "Some Call It Peace"

NATO Probes Claims that Bin Laden is in Kosovo

Persecution Watch : Kosovo

Defang the KLA

Destabilizing the Balkans: US & Albanian Defense Cooperation in the 1990s

Bin Laden in Kosovo

Bosnia Arrests Three Suspected Bin Laden´s Associates

A Bosnian Village's Terrorist Ties; Links to U.S. Bomb Plot Arouse Concern About Enclave of Islamic Guerrillas

Bin Laden opens European terror base in Albania

US tackles Islamic militancy in Kosovo

US alarmed as Mujahidin join Kosovo rebels

Bin Laden suspect held in Bosnia

BRUSSELS, Belgium --A man suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has been detained in Bosnia, NATO has said.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said on Friday that the individual was among a number of suspects held by allied forces and local police in the Balkan country.

Bosnian police, in cooperation with NATO-led forces, have detained dozens of suspects since the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Most have been released but six people of Algeria origin remain under investigation by the Supreme Court, the only Bosnian tribunal dealing with suspected terrorism cases.

"There have been a number of arrests and detentions and deportations in Bosnia- Herzegovina carried out by the NATO-led Stabilisation Force, SFOR," Robertson told reporters.

"At least one of the detained people is known to have direct links with al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

"The action taken by SFOR has disrupted a number of terrorist networks, not all of them al Qaeda networks. They show the effectiveness of our operation in seeking out and cracking down on terrorism."

One of the suspects, Bensayah Belkacem, was arrested on October 8 on the basis of foreign intelligence reports that he allegedly made telephone calls to an aide of bin Laden, who is the West's main suspect behind the September 11 attacks on the U.S..

Police said they found a number of blank passports from various countries at his house, Reuters reported.

British and U.S. officials in Bosnia last week closed their embassies in Bosnia, citing credible security threats.

An unnamed official close to the government of the Croat-Muslim federation told the Associated Press that one of the five other Algerian suspects arrested last week was a member of the Armed Islamic Group, an Algerian terrorist organisation.

The source said another was a member of the Egyptian terrorist organisation al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, while one of the five had a relative working in the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo.

Robertson said the arrests were "achieved through excellent cooperation with other agencies."

"We also welcome and have been impressed by the actions of the government authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina," he said.

"The threat however has not gone. These networks have been disrupted, not eliminated. Investigations are continuing. Our work is therefore not finished."

Bin Laden in the Balkans
Bosnia, Kosovo and Metohija
=======================================

From the 'The Washington Times' June 22, 2001

"The rebels would have their big brothers in America - the same heroes who led the NATO mission against their enemies, the Serbs - believe that the violence they are now perpetrating in Macedonia is merely about protecting minority rights. But the National Liberation Army (NLA), a splinter of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), also has another motive: It is fighting to keep control over the region's drug trafficking, which has grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war. In addition to drug money, the NLA also has another prominent venture capitalist: Osama bin Laden. The Muslim terrorist leader, according to a document obtained by The Washington Times and written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, puts out the front money for the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia: 'This person is representative of Osama Ben laden sic , who is the main financial supporter of the National Liberation Army, where up to date he has paid $6 million to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army.'"

********************************************

From 'The Canberra Times' (Australia ) April 28, 2000 - Page 8

"BIN LADEN IN KOSOVO ACTS

"BELGRADE: Islamic Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, wanted for terrorism by the United States, is in Kosovo. The official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said bin Laden, whom it described as a " terrorist and Islamic fanatic" , arrived from Albania after having formed a group of 500 Islamic fighters in the eastern region around Korce and Pogradec to carry out " terrorist acts" in Kosovo.

"He planned similar acts in the southern region of Serbia bordering on Kosovo, including Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, the agency said."

*******************************

'The Charleston Gazette.' November 30, 1998 - Page 2A

"BIN LADEN RUNS TERRORIST NETWORK, REPORT SAYS

"LONDON - The man accused of orchestrating the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa operates a terrorist network out of Albania, The Sunday Times reported.

"The newspaper quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

"Bin Laden is believed to have established an Albanian operation in 1994 after telling the government he headed a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency wanting to help Albania, the newspaper reported.

"Klosi said he believed terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. Apparent confirmation of Bin Laden's activities came earlier this month during the murder trial of Claude Kader, 27, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network, the newspaper said.

"Kader claimed during the trial he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo.

*****************************

FROM 'THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN,' May 28, 1999

"...As U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe long has predicted, American troops go into Kosovo against the Serbs, they'll be fighting alongside a terrorist organization known to finance its operations with drug sales - including some to the United States.

"By joining hands with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which intelligence sources say bankrolls itself by selling heroin and cocaine, the United States also would become partners of a sort with Osama bin Laden, the international terrorist behind last year's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Washington Times reports. According to the newspaper's sources, the KLA is linked to an extensive organized crime network headquartered in Albania. In 1998 the State Department listed the KLA as an international terrorist organization that supported itself with drug profits and through loans from known terrorists like bin Laden.

"Such an ally is the result of Bill Clinton choosing sides in a centuries-old civil war. "They were terrorists in 1998 and now, because of politics, they're freedom fighters," a top drug official told the Times.

"In Bill Clinton's war, where bombing has been turned into a humanitarian application, such a paradox fits right in.

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In 1999, the newspaper, 'Dani,' announced that bin Laden had been issued a Special Passport from the Washington-Backed Bosnian Government in 1993. Two weeks ago, the Bosnian government issued a denial. Given that this denial took two years and came immediately after September 11th, we suggest it be taken with a grain of salt.

"BIN LADEN WAS GRANTED BOSNIAN PASSPORT

"Agence France Presse September 24, 1999

"SARAJEVO

"Osama bin Laden, the Saudi billionaire wanted by the United States for organising bloody terrorist attacks, was granted a Bosnian passport in 1993 by the country's [i.e., Bosnia]embassy in Vienna, an independent weekly reported Friday.

"'The Bosnian embassy in Vienna granted a passport to bin Laden in 1993,' Dani magazine said, quoting anonymous sources, emphasizing that files and traces linked to his case have recently been destroyed by the [Bosnian] government.

"However, Bin Laden 'did not personally collect his Bosnian passport,' Dani said, without elaborating or explicitly stating that his passport was ever collected.

"'High Muslim officials of the Bosnian foreign ministry agreed that it [the destruction of files linked to bin Laden] was the top priority. It was even more important than investigating a person responsible for granting a passport to the most wanted terrorist in the world,' Dani reported.

"According to the article, Muslim political circles claim that six years ago officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna could not have known who bin Laden was.

"During the 1992-1995 Bosnia's war, the Vienna embassy has been 'making contacts with many Arab-world people seeking aid' for the mainly Muslim Bosnian army, the article said.

"The foreign ministry issued no comments on the article. Bin Laden, believed to be in Afghanistan, is accused by the United States of masterminding bloody bomb attacks against its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August of last year. Over 200 people were killed in these attacks. Washington has offered a reward of five million dollars for information leading to his arrest.

"Earlier this week the Bosnian government confirmed it had granted citizenship and passport to a Tunisian-born senior aide of bin-Laden in 1997. The government said citizenship was given to Mahrez Amduni, known in Sarajevo as Mehrez Amdouni, on the basis of his Bosnian army membership, stressing that there was no Interpol arrest warrant against him at that time.

"Amduni was arrested by Turkish police at Istanbul airport on September 13, in an operation in which Interpol also took part.

"During the Bosnia 1992-95 war some Islamic fighters battled alongside Muslim soldiers in central Bosnia against Bosnian Serbs and Croats. Most of them left the country after a US-brokered peace deal was signed in 1995. Some of them gained Bosnian citizenship as members of the Bosnian army or by marrying Bosnian women.

"The government has never revealed how many foreign fighters were granted Bosnian citizenship."

Copyright 1999 Agence France Presse

*****************************

The following article, while not specifically about bin Laden, talks about how the Mujahideen functioned in Bosnia:

"Polish Press Reports On Training Of Mujahideen In Bosnia

"From Tanjug, 12/16/97

"Intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspect that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries is located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia, Warsaw daily Rzecspospolita writes on Tuesday.

"The author of the article, Marek Popowsky, who used to be in both SFOR and its predecessor IFOR in Bosnia, writes that mujahideen had first come to Bosnia in 1992, and numbered over 3,000 in the summer of 1995.

"Besides mujahideen from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, there were several hundred Muslim extremists who had come from Italy, France, Germany and Britain, he notes.

"Deserters from the Turkish, Malaysian and French UNPROFOR battalions also volunteered as mujahideen, Popowsky writes. In addition to dangerous military actions, the mujahideen also carried out a religious and ideological mission, enforcing abidance by the Koran and recruiting young soldiers to die for Allah, Popowsky writes.

"Noting that Bosniac (Muslim) troops respected their allies but feared them at the same time as Allahs' warriors used to carry out high-risk actions and were cruel fighters, Popowsky quotes Serb officers as saying that the mujahideen never took prisoners. Wounded enemy soldiers were usually decapitated or slaughtered by mujahideen, Popowsky writes.

"The Dayton Agreement committed (Bosnian Muslim leader) Alija Izetbegovic to remove all foreign fighters from Bosnia, but about one thousand mujahideen who obtained Bosnian citizenship in the meantime remain in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica and about ten villages, the daily writes.

"The largest group of mujahideen is now in Bocina Donja, a formerly Serb village near Maglaj, the daily writes, adding that the Nordic-Polish intelligence service G-5 is following the activities of such unusual "settlers", as it suspects that a camp for training terrorists is located in the village following reports from Serb and Croat forces' commanders.

"Noting that Islamic states had allocated to the Muslim part of Bosnia military and humanitarian aid to the value of over one billion dollars and that decisions to this effect had been taken not only by governments but also by various extremist Muslim groups and informal institutions, the daily writes that the activities of mujahideen in Bocina Donja would continue to be monitored by international special services to prevent the village from being transformed into a base for launching terrorist operations." (Tanjug, Warsaw, December 16)

Osama Bin Laden remains top of the wanted list

Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the US issued a list of al-Qaeda suspects. Some have now been captured or killed, and some new names have been added to those still at large.

Few details about key figures have been officially released. BBC News Online pieces together what little is known about some of the key al-Qaeda suspects.

Osama Bin Laden ( Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya.....)

Osama Bin Laden is the man the US accuses of masterminding the 11 September suicide hijackings and other attacks on US interests.

He has been indicted for the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa and the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000.

He founded al-Qaeda in 1979, originally as a guesthouse in Peshawar for Arab fighters.

Despite an extensive military operation in Afghanistan, it is still not known where he is or even if he is definitely still alive.

Arab broadcasters regularly air recordings of speeches attributed to the fugitive al-Qaeda figurehead.

A video released during the US presidential election in October 2004 showed him warning Americans of new attacks.

From 'The Canberra Times' (Australia ) April 28, 2000 - Page 8

"BIN LADEN IN KOSOVO ACTS

"BELGRADE: Islamic Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, wanted for terrorism by the United States, is in Kosovo. The official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said bin Laden, whom it described as a " terrorist and Islamic fanatic" , arrived from Albania after having formed a group of 500 Islamic fighters in the eastern region around Korce and Pogradec to carry out " terrorist acts" in Kosovo.

"He planned similar acts in the southern region of Serbia bordering on Kosovo, including Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, the agency said."

'The Charleston Gazette.' November 30, 1998 - Page 2A

"BIN LADEN RUNS TERRORIST NETWORK, REPORT SAYS

"LONDON - The man accused of orchestrating the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa operates a terrorist network out of Albania, The Sunday Times reported.

"The newspaper quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

"Bin Laden is believed to have established an Albanian operation in 1994 after telling the government he headed a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency wanting to help Albania, the newspaper reported.

"Klosi said he believed terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. Apparent confirmation of Bin Laden's activities came earlier this month during the murder trial of Claude Kader, 27, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network, the newspaper said.

"Kader claimed during the trial he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo.

Ayman al-Zawahiri

Egyptian in origin, Ayman al-Zawahiri is believed to serve as Bin Laden's spiritual adviser and doctor. He is also the architect of the al-Qaeda ideology.

Ayman al-Zawahiri serves as a spiritual adviser

In 1998, he was the second of five signatories to Bin Laden's notorious "fatwa" calling for attacks against US civilians.

He was a key figure in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group, which later merged with al-Qaeda.

Zawahiri has appeared alongside Bin Laden in al-Qaeda videotapes released since 11 September. His wife and children were reported killed in a US air strike in late November or early December 2001.

He has eluded capture despite a $25m bounty on his head. He escaped a reported US air strike targeting him in Pakistan in January 2006, in which a close relative was said to have died.

Zawahiri has been indicted in the US for his role in the US embassy bombings in Africa, and was sentenced to death in Egypt in absentia for his activities with the Islamic Jihad group in the 1990s.

Abu Hamza al-Muhajir

The US says it believes Muhajir and Masri are the same person

Little is known about the man named as successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq killed in a US air strike.

In a website statement, the al-Qaeda in Iraq group said Abu Hamza al-Muhajir was "knowledgeable" and had a history of fighting a holy war.

Muhajir was not among the names al-Qaeda analysts had expected as a probable successor, and is thought to be a pseudonym.

The US military has said it believes him to be an Egyptian militant based in Baghdad, Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

He is understood to have trained in Afghanistan and helped Zarqawi form the first al-Qaeda cell in Baghdad.

Sheikh Said

A Saudi, Said is Bin Laden's brother-in-law and al-Qaeda's financial controller. He first linked up with Bin Laden in Sudan during the late 1990s.

US investigators believe he wired money to Mohammed Atta, alleged ringleader of the hijackers, shortly before the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington.

Saif al-Adel

Adel is thought to be Bin Laden's security chief

An Egyptian in his late 30s, al-Adel is Bin Laden's security chief.

He is believed to have assumed many of the late Mohammed Atef's duties in al-Qaeda.

He was a colonel in the Egyptian army but joined the mujahideen fighting to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan.

He is also suspected of teaching militants to use explosives and training some of the 11 September hijackers.

He has been linked to the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The US further accuses him of training the Somali fighters who killed 18 US servicemen in Mogadishu in 1993.

In 1987, Egypt accused Adel - whose real name is Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi - of trying to establish a military wing of the militant Islamic group al-Jihad, and of trying to overthrow the government.

Abu Mohammed al-Masri

Also Egyptian, he is frequently believed to use the name Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah and to be about 40 years old.

He ran al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, including the al-Farooq camp near Kandahar.

He is also believed to have been involved in the East Africa embassy bombings. The US has put a bounty of $5m on his head.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith

Abu Ghaith: Stripped of Kuwaiti citizenship

Nominal al-Qaeda spokesman, Abu Ghaith is a Kuwaiti and believed to be in his mid-30s.

A former religious studies teacher, he left Kuwait in 2000.

He was stripped of his citizenship after an appearance on Qatar-based al-Jazeera television in which he vowed retaliation for US air strikes against Afghanistan.

Bin Laden can be seen poking fun at him in one of the videotapes released since 11 September.

In July 2003, a Kuwaiti minister said the Iranian government had offered to extradite Abu Ghaith to Kuwait, but that Kuwait had refused to take him. It is unclear whether he is currently in Iranian custody, or indeed in Iran at all.

Thirwat Salah Shirhata

Also Egyptian, Shirhata is al-Zawahiri's deputy in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group.

He has received two death sentences in absentia in Egypt for alleged terrorist activities.

Abu Faraj al-Libbi

Abu Faraj al-Libbi was arrested in Pakistan along with five other al-Qaeda suspects in May 2005, after a gun battle in Waziristan, North-West Frontier Province.

Pakistan said it had seized al-Libbi after a gun battle

He is said to have taken over as third in command of al-Qaeda when his mentor, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was captured in 2003.

He is a Libyan who is described as the mastermind of two failed attempts to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

He is thought to have used Pakistan as his base, and from there was reportedly in contact with militants in the UK. Following his arrest, he was handed over by Pakistan to US custody.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (holder of Bosnian passport and veteran from Bosnian War) 

Sheikh Mohammed, accused of masterminding the 11 September 2001 attacks, has been sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003

He had been in US custody at an undisclosed location from March 2003, when he was captured in a safe house in Pakistan.

A Kuwaiti from the Baluchistan region of Pakistan, Sheikh Mohammed grew up in a religious family and claims to have joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 16.

After attending college in the United States, he went to Afghanistan to participate in the anti-Soviet jihad. It was there that he is believed first to have met Osama Bin Laden.

According to Sheikh Mohammed, he himself first pitched the idea of the aerial-style attacks on the US, calling for the hijacking of 10 jetliners on both coasts of the US and crashing nine of them.

He features prominently in the US 9/11 Commission Report on how the attacks were carried out, and its authors drew heavily on his statements during interrogations.

Testimony from Sheikh Mohammed was also used by defence lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui, who was jailed for life in 2006 for his role in the 11 September attacks.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf alleges in his memoirs, published in September 2006, that Sheikh Mohammed either killed or at the least took part in the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Gen Musharraf also links Sheikh Mohammed to a foiled plot to attack Heathrow Airport in the UK with hijacked planes and claims the Kuwaiti helped lay the groundwork for the 7 July 2005 attacks in London.

Abu Zubaydah

Abu Zubaydah, who is thought to have served as Bin Laden's field commander, was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and has now been sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abu Zubaydah: Captured in Pakistan

The Americans describe him as a "key terrorist recruiter and operational planner and member of Osama Bin Laden's inner circle".

Zubaydah, who is believed to have been born to Palestinian parents in Saudi Arabia, is also known as Zayn al-Abidin Mohammed Husain and Abd al-Hadi al-Wahab but has used dozens of other aliases.

He has strong connections with Jordanian and Palestinian groups and was sentenced to death in his absence by a Jordanian court for his role in a thwarted plot to bomb hotels there during millennium celebrations.

US officials believe he is also connected to a plan to blow up the US embassy in Sarajevo, and a plot to attack the US embassy in Paris.

According to a Senate report, Zubaydah has told US interrogators that while he believed some al-Qaeda members had good personal relationships with Iraqi government officials he was unaware of any real relationship between Baghdad and the network.

Ramzi Binalshibh

Captured in Pakistan in September 2002, the Yemeni national is said to have become a key member of the al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, after seeking asylum there in the late 1990s.

Ramzi Binalshibh: Captured in Karachi

According to officials, he met Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Hamburg cell and one of the alleged masterminds of the 11 September attacks, through a local mosque in 1997.

Intelligence officials say Binalshibh may also have been involved in the attacks on the USS Cole and a Tunisian synagogue.

He has been sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi

Believed to have been a senior al-Qaeda operational commander planning attacks around the world.

Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi: Arrested in late 2006

The US said he was on his way to Iraq to take over al-Qaeda operations when he was arrested. His detention was announced by the US on 27 April 2007.

Formerly a major in the Iraqi army in the 1980s, he fought and ran training camps in Afghanistan.

Believed to be a key contact between Osama Bin Laden and killed Iraqi al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Reports said Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was also involved in plots to assassinate Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

Mohammed Haydar Zammar

Zammar is believed to have been in Hamburg with Mohammed Atta and other members of his cell - including hijackers Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

Mohammed Haydar Zammar: Sent to Syria

Investigators have said that it was he who recruited them to the al-Qaeda cause, although doubts have since been cast on whether he did in fact carry out this role.

A German citizen, he was arrested in Morocco after he left Germany in the wake of the 11 September attacks. Moroccan authorities later sent him to Syria.

Syrian interrogation is reported to have provided US investigators with details about the attack and plans for more possible al-Qaeda operations, according to reports.

Ali Abdul Rahman al-Ghamdi

Described as al-Qaeda's top leader in Saudi Arabia, Ghamdi is suspected of masterminding the deadly 2003 bombings in Riyadh.

He surrendered to the Saudi authorities shortly after the attacks. His reasons for doing so remain unclear, although it is thought his family had come under immense pressure to reveal his whereabouts.

He was born in 1974 and is said to have gained battlefield experience in Afghanistan and Chechnya. He is also believed to have been present at the beginning of the battle for the Afghan cave compound at Tora Bora in late 2001 - where Osama Bin Laden is alleged to have hidden.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Slahi is alleged to have played a key role in the recruitment of Atta's cell in Hamburg.

A Mauritanian who lived in Germany through much of the 1990s, Slahi was turned over to the United States by the government of Mauritania after 11 September on suspicion of involvement in a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during the 2000 millennium celebrations.

He is believed to be held in Guantanamo Bay.

Mohsen F

In November 2002, security officials in Kuwait arrested the man thought to be a senior member of al-Qaeda.

Identified only as Mohsen F, a 21-year-old Kuwaiti national, local press said he had been plotting to blow up a hotel in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a.

Zacarias Moussaoui

In May 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan origin, was sentenced by a US court to life in prison without possibility of parole for his role in the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Moussaoui has been sentenced to life in prison without parole

He had pleaded guilty a year earlier to conspiring with the 19 men who carried out the suicide hijacking attacks on New York and Washington.

The US government sought the death penalty for Moussaoui, the only person in the US charged over 9/11, but defence lawyers successfully argued for life imprisonment.

Moussaoui has lodged an appeal against the sentence. His lawyers asked the appeal court to review the trial and to reconsider a ruling that refused him leave to withdraw his guilty plea after sentencing.

Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges at a flight simulator school in Minnesota in August 2001.

Although he was in jail at the time of the 11 September attacks, prosecutors said he told lies to allow the plot to continue. His defence said he should not be executed because he played a limited role and was mentally ill.

Mounir al-Motassadek

In 2003, Mounir al-Motassadek, a Moroccan, was the first person in the world to be convicted in connection with the 11 September attacks. But he appealed and in 2004 Germany's Supreme Court threw the verdict out and ordered a retrial.

Motassadek's conviction was struck down over access to evidence

The court ruled he had been denied a fair trial because the US had refused his defence team access to testimony from al-Qaeda suspects in US custody.

Before the retrial in Hamburg the US justice department provided summaries from the interrogation of Binalshibh and other suspects, but did not allow them to testify.

At the retrial Motassadek was cleared of knowing about the 9/11 plot but was jailed instead for seven years for membership of a terrorist organisation.

However an appeal by prosecutors resulted in the Moroccan being found guilty of being an accessory to the 9/11 murders. A lower court will decide on his sentence.

Throughout proceedings Motassadek insisted he was innocent - that he knew nothing about the attacks, and knew the hijackers only socially.

Richard Reid

British-born Richard Reid was sentenced to life in prison in January 2003 after being found guilty of trying to blow up an airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Richard Reid: Admitted trying to blow up a plane

During his trial Reid - the so-called "shoe bomber" - changed his plea to guilty on all eight charges against him and declared himself a follower of Osama Bin Laden.

Speaking during sentencing, Reid told the court: "I admit my actions... I do not apologise for my actions and I am still at war with your country."

Reid was arrested after a disturbance on an American Airlines Paris-to-Miami flight on 22 December 2001.

Despite Reid's pledges of support to Bin Laden, his defence team made the case that he was acting alone and was not truly affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

A Yemeni court in September 2004 sentenced Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri to death over the bomb attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors in 2000.

However, he remains in US custody, in an undisclosed location and was tried in absentia.

The Saudi-born militant was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in October 2002 and handed over to Washington.

He was believed to have been the leader of the network's operations in the Gulf.

Nashiri, also known as Abu Asim al-Makki, has also been linked by the US to the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

After the Cole attack, he is said to have travelled to Afghanistan, escaping via Pakistan to Yemen after the US-led invasion that ousted the Taleban.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian also known as Ahmed al-Khalayleh, was killed in a US air strike on a safe house near the Iraqi city of Baquba in June 2006.

He stood accused of spearheading al-Qaeda's campaign against the US occupation of Iraq.

Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a top terror suspect in Iraq

In February 2004, the US military released a letter it claimed to have intercepted in which Zarqawi apparently asks al-Qaeda to help ignite a sectarian conflict in Iraq.

His name was linked to the deadly suicide bombings targeting Iraqi Shia Muslims and security services. He was also suspected of direct involvement in the kidnappings and execution of foreign workers in Iraq.

A $25m bounty was placed on his head, although some experts believe that much terrorist activity in Iraq - while inspired by him - was taking place independently of him.

US forces said in April 2005 they had come close to capturing him in Iraq.

Zarqawi was tried in absentia and sentenced to death for planning attacks in his native Jordan. Intelligence officers in Morocco and Turkey also implicated him in high-profile suicide attacks there during 2003.

He is thought to have travelled extensively after 9/11, reportedly spending time in Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey.

Amjad Farooqi

Farooqi allegedly trained and sheltered several al-Qaeda suspects

Amjad Farooqi, alias Amjad Hussain, is said to have risen through the ranks of Pakistani Sunni militant groups to become a key al-Qaeda operative.

Pakistani security services allege he organised two failed assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf.

He was also wanted in connection with the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

He was reportedly killed in a shoot-out with security forces in southern Pakistan in September 2004.

Mohammed Atef

Mohammed Atef died in an air strike near Kabul

Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafez, was believed to be one of Osama Bin Laden's most important lieutenants and the military commander of al-Qaeda.

Before joining forces with Bin Laden, Atef was an Egyptian policeman and member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that he was believed to have been killed in the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harthi

Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harthi: 'Killed in Yemen'

Also known as Abu Ali, he is believed to be one of six al-Qaeda suspects killed by a US operation in Yemen in November 2002.

He was a prime target in the US counter-terrorism campaign because of his suspected involvement in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole ship in Yemen's Aden harbour.

Abu Hazim al-Shair

US intelligence officials had identified Abu Hazim al-Shair, once one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards, as al-Qaeda's new chief of operations for the Gulf states.

The 30-year-old Yemeni was believed to live in Saudi Arabia, and featured high on the list of 19 most-wanted al-Qaeda operatives in the country.

Thought to have been a key planner in the May 2003 bombings of Western residential compounds in Riyadh, he was reported to have been killed in the east of the city during in an exchange of fire with Saudi security forces in March 2004.

Omar al-Farouq

An Iraqi citizen brought up in Kuwait, Omar al-Farouq was one of four suspected militants who escaped from a US detention centre in Bagram, Afghanistan, in July 2005.

Osama Bin Laden's top lieutenant in South East Asia, Farouq had been arrested in June 2002 in a village near Jakarta in Indonesia on suspicion of planning attacks against US embassies in the region.

He is also believed to have been a key link between al-Qaeda and militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah, blamed for bombings in Indonesia including the Bali attacks of 12 October 2002 in which more than 200 people were killed.

Farouq taunted his pursuers in a video released on an Islamist website in February 2006, but was tracked down to a hide-out in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

On 25 September 2006, security sources said he was surrounded there by at least 200 British troops and was killed in an exchange of fire.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - Bosnian citizen

No one exemplifies the model of the terrorist entrepreneur more clearly than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. Khalid followed a long path to his eventual membership in al Qaeda. Highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office or a terrorist safehouse, KSM applied his imagination, technical aptitude, and managerial skills to hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes. These ideas included conventional car bombing, political assassination, aircraft bombing, hijacking, reservoir poisoning, and, ultimately, the use of aircraft as missiles guided by suicide operatives.

Like his nephew Ramzi Yousef (three years KSM’s junior), KSM grew up in Kuwait but traces his ethnic lineage to the Baluchistan region straddling Iran and Pakistan. Raised in a religious family, KSM claims to have joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age 16 and to have become enamored of violent jihad at youth camps in the desert. In 1983, following his graduation from secondary school, KSM left Kuwait to enroll at Chowan College, a small Baptist school in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. After a semester at Chowan, KSM transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, which he attended with Yousef’s brother,another future al Qaeda member. KSM earned a degree in mechanical engineering in December 1986.

Although he apparently did not attract attention for extreme Islamist beliefs or activities while in the United States, KSM plunged into the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad soon after graduating from college. Visiting Pakistan for the first time in early 1987, he traveled to Peshawar, where his brother Zahid introduced him to the famous Afghan mujahid Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, head of the Hizbul-Ittihad El-Islami (Islamic Union Party). Sayyaf became KSM’s mentor and provided KSM with military training at Sayyaf’s Sada camp. KSM claims he then fought the Soviets and remained at the front for three months before being summoned to perform administrative duties for Abdullah Azzam. KSM next took a job working for an electronics firm that catered to the communications needs of Afghan groups, where he learned about drills used to excavate caves in Afghanistan.

KSM first came to the attention of U.S. law enforcement as a result of his small role in the first World Trade Center bombing. According to KSM, he learned of Ramzi Yousef’s intention to launch an attack inside the United States in 1991 or 1992,when Yousef was receiving explosives training in Afghanistan. During the fall of 1992,while Yousef was building the bomb he would use in that attack, KSM and Yousef had numerous telephone conversations during which Yousef discussed his progress and sought additional funding. On November 3, 1992, KSM wired $660 from Qatar to the bank account of Yousef’s co-conspirator, Mohammed Salameh. KSM does not appear to have contributed any more substantially to this operation.

Yousef’s instant notoriety as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing inspired KSM to become involved in planning attacks against the United States. By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. In 1994, KSM accompanied Yousef to the Philippines, and the two of them began planning what is now known as the Manila air or “Bojinka”plot, the intended bombing of 12 U.S. commercial jumbo jets over the Pacific during a two-day span. This marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation. While sharing an apartment in Manila during the summer of 1994, he and Yousef acquired chemicals and other materials necessary to construct bombs and timers. They also cased target flights to Hong Kong and Seoul that would have onward legs to the United States. During this same period, KSM and Yousef also developed plans to assassinate President Clinton during his November 1994 trip to Manila, and to bomb U.S.-bound cargo carriers by smuggling jackets containing nitrocellulose on board.

KSM left the Philippines in September 1994 and met up with Yousef in Karachi following their casing flights. There they enlisted Wali Khan Amin Shah, also known as Usama Asmurai, in the Manila air plot. During the fall of 1994, Yousef returned to Manila and successfully tested the digital watch timer he had invented, bombing a movie theater and a Philippine Airlines flight en route to Tokyo. The plot unraveled after the Philippine authorities discovered Yousef’s bomb-making operation in Manila; but by that time, KSM was safely back at his government job in Qatar. Yousef attempted to follow through on the cargo carriers plan, but he was arrested in Islamabad by Pakistani authorities on February 7, 1995, after an accomplice turned him in. In January 1996, well aware that U.S. authorities were chasing him, he left Qatar for good and fled to Afghanistan, where he renewed his relationship with Rasul Sayyaf.

Just as KSM was reestablishing himself in Afghanistan in mid-1996, Bin Ladin and his colleagues were also completing their migration from Sudan. Through Atef, KSM arranged a meeting with Bin Ladin in Tora Bora,a mountainous redoubt from the Afghan war days. At the meeting, KSM presented the al Qaeda leader with a menu of ideas for terrorist operations. According to KSM, this meeting was the first time he had seen Bin Ladin since 1989. Although they had fought together in 1987, Bin Ladin and KSM did not yet enjoy an especially close working relationship. At the meeting, KSM briefed Bin Ladin and Atef on the first World Trade Center bombing, the Manila air plot, the cargo carriers plan, and other activities pursued by KSM and his colleagues in the Philippines. KSM also presented a proposal for an operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings in the United States. This proposal eventually would become the 9/11 operation.

From KSM’s perspective, Bin Ladin was in the process of consolidating his new position in Afghanistan while hearing out others’ ideas, and had not yet settled on an agenda for future anti-U.S. operations. At the meeting,Bin Ladin listened to KSM’s ideas without much comment, but did ask KSM formally to join al Qaeda and move his family to Afghanistan. KSM declined. He preferred to remain independent and retain the option of working with other mujahideen groups still operating in Afghanistan, including the group led by his old mentor, Sayyaf. Sayyaf was close to Ahmed Shah Massoud,the leader of the Northern Alliance. Therefore working with him might be a problem for KSM because Bin Ladin was building ties to the rival Taliban.

According to KSM, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam marked a watershed in the evolution of the 9/11 plot. KSM claims these bombings convinced him that Bin Ladin was truly committed to attacking the United States. He continued to make himself useful, collecting news articles and helping other al Qaeda members with their out-dated computer equipment. Bin Ladin, apparently at Atef’s urging, finally decided to give KSM the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. KSM then accepted Bin Ladin’s standing invitation to move to Kandahar and work directly with al Qaeda. In addition to supervising the planning and preparations for the 9/11 operation, KSM worked with and eventually led al Qaeda’s media committee. But KSM states he refused to swear a formal oath of allegiance to Bin Ladin, thereby retaining a last vestige of his cherished autonomy. At this point,late 1998 to early 1999, planning for the 9/11 operation began in earnest. Yet while the 9/11 project occupied the bulk of KSM’s attention, he continued to consider other possibilities for terrorist attacks.

KSM appears to have been popular among the al Qaeda rank and file. He was reportedly regarded as an effective leader, especially after the 9/11 attacks. Co-workers describe him as an intelligent, efficient, and even-tempered manager who approached his projects with a single-minded dedication that he expected his colleagues to share.

Like Yousef, KSM reasoned he could best influence U.S. policy by targeting the country’s economy. KSM and Yousef reportedly brainstormed together about what drove the U.S. economy. New York, which KSM considered the economic capital of the United States, therefore became the primary target. For similar reasons, California also became a target for KSM. KSM claims that the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center taught him that bombs and explosives could be problematic, and that he needed to graduate to a more novel form of attack. He maintains that he and Yousef began thinking about using aircraft as weapons while working on the Manila air/Bojinka plot, and speculated about striking the World Trade Center and CIA headquarters as early as 1995.

Indeed, KSM describes a grandiose original plan: a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, nine of which would crash into targets on both coasts—they included those eventually hit on September 11 plus CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings in California and the state of Washington. KSM himself was to land the tenth plane at a U.S. airport and, after killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media, deliver a speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines, and repressive governments in the Arab world. Beyond KSM’s rationalizations about targeting the U.S. economy, this vision gives a better glimpse of his true ambitions. Although Bin Ladin listened to KSM’s proposal, he was not convinced that it was practical. Bin Ladin was receiving numerous ideas for potential operations— KSM’s proposal to attack U.S. targets with commercial airplanes was only one of many. Thus, although KSM contends he would have been just as likely to consider working with any comparable terrorist organization, he gives no indication of what other groups he thought could supply such exceptional commodities.

KSM acknowledges formally joining al Qaeda, in late 1998 or 1999, and states that soon afterward, Bin Ladin also made the decision to support his proposal to attack the United States using commercial airplanes as weapons. Bin Ladin summoned KSM to Kandahar in March or April 1999 to tell him that al Qaeda would support his proposal. The plot was now referred to within al Qaeda as the “planes operation.” No one else but KSM, Bin Ladin, and Atef were involved in the initial selection of targets.

Much of his activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of training and informational materials for the participants in the planes operation. For instance, he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone directories for American cities such as San Diego and Long Beach, California; brochures for schools; and airline timetables, and he conducted Internet searches on U.S. flight schools. He also purchased flight simulator software and a few movies depicting hijackings. To house his students, KSM rented a safehouse in Karachi with money provided by Bin Ladin. The course in Karachi apparently lasted about one or two weeks. According to KSM, he taught the three operatives basic English words and phrases. He showed them how to read phone books,interpret airline timetables, use the Internet, use code words in communications, make travel reservations, and rent an apartment. KSM told them to watch the cabin doors at takeoff and landing, to observe whether the captain went to the lavatory during the flight, and to note whether the flight attendants brought food into the cockpit.

Although Bin Ladin, Atef, and KSM initially contemplated using established al Qaeda members to execute the planes operation, the late 1999 arrival in Kandahar of four aspiring jihadists from Germany suddenly presented a more attractive alternative. The Hamburg group shared the anti-U.S. fervor of the other candidates for the operation, but added the enormous advantages of fluency in English and familiarity with life in the West, based on years that each member of the group had spent living in Germany.

KSM played a key role in facilitating travel for al Qaeda operatives. KSM provided his operatives with nearly all the money they needed to travel to the United States, train, and live. The available evidence indicates that the 19 operatives were funded by al Qaeda, either through wire transfers or cash provided by KSM, which they carried into the United States or deposited in foreign accounts and accessed from the United States. KSM, Binalshibh, and another plot facilitator, Mustafa al Hawsawi, each received money, in some cases perhaps as much as $10,000, to perform their roles in the plot. According to KSM, the Hamburg cell members each received $5,000 to pay for their return to Germany from Afghanistan after they had been selected to join the plot, and they received additional funds for travel from Germany to the United States.

Sheikh Mohammed's arrest in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on March 1, 2003 marks one of the most important breakthroughs in the fight against al-Qaeda. The two key factors leading to his arrest was a bribe to an Al-Qaeda operative in the amount of $27 million, as well as information gained from the NSA electronic surveillance network, Echelon. Although the arrest was solely a Pakistani operation the FBI observed the arrest and was to a large degree invovled in the interrogation process. Pakistani officials claim that KSM remained in Pakistan for 3 days and then was subsequently moved to an undisclosed location by US officials.

Reportedly, the use of harsh interrogation techniques in the questioning of Khaled Sheik Mohammed was approved by Justice Department and CIA, according to a May 13, 2004 New York Times report.

Terrorist cells proliferating in Balkans - as 'white' Al Qaeda being recruited to carry out attacks

December 18, 2005

Terrorist Cells Find Foothold in Balkans

3 December 2005 | 16:03 | Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002098.html

By Rade Maroevic and Daniel Williams

The raid netted explosives, rifles, other arms and a videotape pledging vengeance for the "brothers" killed fighting Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq. Police found the cache in an apartment occupied by an underground group that was aiming to blow up the British Embassy in Sarajevo, Western intelligence officials said.
The Oct. 19 bust in Sarajevo confirmed a suspicion among several intelligence agents that Bosnia and other parts of the Balkans are becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks in Europe.

In particular, Islamic radicals are looking to create cells of so-called white al Qaeda, non-Arab members who can evade racial profiling used by police forces to watch for potential terrorists. "They want to look European to carry out operations in Europe," said a Western intelligence agent in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, adjacent to Bosnia. "It's yet another evolution in the tools used by terrorists."

Parts of the Balkans, stuck in lawless limbo after years of war in the 1990s, are ripe recruitment territory for Middle East radicals, intelligence officials say. Bosnia is still divided among Muslim, Croat and Serb population areas, even if nominally united under the 10-year-old Dayton peace agreement that ended ethnic warfare.

Muslim enclaves in Serbia are restive, and Muslim-majority Kosovo remains an estranged province campaigning for independence six years after NATO bombing forced out Serb-dominated Yugoslav troops.
The Balkans have long been a freeway for smugglers of cigarettes, drugs, weapons and prostitutes. "All the conditions are present. Embittered Muslims, arms, corruption -- everything underground operators need to get established," said the Western intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The raid on the Sarajevo group, which was said to have had contacts with cells in Denmark and Britain, was not the only event that raised concern. During the summer, Italian and Croatian police arrested five people who allegedly plotted to bomb the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Vatican City in April.

In addition, Serbian police accidentally came across a key suspect in the March 2004 bombings of Madrid commuter trains while he was traveling through the country by train. He arrived in the Balkans in July, and Serbian police investigators conjecture that he was seeking haven either in Bosnia or Kosovo and perhaps safe passage to the Middle East. They quickly extradited the man, Abdelmajid Bouchar, a Moroccan citizen, to Spain.

U.S. and allied intelligence officers have long worked together in Sarajevo to keep an eye on Islamic radicals in Bosnia. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the CIA and other foreign agencies set up a joint, fortified headquarters to keep tabs on terrorism suspects in Bosnia, a Western intelligence source in Sarajevo said.
The spy teams operate separately from the chief international overseers of Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, according to the official.

During the three-sided war in Bosnia, hundreds of fighters from Arab and other Middle Eastern countries flocked to Bosnia to fight on behalf of the Muslim faction against Croats and Serbs. Many of the foreign mujaheddin , or holy warriors, were expelled after the war, according to the Bosnian government, but others remained and received passports.
Today, parts of Bosnia framed by the cities of Zenica, Tuzla, Sarajevo and Travnik are home to these immigrants and compose the core regions for Islamic militancy, Bosnian police and Western intelligence officials say.

Until recently, the immigrants tried to keep a low profile. Western intelligence officials here and in Belgrade surmised that they wanted to exploit Bosnia as a logistics and transit point and not invite a crackdown from local police or European Union peacekeepers.

The Sarajevo arrests changed that perception. A Bosnian Interior Ministry official, Robert Cvrtak, released the names of four detainees from the raid: Cesur Abdulkadir, who is of Turkish heritage; Mirsad Bektasevic, a Swedish citizen of Bosnian origin; and Bajro Ikanovic and Almir Bajric, both Bosnian citizens. Among their activities, Bosnian police said, were hiding explosives inside lemons and tennis balls and trying to set up training camps in the hills near Sarajevo.
Last Thursday night, Bosnian police arrested a fifth suspect in the town of Hadzici, near Sarajevo. The police found about 20 pounds of explosives hidden in woods near his home. The man, whose name has not been made public, is suspected of being in charge of providing explosives to the rest of group.

Police officials here say Bektasevic, 19, also ran a Web site on behalf of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian who heads the insurgent group al Qaeda in Iraq. He had pictures of the White House in his computer, they added.
Bektasevic operated under the code name Maximus and kept in touch with a group of at least three men in Britain. British police arrested them in early November, according to press reports.

A week after the original Sarajevo arrests, police in Copenhagen detained four men ages 16 to 20 and said they had planned suicide bombings somewhere in Europe. "We had a very short period to investigate, but our information indicated that their action was imminent," said a police spokesman, Joern Bro. The Danes believed that the Copenhagen suspects had been in contact by phone and e-mail with Bektasevic.

In August, police in Croatia arrested five Bosnians whom Italian military intelligence had fingered for involvement in a plot to bomb the papal funeral. The group originated in Gornja Maoca, a town in northeastern Bosnia, and had planned to smuggle rocket launchers, explosives and detonators into Italy. The plot fell apart, Western intelligence officials said, when a suspect was arrested in Rome in April. The Croatian police, acting on a tip from the Italians, found the others in Croatia.

The capture of Bouchar, suspected in the Madrid train bombings, in Serbia in July surprised police there. They had thought he was just another Middle Easterner traveling illegally through the country until an Interpol fingerprint check revealed his identity.

Authorities say Bouchar had narrowly escaped death or capture shortly after the Madrid attacks, when police there sealed off an apartment where suspects were hiding. Seven men died in the residence by detonating explosives. Bouchar, however, was taking out garbage at the time and fled, Serbian and Spanish officials say.
He traveled to Brussels, where he expected to obtain forged documents, authorities said. However, his contacts there were either under arrest or fleeing police. He moved on and spent time in Austrian and Hungarian jails, but was freed. No one in either country checked his fingerprints.

When picked up heading toward Belgrade, he was wearing a new business suit. Western intelligence officials in Belgrade note that Serbia, although predominantly non-Muslim, has pockets of Muslims in the Sanjak region near Montenegro as well as Kosovo and other areas along the province's border.

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1430

2008-03-28 The dots begin to connect in a radical network that reaches from Bosnia across Western Europe as police in Bosnia arrest five suspected of plotting to attack Catholic and EUFOR objects, ISA's Anes Alic and Damir Kaletovic report.

In the second major anti-terrorism operation in Bosnia in three years, Bosnian police have arrested five men and seized anti-tank mines, laser sights, electronic equipment, topographic maps and bomb-making manuals.

The ongoing investigation shows so far that the group involved in the alleged plot is connected with earlier terrorism-related arrests in the country, and that the network extends to Western European capitals.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's Federation Anti-Terror Unit on 20 March arrested five men: Rijad Rustempasic, Muhamed Meco, Abdulah Handzic and Edis Velic, all in their early thirties and from Sarajevo, along with Muhamed Ficer, from the central Bosnian city of Bugojno, who was released from custody after questioning.

The four arrested in Sarajevo were members of the local Wahhabi movement - the Saudi-based and financed order following a strict interpretation of Islam. Some of the suspects were already well known to the police for their radical activities. The group had been under surveillance for several months by the Federation Anti-Terror Unit and the State Prosecutor's Office.

Federation Anti-Terror Unit and the State Prosecutor's Office have strong evidence that Rustempasic's group was planning attacks on Catholic Churches and international forces within the country during the Easter holidays.

According to the authors' source from the Federation police, who are running the investigation, the alleged leader of the group is Rustempasic, who was born and raised in Bugojno but moved to Sarajevo four years ago.

On condition of anonymity, the police source said that Rustempasic was one of the most notorious and most violent Bosnian radical Muslim they had so far investigated, and that the suspect has managed to evade prison thanks to the tolerance of the local authorities in Bugojno.

The key suspect

Since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 1995, Rustempasic's name has appeared in connection with several investigations related to the terrorism and radical Islam.

During the Bosnian 1992-1995 war, Rustempasic was a member of the El-Mujahid unit, headquartered in central Bosnia. The unit was under the official jurisdiction of the Bosnian Army during the war, though it operated autonomously and was comprised of foreign fighters from Islamic countries. The author's police source said it was during that period that Rustempasic developed his bomb-making skills.

Federal police suspect that Rustempasic was responsible for mining the tower of the Catholic Church in the village of Humci, near Bugojno, in July 1996. No suspects were ever arrested in connection with the attack. Police also suspect that Rustempasic was behind numerous threats against Bosnian Croat returnees to Bugojno and other central Bosnian cities where there is a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) majority.

In 2004, Rustempasic was arrested by NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) troops in Bosnia for illegal possession of weapons and suspicion of terrorist-related activities. The international forces had found nearly five kilograms of explosives in his possession. For that crime, the court in Bugojno sentenced him to five months parole, during which time he relocated to Sarajevo.
Easy supplies

"In Rustempasic's apartment we seized a hand-made explosive device hidden in a book … and when someone would open the book, the device would be activated," the source said.

The police source said Rustempasic had a couple of supply chains for bomb-making equipment. He would go to the war-time frontlines and dig up anti-tank mines to remove the explosives from inside. Each anti-tank mine contains around 3 kilograms of explosives - enough to cause massive damage.

"We also have evidence that from the money he would get from [sources] in Western Europe, was buying explosives and other equipment on the illegal market here. Also, we have reason to believe that some of the seized materials arrived from other countries in travel bags," the police source said.

The group came under closer scrutiny by the Anti-Terror Unit and the Bosnian State Intelligence Agency (OSA) after an intercepted telephone conversation between Rustempasic and another arrested member of the group.

"Christmas passed and we didn't do anything," one of the group's members told Rustempasic late on 25 December 2007, alerting the authorities.

Federal police had reason to believe that the next opportunity to attack would be the next Catholic holiday, Easter. Analyzing intercepted communiqués, police concluded that would be targets of the group are Sarajevo central Cathedral and Franciscan Monastery in Central Bosnian city of Fojnica.

Aside from Catholic institutions, police also have reason to believe that the group was planning to sabotage electricity supply stations and launch attacks against European Forces (EUFOR) Liaison and Observation Team (LOT) here.

EUFOR has 45 LOTs stationed across the country. One of the intercepted telephone conversations between Rustempasic and another group member mentioned international community targets and talked about locations where international soldiers were based, particularly those coming from countries involved in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Western European connections

Most of the weapons seized during the raid on six locations were found in Rustempasic's apartment in Sarajevo's old town, where he lives with his family.

According to Muhamed Ficer - Rustempasic's brother-in-law who was arrested and released in connection with the plot - the weapons found in the apartment did not belong to Rustempasic but to his brother, currently living in Austria.

Following his release, Ficer told local media that the electronic equipment seized by the police and suspected of being used for bomb-making had actually been found at a garbage dumb and they had planned only to repair and resell it.

According to Ficer, Rustempasic is unemployed (along with the others arrested), and depended on financial assistance from his "brothers" (Wahhabi's) from Austria.

According to Rustempasic's neighbors from Sarajevo suburb of Sedrenik, the house in which he has lived for free for the last four years is owned by Bosniak Deso Karisik, who lives in Germany.

Rustempasic also sparked the authorities' interest during clashes last year between radical and moderate Muslims in Sarajevo and two cities in the country's north. Rustempasic was a close associate of the late, self-proclaimed sheik, Jusuf Barcic, the leader of the local Wahhabi movement. In March last year, Barcic, an aggressive preacher calling for a return to traditional Islam, and his followers tried to forcibly enter several mosques to preach wahhabism, but were prevented by locals. Barcic died in the car accident a month after those incidents.

Another member of the arrested group, Edis Velic, also has a criminal past. According to the police source, Velic spent some time fighting in Chechnya several years ago. Last year, he was fired from a Sarajevo-based private security company after a shooting incident in which Velic shot the owner of a second hand stall in the open market in the legs.

Velic and another detainee, Abdulah Handzic, were present at the recent protests against the deportation of foreign mujahideens and against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Notably, police spotted Velic and Handzic burning US and EU member country flags at the protests.
Ongoing investigation

The arrests on 20 March was the second major crackdown on Bosnian Wahhabis suspected of terrorism in the last three years.

In October 2005, Federation police arrested five men, three of whom were indicted and later convicted on a string of terror charges.

Mirsad Bektasevic, a Swedish national from Serbia; Danish-born Turkish citizen Abdulkadir Cesur; and Bosnian national Bajro Ikanovic were arrested in late 2005 in two Sarajevo suburbs. The three were found guilty of "intending to carry out a terrorist act" in Bosnia or another European country with the aim of forcing the withdrawal of troops from Iraq or Afghanistan.

During the raid on the home of Bektasevic and Abdulkadir police found a suicide bomb belt, nearly 20 kilograms of explosives, guns and a bomb-making video.

Prior to his arrival to Sarajevo, Bektasevic was active in trying to recruit Jihadists through internet sites, using the codename "Maximus." Correspondence between Bektasevic and some Islamists in Denmark led to further arrests and prosecutions. Bektasevic was in contact with Abdul Basit, also known as Abu-Lifa, sentenced by a Danish court in February last year to seven years in prison. He was believed to be a financier of Bektasevic's group.

Having previously been marked as potential militant by Federation and international authorities, Rustempasic appeared even in this case. According to the police source, Bektasevic was also in contact with Rustempasic in the two-month period between his arrival in Bosnia and his arrest.

According to the source, at the time Rustempasic was questioned by police and prosecution investigators and gave very valuable information regarding Bektasevic's case. Investigators had no evidence to charge Rustempasic in that case.

After Rustempasic's group was arrested on 20 March, local authorities discovered several locations, in almost unapproachable mountainous parts of Bosnia, with cottages where military equipment was held and the surrounding area used for military-style exercises. Those locations were discovered after analyzing a map found in Rustempasic's apartment.

They also found another map containing coded signs. Police believe, once decoded, the map will lead to more hidden sights or even potential targets.

"But now we are troubled with the fact that four days prior to Easter, and one day ahead of the group's arrest, a duffle bag containing military equipment arrived in Sarajevo from a Western Europe country, and could be linked to the group," the police source said.

The whereabouts of the bag is still unknown, and police are focusing their investigation on this, hoping for cooperation from those arrested.

A source from the prosecutor's office told ISN Security Watch that in the coming days the investigation into Rustempasic's group will be expanded beyond the borders of Bosnian. It is clear, the source said, that the group is receiving financial and logistical support from wahhabi figures in Western Europe.

14-11. STATEMENT

(Given and Family Name) Abdulkarim Meslat

I hereby state that I feel as a citizen of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that I am prepared to obey the Constitution, laws and other regulations of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, practice all the rights and obligations of a citizen of Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and protect the sovereignty and integrity of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its reputation in the international community.

This statement is a freely given expression of my loyalty to the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and desire to become a citizen of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In Vienna, 31 August 1994,
[signed] Meslat Abdulkarim
Official Present [ blank]
Signed by official: [signature illegible]
[stamped with official seal]

14-12Appendix (iv)

Overview of members of the Seventh Muslim Brigade “El-Mujahid” of the Army of BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA [ABiH], who received B&H citizenship[1]

1. Abu El Jud Adnan, born 1960 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj municipality
2. Ali Awad Muhamed, born 1962 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
3. Amrou Osmanchevic, born 1968 in Jordan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
4. Al-Saidi Muhamed, born 1961 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
5. Ahmed Alkotry, born 1965 in Sudan, regulated citizenship based on fictitious residence in Novo Sarajevo municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
6. Albany Teher, born in Kuwait, regulated citizenship based on fictitious residence in Novo Sarajevo municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
7. Azedine Omerovic, born 1967 in Algeria, regulated citizenship based on fictitious residence in Zenica municipality, then settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
8. Aiman Awad, born 1964 in Syria, received BH citizenship on 23 March 1992 based on participation in ABiH [Translator’s note: it did not exist at the time!], settled in Bocinja, Maglaj
9. Alnaqli Khaled, born in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Zenica municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
10. Abdul-D’ail-ii Harj, born 1965 in Lebanon, regulated citizenship based on fictitious residence in Zenica municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
11. Amagad Joussef, unknown foreign citizenship, received BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
12. Ayad Osama, unknown foreign citizenship, received BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
13. Abdula Khaled, originally from Yemen, received BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
14. Aref Mestrovac, originally from Lebanon, received BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
15. Ali Saidi Muhamed, BH citizen, resident of Bocinja, Maglaj; purchased house from Serb resident
16. Ben Hamza Mourad, born 1972 in Sudan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
17. Ben Radhia Nejmedine, born 1968 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
18. Ben Ina Khalifa Ben, born in Tunisia, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
19. Cshoumani Ousama, born 1968 in Jordan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
20. Cakir Fahri, born in Turkey, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
21. Dar Khalifeh Jafar, born 1973 in Jordan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj; now reported as resident in Brcko
22. Eslam Durmo, born 1964 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Old Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
23. El Wakil Ahmed, born 1971 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Old Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
24. El Hassiny Gamal, born 1962 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Old Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj

 

25. El Monsoury Mohamed, born 1966 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Old Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
26. Essindar Abdulah, born 1964 in Yemen, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
27. El Karim Mohamed Ahmed, born 1971 in Sudan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
28. El Guerhani Fatima, [woman] born in Yemen, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Novo Sarajevo municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
29. El Hachini Muhamed, born in Qatar, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-New Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
30. Ejman Abu Abdulrrahman, Syrian, age approx. 40, former medical student in FR Yugoslavia. According to Federation[-based] weekly “Dani,” of 16 December 1988 [sic – means 1998], Abdulrrahman had been an active member of “El-mujahid” from its inception, fighting in theaters around Kacun, Vitez, Zabrdje and Travnik [central Bosnia]. He had terrorist training in the Mehurici camp. Married to a Bosniak woman, he claims to have BH citizenship.

 

31. Fridhi Sami, born 1969 in Jordan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
32. Fawzi Lordijane, originally from Lebanon, has BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
33. Fayez Souidane, originally from Lebanon, has BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
34. Gamal El Hassiny, citizen of BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, resident in Bocinja, Maglaj, bought the house from a Serb
35. Hmaity Moh’d, born 1961 in UA Emirates, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
36. Hans Kreis, born 1959 in Luxembourg, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
37. Hamza Hasamudin, a.k.a. Abu Hamza, Palestinian, married to a Bosniak from Kozarac, Prijedor; father of two. In a statement for Federation[-based] weekly “Dani,” dated 16 February [sic] 1998, confirmed he was an active member of “El-Mujahid,” and that his BH citizenship was regulated on those grounds.
38. Hassan Ashraf, originally from Egypt, has BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
39. Hanchi Ammar, born 1965 in Djibouti, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Old Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
40. Imad Muhamad Al-Husein, born 1963 in Syria, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
41. Ibrahim Hosni, born 1961 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
42. Ismad Al Husein, a.k.a. Abu Hamza, Islamic mercenary; formerly resident of Bocinja, he received a large sum of money from the Federal [BH] Ministry for refugees and displaced persons in order to obtain housing in Sarajevo.
43. Inal Salih, originally from Turkey, has BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
44. Khaled Barakat, has BH citizenship, resident of Bocinja, Maglaj; bought the house from a Serb;
45. Khalil Hodzic, born 1972 in Sudan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
46. Jedari Salih, born 1965 in South Yemen,received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
47. Kamel Rahala, born in Algeria, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
48. Kreis Magdalina, [woman] born 1958 in Switzerland, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
49. Kaled Al Safani, a.k.a. Sulejman,originally from Yemen, has BH citizenship;Expelled from Kuwait for links with notorious Islamic terrorist Osama Bin Laden; Resided in Bocinja; Indicated as one of the leaders in a Zenica-Doboj Canton car-theft ring, along with Ali Said Baawr, a.k.a. Hudeifa.
50. Maati Gamal, has BH citizenship, resident of Bocinja, Maglaj; bought the house from a Serb
51. Metwali Mamdouh, born 1967 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Old Town municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
52. Morsy Rokaya, born in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
53. Mohamed Begovic, originally from Tunisia, has BH citizenship, and resided in Bocinja, Maglaj; however, filed a change of residence with the Maglaj police;
54. Nabil Kal Bi, originally from Tunis, has BH citizenship; and resided in Bocinja, Maglaj; however, filed a change of residence with the Maglaj police;
55. Omar Badjaouvi, born in Sudan, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Novo Sarajevo municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
56. Pranvera Bardhosi, originally from Albania, has BH citizenship, was resident of Bocinja, Maglaj
57. Ridha Labidi, originally from Tunisia, resided in Bocinja, Maglaj; however, he filed a change of residence with the Maglaj police;
58. Raja Bargaoui, originally from Tunisia, resided in Bocinja, Maglaj; however, he filed a change of residence with the Maglaj police;
59. Skuorac El Aret, born 1971 in Egypt, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
60. Shela Marvana, [woman] originally from Albania, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
61. Zrigwe Homouda, born 1955 in Tunisia, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
62. Zubeir Behchic, born in the UA Emirates, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj
63. Querghi Mustapha, born 1961 in Tunisia, received citizenship based on fictitious residence in Sarajevo-Center municipality, then moved to Bocinja, Maglaj

NOTE: It has been continually noted in the media that Mirsada Zutic-Beganovic, executive at the Sarajevo Canton MIA, on 28 December 1995 approved BH citizenship for 103 persons of African or Asian origin. Facsimiles of the list and approval decisions have been published. At the time, the superintendent of the Sarajevo SSC was Enes Bezdrop, and the Federal Minister of Internal Affairs was Bakir Alispahic.

[Translator’s Note: Names of the Mujaheddin seem to reflect entries in forms, as they do not seem to follow any spelling convention. Most likely, the names were entered by Bosnian officials with dubious literacy in English or French, the languages likely found in the applicants’ passports. Following the former Yugoslav bureaucratic convention, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA officials in several cases entered the family name before the given name, eg: numbers 29, 43, 50, 63, etc.]

[1] Most Islamic extremists received the BH citizenship at the time when the Federation BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Ministry of Internal Affairs was led by Bakir Alispahic, and the Canton MIA by Ismet Dahic. Superintendent of the SSC Sarajevo was Reuf Jahic, with the involvement of Samir Rizvo, currently head of the Felonies department of the Sarajevo Canton MIA. Also involved in issuing identity documents to the Mujaheddin were Mugdim Vranac, Visoko police superintendent, and Asmir Hodzic, manager of the city cemetery in Visoko.

15. Osama bin Laden’s Technological Bosnian Balkan Bridge Linking it to America and Abroad from Bosnia and Herzegovina

In 1995, bin Laden and other members of Al-Qaeda began acquiring a network of satellite telephones to avoid detection. They also underwent and received sophisticated computer training. Since 1996 it is known that they have been capable of forwarding terrorist information about their ongoing Jihad (or holy war) to Al-Qaeda members worldwide. And then by 1997 Al-Qaeda became so sophisticated that they were frequently communicating with encryption devices able to evade many of the most advanced intercepts. The group even had certain (Muslim) members who specialized in making false passports and in also allowing Al-Qaeda members to travel freely around the world-thus enabling Al Qaeda member to travel freely around the world under a variety of different false identifies according to trial evidence.

The Al-Qaeda network is also horizontally widespread globally. According to some indicators, its tentacles stretch even as far as South America and perhaps even into Australia. In addition of using the Internet for exchanging information, orders and instructions, it is further suspected that Al-Qaeda had tried operating computer systems against the United States NSA global surveillance system Echelon.

Documents found recently have casted a new light on the financial infrastructure of Al-Qaeda as well as on its terrorist training cells including its usage of weaponry of mass destruction. There is also recent reasonable suspicion that Osama bin Laden could reach, more easily then previously thought, nuclear "dirty" bombs and similar styed nuclear weapons of mass destruction, particularly those,probably sold to him from Iran. Mamdouh Salim, a key Bin Laden associate who authorized, Fatwahs or (Islamic legal rulings justifying attacks) by al Qaida against civilians, even admitted participating in such efforts that would clearly ensure purchase of certain nuclear and chemical weapons for Al-Qaeda. This person even tried to murder a corrections officer in a Federal Jail located in New York State while awaiting trial for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to kill American nationals. Several months prior to his arrest in Germany, Salim used to travel to Bosnia in 1998 where both his VISA and needed housing were sponsored by the "Benevolence International Foundation "—A so-called charitable organization based in Palos Hills, Ill and recently closed by the FBI under accusations that this charity occupied in providing support to various key terrorist persons and Al-Qaeda groups involved in military and terrorist activities ..

The Al-Qaeda network has been carefully constructed for many years, especially in the United States. Everything that could not be done by the variant intelligence services of Islamic countries, who regard the United States as their worst enemy (Iran in particular) was done in a roundabout way by destroying the basic tenets of an American democracy, by using human naiveté, strong emotions in addition to usage of propaganda to instigate great American compassion for Islamic sufferings abroad, especially within and regarding Palestine. Humanitarian NGOs were also carefully (wisely) established by leaders of Al-Qaeda in all the major United States cities. A group of Iranians arrested in 2001 at the Los Angeles International Airport collected between five and ten thousand U.S. dollars daily for so-called aid to the suffering Iranian children.

According to the FBI, this money wasn’t collected for mere charitable intentions, but rather for purely terrorist purposes. Furthermore, the United Nations has allowed many Al-Qaeda terrorists to masquerade under a cloak of decency by actually providing the terrorist agency with actually cold-hard cash, which could then thereafter be used to fund variant terrorist crimes.The United Nations donated money to Muwafaq for so-called "Promoting educational and social development programmers…" in Sudan. The U.N. also donated more than $1.4 million of U.S. Dollars to a consortium of Islamic Charities working in the Sudan in 1997. One of the members was the Muwafaq meaning in the true Arabic, "Blessed relief foundation." According to U.N. Treasury officials, this very charity was used by Al-Qaeda cells in order to/for transfer of literally millions of dollars to Bin Laden. The United States Treasury itself strongly believes that wealthy Islamic businessman Yasin al-Qadi set up the initial charity. Subsequently it was closed during an initial post Spetember 11th crackdown after the terrorist attacks upon tht two World Trade Center buildings. During the September 11th plane attacks on the World Trade Center buildings, it was elucidated that Al-Qaida's assets were among those frozen by the Treasury for possessing alleged links to terrorism.

 

Practical example You can find in:

 

16. REPORT ON ILLEGAL FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES AND TERRORISM FINANCING ON THE TERRITORY OF THE FEDERATION OF BOSNIA I HERZEGOVINA PART I/I/ABIHBQ – 08/2003 by JEAN-CHARLESBRISARD, LEAD INVESTIGATOR, 911 LAWSUIT :

 

“Bosnian banks Vakufska Banka D.D. and Depozitna Banka D.D. have supported, facilitated and participated in terrorism financing on the territory of Bosnia Herzegovina. These banks were funded by two SDGT, Yasin Al Kadi and Chafiq Ayadi, along with a Saudi-controlled offshore company based in the Isle of Man, whose main shareholder is a member of the Saudi royal family, nephew of King Fahd and son of the Saudi Deputy Minister of Interior. Other shareholders of the banks have also supported terrorism in the past. The bank has provided financial support to several organizations acting as fronts for Al-Qaida, including Muwafaq Foundation, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Saudi High Commission for Relief in Bosnia Herzegovina, some of which have already been designated as SDGT by the US Government.”

In further text, we are going to let you know some details from this REPORT / Following lines bellow will enlight some interesting details from REPORT above.

“Vakufska Banka D.D. (aka Vakufska Bank) is registered in Sarajevo,          Bosnia & Herzegovina, with an address at Ferhadija 2, 71000, Sarajevo, Tel: +387 71 470903, Fax: +387 71 2005971. The bank was founded in 1992 in Sarajevo, and is currently chaired by Amir Rizvanovic, serving as General Director. Vakufka Banka has 70 employees and maintains several branches in Bosnia & Herzegovina (Zenica, Mostar, Bihac…) and banking correspondents in several European countries (Italy, Germany, Belgium…).

In 2002, Vakufska Banka reported a capital of 16.4 million KM ($9,300,000 US), while its total assets raise 55,920,000 KM ($28,670,000 US) for the same year.

In August 2002 the Bosnian Federal Banking Agency authorized the merge of Vakufska Banka and Depozitna Banka.

Depozitna Banka D.D. was a private bank owned by Yasin al Kadi (44.3%) and Mahmal Investments Company based in the Isle of Man (44.2%). The entity was under Bosnian and foreign investigation for years. The official documentation dated 2000 from Depozitna Banka D.D., based in Vrazova 9, Sarajevo, and shows that Yasin al Kadi was the first shareholder of the bankalso the mayor one in the same time.

The shareholding structure of Depositna Banka D.D., in December 31, 2000 (Before merging with Vakufska Banka D.D.), was as follows:

Name of shares held                                         Percentage

Yasin Kadi                                                           44.3%

 

Mahmal Invest Co Limited                                44.2%

BH Banka Sarajevo                                          2.4%                                                                                       

BH Osiguranje                                     2.1%

                                                           

Centralexport Sarajevo                                     1.3%

Since October 2001, Yasin al Kadi (aka Yassin Qadi, Yasin al-Qadi), 47,is labeled by the U.S. Treasury, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) and his assets are frozen in the U.S. and Europe. Yasin al Kadi is at the center of various financings through his company “Qadi International” and financial activities in the Balkans.

Even if he is still unconfined in Saudi Arabia, where he resides, Yasin al Kadi is one of the six directors of Muwafaq Humanitarian Organization, an organization that provided assistance to the Al-Qaida network. In June 1998, Yasin al Kadi is named/mentioned, referred to in FBI report on money laundering charges at the profit/to the benefiting of Hamas, a terrorist organization.

Muhammad, Chafiq Ayadi (Aka. Ayadi Shafiq, Ben Muhammad; Aka. Ayadi Chafik, Ben Muhammad; Aka. Aiadi, Ben Muhammad; Aka. Aiady, Ben Muhammad), (01/21/63 Safais, Tunisia), took part in activities of Depozitna Banka and became in 1996 co-owner of Depozitna Banka in Sarajevo. Chafiq Ayadi is a Tunisian national but as well a holder of a Bosnian citizenship. Chafiq Ayadi was a business associate of Yasin al Kadi.

Chairman of Muwafak Foundation in Zagreb, Croatia, Chafiq Ayadi is on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, pursuant to Executive Order 13224. In April 1996, a sum of USD 500,000 was transferred to the SKB account of Bin Muhamad Chafiq Ayadi by a Saudi national, Salem Bin Mahfouz (believed to be Khalid Bin Salem Bin Mahfouz). Chafiq Ayadi became the majority owner of Depozitna Banka on July 27, 1995. Recently, Chafiq Ayadi accounts have been investigated by Croatian financial police on terrorism charges. While Chafiq Ayadi was the co-owner of Depozitna Banka, he transferred through the bank DM 2.5 millions to the account of the Muwafaq Foundation. Furthermore, Chafiq Ayadi became also co-owner of Euroinvest D.O.O. in Sarajevo, which shared the same address as Depozitna Banka. The second co-owner of Euroinvest D.O.O. used to be Yasin al-Kadi, who was also co-owner of Depozitna Banka and became co-owner of Vakufska Banka. Chafiq Ayadi left Depozitna Banka in September 2000. He sold his shares to Yasin al Kadi. On March 30, 2001, the Banking Agency rescinded the Depozitna Banka’s permit, and the bank merged with Vakufska Banka.

Euroinvest D.O.O., based in Bosnia with an address at Ulica Armije BH bb, 75264 Lukavac, was one of the most regular provider of Al Haramain Al Masjed Al Aqsa charitable foundation during the 2000-2001 period.

Based on al-Kadi's previous shares in "Depozitna Banka", he should have earned 20% of the shares of Vakufska Banka, nominally worth 3.2 million KM ($1,815,000 US). According to intelligence sources, Yasin al Kadi is still co-owner of Vakufska Banka through another Sarajevo front company. Certainly he was already the main shareholder into Depozitna Banka when the entity merged with Vakufska Banka.

During the years, Depozitna Banka and then, Vakufska Banka, were owned by Saudi businessman Yasin Al Kadi, who is under US investigation for terrorism charges and by a Saudi shadow company called Mahmal Investment Company, currently under Bosnian investigation by the FOSS, Financial Police and Federal Banking Agency.

Moreover, according to the official registry of Vakufska Banka shareholders, El Tarik Oil D.O.O., an oil company based in Sarajevo, was also shareholder with 8% of Vakufska Banka capital in year 2000. Another documented report from the Bosnian Financial Police indicates in 2002 that El Tarik Oil D.O.O. is a regular provider for the Saudi High Commission and al Haramain al Aqsa foundation in Sarajevo, both involved in logistical support to al-Qaida.

Finally, among the Vakufska Banka shareholders also stands a foundation called “Fondacija Bosnjaci Mostar” and “Rijaset Islamke Zajednice”, their shares are respectively 18% and 11% in year 2000. Both foundations receive donations from abroad, and particularly from Saudi Arabia.

Nezim Halilovic Muderis, director of Wakf Directorate of the BiH Islamic Community, responsible for these foundations, is a preacher at the Sarajevo King Fahd Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Mosque.

Rijaset Islamke Zajednice, or Islamic Community of Bosnia Herzegovina publishes the monthly “Preporod” (Renaissance). In one of its issues in May 1992, the newspaper stressed the “virtues of the Islamic warefare” to the fighters for the independent and multinational Bosnia and Herzegovina, advising them “to purify themselves so that they couldfeed on the Divine spring”. In the text entitled “We feel no fear”, Preporod gave these pieces of advice in a text which looks remarkably similar to Mohamed Atta’s last instructions to the September 11 hijackers:

“Set out to the battle with pure intentions and full confidence in Allah - if you survive, you will become heroes; if you are killed, you will be martyrs, otherwise - you will lose both and be humiliated; if possible, start off with ablutions, but always with God's name in your heart and on your lips; you must never leave unwashed (after nocturnal emission or marital intercourse) for such person could cause adversity both to himself and others; during your assault at or confrontations with the enemy, utter the cries "Allah ekber!"; if possible, carry the Koran with you”.

The shareholding structure of Vakufska Banka for years 2000 (before merger) and 2001 (post merger) was the following (note that total percentage does not equal 100%):

Name  % of shares in 2000      % of shares in 2001

Individual

investors                       29%                             36.6%

Mahmal

Investment

Co Limited                   -                                   21.1%

Fondacija Bosnjaci

Mostar                         18%                             8.8%

Finance Ministry           74%                             6.9%

Rijaset Islamske

Zajednice BiH 11%                             5.1%

Tarik El Oil d.o.o.

Sarajevo                       8%                                               -

“According to a sworn statement filed by FBI Special Agent Robert Wright, BMI “had receive financing from [Yassin Kadi] and United States designated HAMAS terrorist [Musa abu Marzook].” In October 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of Yassin Kadi and listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, citing his financial support for Al-Qaeda through a “relief” organization called Muwafaq, or Blessed Relief. Agent Wright had initially investigated BMI as part of an ongoing Hamas fundraising investigation in the United States. According to an Affidavit filed by Wright, Yassin Kadi put up $820,000 for a real estate deal structured to funnel proceeds to Hamas operative Mohammed Salah.

And :

“But by then, it was hardly a secret that BIF was involved in more than just charitable activities. The entity openly advertised itself in its Arabic-language fundraising appeals as a “trustworthy hand for the support of [both] the mujahideen and refugees” in Bosnia. Similarly, documents taken from BIF’s U.S.-based offices in December 2001 included handwritten Arabic notations explaining that its headquarters in Croatia was established “for relief operations and support of jihad in Bosnia-Herzegovina… Contribute with your mujahideen brothers to repel the Crusader-Zionist attack on Muslim lands.” Another handwritten note found in Illinois by investigators revealed BIF’s supreme “unwritten law”: “no matter how poor/sick – first priority is for mujahideen.” The raid of BIF’s Illinois office also turned up a number of other documents directly related to the war in Bosnia: a receipt dated July 21. 1994. from the “Black Swans” Bosnian Muslim commando brigade for 300 blankets and 200 pairs of boots obtained from BIF; a receipt from the BiH army dated      June 3. 1994. for 2.000 uniforms, 2.000 pairs of shoes, and ten “mass communication stations” donated by BIF to “this military unit”; a request dated December 31.1994. from the Bosnian military for a combat ambulance (later delivered as promised in January 1995);and, a memorandum to BIF director Enaam Arnaout dated November 17.1995. describing the recent contribution of 200 tents to the Muslim army. In an interview conducted in 1992, BIF founder Adel Batterjee denied that his brainchild was actively encouraging its employees to aid or join the militant mujahideen operating in the Balkans; however, he also nonetheless added, “if a relief worker decides that he wants to join the fighting forces, we would not stop him.”

17. Why the United States have Reasons to Worry?

Associated Press reported on

"...NATO authorities who raided a Saudi aid agency last fall found computer files containing photographs of terrorist targets and street maps of Washington with government buildings marked, a senior U.S. official disclosed Thursday…The newspaper continued that…

"…The October raid of the Sarajevo office of the Saudi High Commissioner for Aid to Bosnia also netted a computer program explaining how to use crop duster aircraft to spread pesticide, and materials used to make fake U.S. State Department identification badges and credit cards, the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity."

In mentioning/references from the Saudi High Commissioner for Aid to Bosnia, it must be taken into account that the Saudi rulers have been well known for transferring huge sums of money to this particular "charitable" agency. Over the past nine years, the agency alone has spent approximately $600million U.S. dollars for its "activities" within Bosnia. The money came from various donations made by certain prominent Saudi businessmen and also from certain Saudi governmental grants.

Equally sad and ironic is a fact that King Fahd personally contributed the sum of $34 million U.S. dollars to the agency now known for being affiliated with Al-Qaeda’s activities of terrorism. It is also crystals clear that not all the money was yet used for whichever humanitarian purposes at all, but rather for something much more sinister which evidently is Osama bin Laden’s Bosnian Al-Qaeda network of "charities."

Daniel Benjamin, director of Transnational Threats located at the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration, said Al-Qaeda was also using "charities" including several named: Maktab Khidmat or "Services Bureau", as well as another called Mercy International Relief Organization. These charities were also used by the terrorists for relaying messages and funding for its operations.

Now, Bosnian authorities too, are conducting intense investigations of connections between Benevolence International Foundation of Palos Hills, Ill. and Mr. Hadz Boudella, "a charity worker" recently arrested (October 2001) in Sarajevo. Afterward he was turned over to the U.S. authorities who transported him to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Apparently Boudella worked for Benevolence International in Zenica between 1992 through 1994 and is believed to be connected to Abu Al-Me'Ali, the leader of a unit of Islamic fighters in Zenica. Boudella was also working closely with another "Islamic charity" called "Human Appeal International" in the period of his arrest, according to his wife Nadja Dizdarevic. Apparently, when Boudella and many others were handed over to the U.S. anti-terrorist forces this past January, the American authorities said they also suspected Boudella’s involvement with two Islamic militant groups--Algeria's Armed Islamic Group and Egypt's al-Gama'a al Islamiyya. Boudella came to Bosnia in 1992 and he claimed that he wanted to perform humanitarian work with an organization called Al Bir, Dizdarevic as stated by Mr. Al Bir Al. "Dawalia" is the Arabic translation meaning "Benevolence International Foundation" according to an FBI affidavit from Chicago.

The Global Relief Foundation was located in Bridgeview and the Benevolence International Foundation in Palos Hills ,the two were scrutinized over by a fine tooth comb by the American FBI whose spokeswoman Ebony Harrel said:

"The head of one of the nation's largest Muslim charities was charged with allegedly lying about his involvement with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network of terror. In a 35-page criminal complaint, the government contends that Enaam M. Arnaout and the Benevolence International Foundation supported bin Laden operatives who were searching for nuclear and chemical materials and plotting terrorist strikes around the world."

Mr. Ennam Arnaout launched Benevolence's operations from Bosnia / Herzegovina during 1992 and ostensibly, to distribute relief supplies to both civilians and soldiers. He was eventually granted Bosnian citizenship (February 8th 1996). His passport is among 300 issued between 1995 and 1996 that Bosnian authorities are now investigating as to determine whether they were handled properly. The complaint alleges that Arnaout had very close ties with Osama bin Laden and his top aides dating back to the 1980s when the Syrian-born naturalized American was living in Pakistan. In other words, during 1989, bin Laden asked Arnaout to take care of one of his wives at his home in Pakistan until he could pick her up according to certain governmental officials. Arnaout also was an administrator for bin Laden, distributing funds on his behalf according to a confidential witness now cooperating with the Bosnian government. The complaint also alleges that the foundation sponsored the man’s false VISA and also paid for his housing in Bosnia and also for the other man, Mamdouh Salim, another vital key bin Laden associate. Salim allegedly approved the purchase of uranium required for production of nuclear weapons. The initial Al-Qaeda operative ordered to carry out the purchase of this uranium, Mohamed Bayazid, used the foundation's address in Illinois to obtain a driver's license according to the complaint. Salim was later arrested in Germany (1998) and is currently awaiting trial in New York City on charges of conspiring with bin Laden and al-Qaida to kill U.S. citizens.

“In the New York area, BIF was represented by a senior Bosnian diplomat and “Minister Counsellor” at the Bosnian Mission to United Nations in Manhattan: Saffet Abid Catovic. Since 1993, Catovic has been a prominent charitable fundraiser for the Balkans and an outspoken voice at the UN mission on Islamic religious and political issues. He has had a close relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, in interviews in 1994, he publicly thanked the Saudis for their generous financial assistance to Bosnian religious projects. However, he has since noted: “there was no way to do wire transfers into Bosnia; it had to be physically carried—the funds had to be physically carried in to give the people, uh, financial help… it’s not unusual.” Given his fundamentalist activism in the northeastern United States, it is clear that Catovic was also using his position to advocate “holy struggle” against the opponents of radical Islam, including inside the United States. Testifying in Immigration court, Catovic denied supporting the blind Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman (head of the Egyptian Al-Gama`at Al-Islamiyya terror organization) but nonetheless added, “I admire his recitation of the Koran… [h]e’s a blind man who recites Koran very beautifully.” During his testimony, Catovic also admitted that he indeed has met Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, the current General Secretary of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), “once or twice” at terrorist fundraising conferences held in the United States by the Tampa-based Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP).New York police who arrested El Sayyid Nosair, the assassin of militant Jewish leader Meir Kahane and co-conspirator in the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing, found Saffet Catovic’s business card from the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation amongst Nosair’s personal effects. In a videotaped theological lecture published by an Islamic media outlet in New Jersey, Catovic introduced Siddig Ali (also later convicted of a central role in a fundamentalist conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks in 1993) to speak on the subject of “Jihad: The Forgotten Duty.” Catovic offered heartfelt praise of Siddig, and told his camera audience that they should feel “honored to have our dear brother from Sudan, a land which is participating in the Jihad in the struggle itself, and by the mercy of Allah, has almost succeeded in gaining that victory totally and completely.” Siddig Ali ordered to his followers amongst viewers:

“If the Da`wa [Islamic Call] is confronted, anybody, anywhere, by any power, then the sword is to be absolutely used and implemented… But let’s come back to our Muslims that are with us today and Brother Saffet just showed us today a video of what is going on today in Muslim Bosnia. What happened to our involvement as Muslims, to attack the core of this disease? …Allah (SWT) warned us in the Qur`an when he said, ‘O you who believe, what is the matter with you, that when it is time that you are asked to go forth to fight in the cause of Allah, you cling heavily to the earth? …As if we came back from our respective countries with the same defeatist mentality, that we cannot announce and pronounce these ayat [verses] of Jihad… because we are still afraid that the CIA or the FBI or the authorities or countries are going to be behind us… [and we do not] confront the kuffar [infidels] who has taken our own sisters, our brothers, as slaves in Bosnia.” It is, of course, fundamentally significant that Catovic, a senior official at BIF (an organization now officially recognized by the U.S. government as an Al-Qaida terrorist front group), had such a close relationship with Siddig Ali, one of the lead conspirators in the 1993 New York terror plots.

On November 24.2000,the Dorral Forrestal Conference Center in Princeton, New Jersey hosted a three-day local Muslim “spiritual retreat.” One of the speakers at the event was Saffet Catovic, whose lecture was titled “Political and Social Jihad.”In an article about the retreat,the author explained, “Brother Saffet Catovic has been active in the Bosnian Jihad for many years.” Between August 20-26, 2001, Catovic was a featured invitee and speaker at a “Jihad Camp” organized for Muslim men between the ages of 14 and 25, sponsored by the northeast regional branch of the “Young Muslims of North America.” Though there was no explicit mention of any martial purpose, the flyer was printed in camouflage colors and the text was in military-style block print. The conference registration form began with a quote from the Qur`an: “Jihad is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike something which is good for you and that you like something which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.” One of the other lecturers at the Jihad Camp (who has teamed up with Catovic at many other speaking events) was Imam Siraj Wahaj, a radical African-American Muslim cleric, listed by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White in 1995 as an “unindicted person who may be alleged as [a] conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Another search conducted on (December 16th 2001) at a Benevolence International Foundation office in Newark, N.J., according to Dean Boyd, spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service said that the group claiming to be an "Islamic Charity", is cooperating with FBI officials and said:

"It's part of a higher level of scrutiny of all Muslim relief organizations.''

It is important to underline that Safet Catovic are also more members of AID (The Secret Service of Bosnian Muslims). During this same time no report was uncovered by FBI Officials stating that any proof was his possession regarding his true identity accept for a U.N. badge which manifested outwardly that he was apparently a Minister Counsellor at the Bosnia Mission to the United Nations.

His ID had apparently expired (October 31st 2003). Until today there is no explanation as to whereby Catovic had simultaneously been both a charity worker and also a Bosnian UN Mission Diplomat. That question still lingers! Furthermore, Catovic organized an active Jihad Camp in Pennsylvania very close by to a place where one of planes crashed on September 11th 2001. This Jihad Camp was held only one month prior to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack on America between (August 20 to 26th 2001).

At the same time as the Illinois searches, two Global Relief Foundation offices that were located in the Former Yugoslavia parts of Bosnia and Kosovo were also investigated/searched over by NATO-led peacekeepers and also their associated U.N. police. A NATO spokesman said three people were detained there but gave no additional details. The monetary / financial asset holdings of both these groups are now frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department said State Department spokesman Tony Fratto. He also stated that since "Early Saturday there was coordinated actions to block the assets because the groups are both suspected of funding terrorist activities.''

Officials said the Chicago searches were conducted by the U.S. Treasury Department, the FBI and the U.S. Customs Department and the actual Search Warrants themselves were sealed. Fratto cited the Patriot Act signed on (October 26th 2001) by U.S. President George Bush which gives federal agents much broader powers to detain immigrants, eavesdrop on telephone calls and look at emails. The Act also gives Officials new powers to actively share anti-terrorist sensitive informational details of all and any ongoing criminal investigations with the CIA. Moreover, U.S. President George Bush Jr. on (11/7/01) stated:

 "We put the world's financial institutions on notice: if you do business with terrorists, if you support them or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America."

Additionally, September 28th 2001, the U.N. adopted a new Security Council Resolution 1363 (2001). This instructs UN member States to take all and every of the necessary steps to freeze the financial funds of entities and/or persons suspected of committing, and/or posing significant risks of committing, or providing material support for any future acts of terrorism.

The NATO statements regarding the recent raids on the Islamic Global Relief offices in Yugoslavia, said UN Peacekeepers and U.N. police had received credible information that Global Relief may have been directly involved in supporting terrorism. On Sunday December 16th 2001, Federal agents raided the Bridgeview offices of another Islamic charity called, "The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development." Authorities said this new Texas based charity is believed to be a front for raising money for Islamic Al-Qaeda terrorist groups such as Hammas.

17-1. Sead Jakup, Bosnian Muslim wanted to set the temple ablaze in New York-2003

 

 

The Pakistani immigrant said he watched in disbelief as Sead Jakup, 22, took the canister across the street and began dousing the Young Israel of Kings Bay synagogue. Ali quickly called 911, and cops arrived before Jakup, a Bosnian Muslim, could set the temple ablaze.

"Mr. Ali saved the shul [synagogue]," said Allen Popper, president of the synagogue. "He's a hero." Ali said that Jakup first asked to pump gas into a plastic bucket. Assuming the man's car had run out of fuel, Ali gave him a gas can to fill up. He said he couldn't believe his eyes when Jakup marched straight to the synagogue.

"I saw him spilling gas on the sign in front of the synagogue," Ali said. "Then, he started spilling it onto the door - that is when I called 911."

 

18. Back to Bosnia’s Linkages to Al-Qaeda

All Mujahahedin’s allegedly claiming to be born within Bosnia has declared themselves as "humanitarian workers" or holders of some form of a diplomatic passport. Most of them however were found out later to be merely plain members members of extremist Islamic groups such as: Al-Gama’a al Islamiyya, Hamas, GIA....Hezbolah....etc.. All of their basic operational needs have been apparently covered by a network of many of these so similar-like so-called "Islamic charities" such as the Benevolence Intonations Foundation and the Global Relief Found...all of these terrorist charitable organizations primarily had at least some form of their headquarters in both the United States and also some had their headquarters also in another Islamic Country.

The names of following persons are of those who received money from the aforementioned "charities" in the form of so-called "humanitarian aid" which they later "donated" to the high military command of the militant Mujaheddin groups located outside of America which used the money for waging Jihad:

Name & Surname	Donation Amount	Remarks
1. Abu Jusuf	$30.800 $	Purchased weapons
2. Abu al-Haris	$ 5.500 $	Command requirements
3. Abu al Migvar	$12.000 $	Purchased munitions
4. Abu Hamza	$13.000 $	Command requirements
5. Abu Yassir	$15.000 $	Purchased munitions
6. Abu Sanad	$500 (riyals)	Command requirements
7. Abu Eyub	$200 $	Purchased cow & drinks

Or for example:

“The involvement of Yasin Al Kadi and Chafiq Ayadi in both Depositna Banka and Vakufska Banka with the financial backing of Mahmal Investment Co. Limited, has provided for years a financial arm/aid to Islamic charities and terrorist organizations operating in Bosnia Herzegovina. In 2002, an intelligence report from the Bosnian Intelligence Services (AID- Agency for investigation and Documentation) revealed the active role of Vakufska Banka D.D. in terrorism funding. Indeed, AID described Vakufska Banka D.D. and the merged Depozitna Banka D.D., as a financial platform assisting al Haramain Islamic Foundation and al-Qaeda activities:

 

"The HO (al Haramain) spent around 13,000,000 KM ($7,647,000) between its foundation in 1997 and the end of last year2000. Financial transactions were through accounts at the Depozit[na] Bank, now the Vakufska Bank, whose major shareholders have been linked with PIS operating illegal money laundering".

The Bosnian Intelligence memo regarding the activities of Al Haramain states the following:

"Given all the above security factors, we believe that the clear lack of any concrete humanitarian projects indicates that the existence of this HO [Humanitarian Organization] was a fictitious cover (...)"

The report establishes Al Haramain role in financing and assisting Osama Bin Laden operations:

 

"Saudi HO [Humanitarian Organization] Al Haramain, (...) has acted as a channel for financing the activities of terrorist organizations. (...) According to available intelligence, the Sarajevo office assisted the terrorist organization Gama Al Islamija, while members of Bin Laden's El Itihad al Islamija (AIAI) terrorist groups were employed at the Somalia offices, which also financed their operations."

In March 2002, during the Anti-terrorism operations in Bosnia, the new Vakufska Banka's director, Amir Rizvanovic recognized that Al Haramain was an active client of Vakufska Banka, while Nurudin Kusturica (bank's director for nine years) left the bank since the discovery that a former co-owner of Depozitna Banka and current co-owner of Vakufska Banka was on the list of SDGT for supporting terrorism.

Sulejman Vranj is a Bosnian Army Brigadier General and the former chief of the Personnel Office of the BH Federation Army's Joint Command. On February 2,2002, US General John Sylvester, as SFOR Commander, banned General Vranj to work in any military service "because of his participation in protests during the extradition of the Algerian Group to the US". The Algerian group was part of Al-Qaeda, and since then, General Vranj has been engaged in the Board of directors of Vakufska Banka. Additionally, according to Bosnian Financial Police documentation, Vakufska Banka is involved in terrorism financing through financial transactions between the Saudi High Commission for Relief and a company named Engra, managed by Balta Edin.

Balta Edin (son of Muharem), born on 12/30/1964 in Sarajevo, and residing in Sarajevo, director of the firm "Engra," D.O.O., Zenica, submitted false information about legally earned income of the firm in 1998, 1999, and 2000, of the income that he, as the firm's representative, personally received in cash from a customer at the foreign humanitarian organization Saudi High Commission for Relief.

These money laundering transactions were operated between Engra D.O.O. headed by Balta Edin and the Saudi High Commission for Relief, convicted to funnel money to al-Qaeda operatives in Bosnia, and Vakufska Banka.

From 1998 to 2000, Engra D.O.O. conducted financial transactions on behalf of an organization linked to UBL through the following bank accounts: account 1604205500000502, opened with DD "Vakufska Banka," Sarajevo, Zenica Branch and account 1602000000869046 (from 04/08/2002), opened with DD "Depozitna Banka" Sarajevo.

For years, either Depozitna Banka or Vakufska Banka have been associated with the funding of Islamic projects in BiH.

According to the report by the Bosnian Ambassador to the UN, Mirza Kusljugic provided to the UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), a special investigation has been conducted in Bosnia to check the funds and assets of suspected individuals and agencies, which led to the freezing of two accounts in Vakufska Banka, the account of a citizen of Saudi Arabia [Yasin al Kadi]which amounted to 3.5 million DM as well as the account of an Investment Company from the Middle East [Mahmal Investment Co. Limited] which also amounted to 3.5 million DM.

Vakufska Banka has several partners in Europe and especially in Turkey, where the Bosnian bank is above all the main correspondent of Al Baraka Turkish Finance House, known to be connected to the Spanish cell of al-Qaida. Mohamed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi, financial head of al-Qaida in Spain, and financier of the Hamburg cell, transferred to UBL Courier for Europe, Mohamed Baiahah (aka Abu Khaled), $97,000 US on July 2000, through al Baraka Turkish Finance House in Turkey. According to the Spanish police documentation,Muhamed Galeb Kalaje Zouaydi used several times Al Baraka Turkish Finance House to transfer money to al-Qaida operatives.

Regarding the activities of Al Baraka Turkish Finance House in Bosnia, the long-term inquiry conducted by Bosnian intelligence revealed that Al Baraka Bank provided support to Al Haramain operations and helped transfer funds for Osama Bin Laden operations. The Agency for investigation and Documentation - AID - gives further details in a memorandum titled "Some illegal activities of humanitarian organizations investigated by the relevant investigative bodies of the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina (FBiH)" :

 

"Records available for 1998 show a flow of money into the so-called "operating" account of the HO [Humanitarian Organization] at the Deposit Bank, Sarajevo, from the "main" account, sent from Saudi Arabia via the Deutsche Bank and the Albaraka Bank in Turkey. The amount is 1,059,687 DEM [$2.13 million US]".

Al Baraka Turkish Finance House, Al Baraka branch in Turkey is a subsidiary of the Dallah Al Baraka group

 

These and many other similar type Jihad warriors were supported via like "charities" which were mostly located within North America and all involved in some terrorist activities. The United States have great reason to worry. Experts on terrorism claim that the largest act of terrorism ever ,which happened on September 11^th. 2001 could not have been accomplished without at least 100 people involved in its planning. This undoubtedly indicates that the Al-Qaeda network is evidently located comfortably within the United States and has been for many years. Finally, the United States is using its strong allies and associated connections to undertake a war against Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups like it. This will not be an easy uncomplicated task however.

19. The Structural Characteristics of Al-Qaeda’s Terrorist Network Within the United States Based on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Osama bin Laden Terrorist Experiences and Lessons Learned the United States can Benefit From.

1. Structurally, the network is consisted of humanitarian organizations, associations and community centers for Muslims living in the US.

2. Non-Muslims were often involved in the aforementioned organizations' operations, providing the cover of multi-ethnicity and concealing the Muslim and Islamic nature of the organizations.

3. In addition to the aforementioned organizations in the US, the network also includes diplomatic channels of some Islamic countries, their secret services and UN missions, whenever diplomatic cover was/is needed. It is important to keep in mind that almost one third of the countries in the world are Islamic states, and their manipulation of the world organization/s represent a genuine threat.

a) The Al-Qaeda network consists of the following committees:

The Western Balkans has been a region of interest to Islamic extremists for decades. Numerous Muslims living in the so-called “Green Traverse” represent both a recruitment pool and a springboard for attacks in Western Europe. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Raska region (a.k.a. Sanjak) are frequently used as Jihad’s gateway into the European heartland. The notion is not new, only more visible today than ever before.

One tactic the Islamic fanatics implemented in the Western Balkans was population warfare. When Muslims are a minority, they seek to increase their numbers through high birthrates – sometimes ten times those of the non-Muslim populace. Once they attain a majority in a desired territory, they invoke the popular claim of Islamic fanatics: “Allah’s law on Allah’s land”. Thus in mid-1994, the top Bosnian Muslim cleric (Reis-ul-ulema) Mustafa Ceric issued a decree ordering Bosnian Muslim women to bear at least five children.

Studies of Islamic extremists’ activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Balkans in general, their international connections, and the consequences of their political, propaganda and terrorist activities (including war crimes) have provided valuable insights into the global Islamic terror network. According to the available information, the Al-Qaeda network seems to consist of several committees. Every committee is an important link in the chain, engaged at the local, national and international level. International activity includes the recruitment of individuals with substantial political power, which can be used to further Islamic fundamentalist objectives.

The Financial Committee has the task to provide the Network’s funding. Fundraising methods differ from place to place, but rely mainly on accounts directly or indirectly available to Osama Bin Laden and the funds provided through the wide network of “humanitarian organizations” which use their charity as a cover for fundraising and recruitment of future terrorists. This committee is also in charge of money transfers. One of its methods is the “hawala” system, where money and other commodities are transferred directly, without the involvement of banks. Such transactions are virtually impossible to trace. Basic funding derives primarily from the production and distribution of narcotics – specifically heroin, which is produced in Afghanistan, then distributed to Western European and US markets through a sophisticated network. One Kosovo Albanian was recently arrested at the Bajakovo border crossing between Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro, in possession of 48 kg of heroin. By and large, Kosovo Albanians are not Islamic fanatics, but as heroin smugglers, they are an important link in Al-Qaeda’s chain. Profits from the heroin trade are also very difficult to trace.

Funds thus obtained are put to use in pursuit of Islamic fanatics’ darkest aims. Al-Qaeda and other organizations act locally, but think globally. For example, the newly established Islamic terrorist organization, LIVO, whose striking fist is the Uzbekistan Islamic Movement, is pursuing the plan for establishing Islamic states – and eventually, the Caliphate – in Central Asia, funded and aided by the Financial and the Military committees of Al-Qaeda.

 

The Law and Religion committee focuses on justifying terrorist activities. In conjunction with the Media committee, it promotes the view that everywhere in the world, Muslims are constant victims, and even when they do commit atrocities, those are fully justified as self-defense and righteous Jihad. The ultimate aim is to foment conflict between all Muslims and the rest of the civilized world.

The Media Committee coordinates with the owners of pro-fundamentalist media and activists inside major media outlets to spread Islamic fundamentalist propaganda. The basic function of this Committee is to justify the activities of Islamic fundamentalists. The main weapon is to claim that Muslims are always and everywhere the exclusive victims of violence. Of course, truth is completely different, because the Islamic fundamentalists initiate violence for the purpose of establishment of the pan-Islamic Ummah, a theocracy that excludes the existence of other religions. For example, in Kosovo-Metohia Islamic extremists among the Kosovo Albanians, with Al-Qaeda’s help, have managed to create a perception that the Albanian majority was endangered by the Serb minority. Thanks to the work of the Media Committee, the secession and terrorism of Islamic fundamentalists among the Kosovo Albanians were presented as a “struggle for freedom.” One of the main objectives of the Islamic fundamentalists’ global network is to create a perception in the world public opinion that Muslims are always the victims, in order to justify conflict and conquest. Victim status is thus claimed for Kosovo Albanians, their co-religionists in Kashmir, Palestine, Russia (Chechnya), Sudan, Tanzania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Malaysia, East Timor, etc.

In addition to recruiting and training the Jihadi suicide bombers, the Military Committee also coordinates, plans, and commands terrorist activities throughout the world. It organizes logistical support for the attacks, sets the objectives and maintains communication with terrorist cells, all for the purpose of accomplishing the ultimate objective – a global Islamic state, Ummah, built by jihad and atrocities in the name of Allah. One of the first camps training the members of the global Islamic terror network was in Iran, established by Imam Khomeini personally. The first commander of the camp was Sheik Abbas Golru, a prominent member of the Syrian-run Palestinian terrorist organization al-Saiqa.

The NGO Committee coordinates an entire network of NGOs connected by the shared ideals of Islamic fundamentalism and common funding. These organizations often have names that lack any Islamic identification. The goal of these organizations is to infiltrate the civil society of countries such as the US, UK, France and Italy, but also countries such as Tanzania and Nigeria. These NGOs have many purposes, but the main one is to raise funds for Islamic fundamentalists and influence the public opinion of the host countries. Many of these NGOs are cover for Islamic countries’ intelligence operations. Islamic countries used to have rudimentary intelligence operations, but that situation has changed. They have a defined goal – the creation of the Ummah. They have a defined enemy – all those who do not follow the Koran, non-Muslims, “the infidels.” They have a defined method of struggle – terrorism. This is truly a frightening danger to modern civilization, the one the entire world should be concerned about.

The Government Committee recruits government officials of target nations, contributes financially and otherwise to the campaigns of recruited elected officials, and coordinates with intelligence services of terrorism-sponsoring nations. This Committee pursues the goal of establishing the Ummah by working through government institutions both nationally and internationally. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is a typical example of how the Islamic fundamentalist network is protected internationally. The organization has over 60 members, and is currently the strongest international voting bloc in the United Nations.

It is extremely important to note that every committee can function autonomously. The model depicted above is a basic scheme of Al-Qaeda, which is defined as all organizations serving the cause of Islamic extremists. Al-Qaeda does not have a supreme command, but a supreme objective. Its instructions are what the Islamic extremists believe is contained in the Koran. All this makes Al-Qaeda unpredictable. Only observation and analysis of the committees’ actions at all levels can explain the consequences of their activities. After several decades of activity worldwide, it is becoming increasingly clear who finances the terrorists, what sort of global propaganda they employ and with whose assistance, and how entire nations are being demonized at Al-Qaeda’s behest. [Wartime Bosnian Muslim officials] Haris Silajdzic and Muhamed Sacirbey used to pay large sums of money to public relations firms, such as Ruder Finn LLC, to demonize Serbs. It is entirely clear today where this money came from.

20. Funding Al-Qaeda via the Bosnia and Herzegovina Model

Al-Qaeda’s activities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina have been primarily supported by the following activities:

1) Through Islamic fundamentalist lobbying groups worldwide and especially within the US;

2) Through various so-called "charities" run by actual terrorist Islamic fundamentalist;

Through Islamic countries directly and in particular the states: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the former Muslim Bosnian Government of which many high ranking officials thereof still are holding their political positions today;

             

A typical example case which we underline one again is that pertaining to Jusuf Halilagic who was Deputy Minister of Civilian Affaires and Communications of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr Jusuf Halilagic, was also formerly the Deputy Commander of the "Bosnian Army" 3rd Corps in charge and command of the Mujaheddin. Thereafter he was transferred to work in the Federal Ministry of Justice after the Dayton peace Accords were signed. According to Muslim news magazine "Slobodna Bosna" Jusuf Halilagic himself in 1992 brought into the country [Bosnia], one particular convoy carrying "humanitarian aid" from Croatia but in actuality was carrying a Mr.Abu Hamza one of the worst and most wanted Islamic fundamentalists alive to date.

Sheikh Omer SAYF from Yamen was one of the religius spiritual leaders of Mujaheddin units “El Mujaheddin” in Bosnia together with Abd-al Rahman, Sheikh Anwar Shaban and Abu Hamza;

(See photo, picture captured from video taped interwiev with Sheikh Omar Sayf of Yemen. “…Whereever You are, deth will catch You…Christians and Jewish…” “They accuse us we are terrorists! We are terrorists! And we will terrorise all infidels till our feith in Allah is not upper…” he said.)

24. Al-Qaeda’s Specific Intelligence Strategies

Current intelligence services of the specific countries already identified as active sponsors of terrorism often assist their associated states to hide the terrorist activities of the Al-Qaeda network by aiding the state and its officials in hiding their clandestine terrorist operations. Al-Qaeda moreover assists these terrorist sponsoring states in later denying they actively assisted Al-Quada in undertaking acts of exposed terrorism later and under the guise of the modish term today "fighting terrorism," such terrorist sponsoring states are always capable of merely arresting a few Al-Qaeda cell members when the state itself comes under the political aim and fire of as an example, the United States and/or one of itse political NATO allies as England. By making an easy arrest of a few Al-Qaeda members, terrorist sponsoring states attempt to merely pass such an arrest off as their making a larger contribution to fighting terrorism and such an easy arrest usually achieves another component to its overall goal which is to keep the political pressure off the state itself and its terrorist sponsoring activities bascked by Al-Qaeda for as long as possible before making another arrest under the pressure deriving from the western states.

Al-Qaeda has also managed to develop another terrorist methodology of sorts to attempt protecting itself and its activities. This method, premised upon many terrorist activities’ basic strategic pattern is as many times mentioned the opening of a series of humanitarian organizations, charities, financial and educational institutions including those based upon many media enterprises throughout the world. These organizations serve as mere channels for organizational fundraising, religious indoctrination, infiltration of the local Muslim population, training cadres, recruiting additional terrorists as well as the smuggling of both terrorists and weaponry. The character of activities ranges from country to country, depending on the assessment of "danger" to which the states native Muslim population is at risk to.

In countries where there no armed conflict exists between Islamic and other religions, the network’s organizations are primarily used for fundraising where the funds raised will be distributed and used elsewhere that Al-Qaeda’s leadership considers Islam needs it most. Al-Qaeda-controlled media in terrorist sponsoring states have been known to employ a program of psychological and propaganda warfare where the aim is winning over the overall public opinion in the support of Islamic causes either locally or worldwide. Similar programs are conducted by certain other Islamic cadres within educational institutions.

In areas where Al-Qaeda’s leaders deem local Muslim believers as they themselves being in some form of life threatening risk, the aforementioned organizations often act as ideal channels for the network to undertake intelligence infiltrationd into certain targeted states. They also serve as an excellent cover for terrorist activities as well as channels for infiltrating the network’s individual terrorists into target states, channeling both needed weaponry as well as money and other forms of valuable intelligence assets into geopolitical locales.

Educational institutions also serve in other valuable ways enabling Al-Qaeda to both indoctrinate and also educates new religious cadres and also others comprising the overall terrorist network serving its basic needs for existence. They also serve as additional ways of introducing the ideology of militant Islam to new possible young Muslim religious candidates as well as being use as channels for terrorist infiltration /supply.

All these organizations act as covers for the network’s unconventional warfare activities and additionally serve as individual nerve centers for Al-Qaeda’s coordinated activities to be undertaken at some unknown future time om one of the global western: political, economic, psychological and/or militant/ intelligence arenas. Through these covers, these terrorist NGO organizations attain increasingly greater social involvement coupled with being capable of better raising money/fundraising for their so-called ‘humanitarian aid activities’ in addition to undertaking their other many social, educational and economic programs. And this makes such organizations themselves out as both seemingly valuable as well as attractive institutional elements to have in existence in and of themselves for the local Islamic population. It also makes them extremely difficult targets for anti-terrorist organizations to legally shutdown. And when and if they are discovered as terrorist sponsoring organizations and when they are eventually if ever shutdown, it is wise for them to be legitimately replaced by genuine humanitarian organizations because where they are not replaced, there exist great voids and power vacuums in which new terrorist organizations can grow out thereof human economic necessity. In more times then none they eventually act merely as mere voids soon refilled by the same terrorist elements. From this large array of choices Al-Qaida recruits and trains future terrorists. To this single purpose the network exists, while incessantly seeking greater legitimacy where it can/ through its humanitarian activities offering economic assistance to the local population so that it can obtain wider acceptance amidst the local population while manipulating Islam as one of the world’s major religions.

Worldwide, most Muslims are sincere believers. However, they are still capable of becoming mere victims of Al-Qaeda’s global propaganda campaign on which it incessantly serves the cause of militant Islamist ideals which attempt justifying terrorism while simultaneously promoting notions that worldwide, Muslims are endangered by all other people and confessions/faiths. Such types of Islamist propaganda usually tends to fuse with already existing ethnic and social tensions. Islamic terrorists can use and abuse their non-governmental organizations by infiltrating them into these target areas in order to create an operationally existing forceful intelligence-gathering network that will work toward   training local recruits, conducting religious indoctrination and even participating in local conflicts.

Ultimately, by creating such an intelligence terrorist infrastructure, it would eventually act as well as operate as part of the global terrorist network.

The main goal of these cells would then be to ignite a global Jihad against all non-Muslims, globally. Hence,Al-Qaeda cells already created from the local Muslim population would actively engage in Al-Qaeda’s work according to the strategic methodology of Al-Qaeda’s instructors. Exemplary of this Al-Qaeda strategic pattern can be seen within Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo-Metohia. The Bosnian War served as an ideal opportunity for Al-Qaeda to branch out the local toward the global network structure of Islamic terrorism [in the "Bosnian model"].

Following the already described pattern of Al-Qaeda’s usage of humanitarian, educational, religious and other organizations having as a primar purpose the expansion of their universal terrorist network and its associated sponsors have been over forty existing charitable organizations already registered within the geopolitical territory of Bosnia and Croatia alone [of those known today]. Key players in importing this existing terrorism into Bosnia were the: TWRA, Fund for Islamic Rebirth, Global Relief Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation, Al-Khufan, Global Medical Relief Found, IGASA, Nahla, Al-Muwafaq, Bureau of Islamic Calling, Al-Haramain and the Saudi Refugee Committee Humanitarian Relief Agency amongst others still to be reveiled.

In 1993, Algerian Abdel Alis Zaher became head of the regional office of IGASA charity based, in Vienna. This organization also had branches in Skopje (headed by Algerian Abu Mohammed) and Zagreb (headed by Algerian Lamrani Jamel, with a nom-de-guerre Abu Musab. He will resurface in Kosovo as one of the instructors for the mojahedeen unit "Abu Bakr as-Sadiq"). All three had once been students in Belgrade, where in the early 1990s they were arrested as members of the religious terrorist organization Islamic Salvation Front, thus the ISF. The ISF, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Sudanese wing of the Islamic Brotherhood collected and gathered students from Sudan, Algeria, Egypt and Palestine into a religious terrorist organization known both as "Association of Islamic Students of Palestine" and "IGASA." After their arrest, all their members were from Yugoslavia. IGASA mostly dealt with logistics and import of weapons and ammunition for Islamic terrorists to the area.

The Bureau for Islamic Calling is headquartered in Riyadh and is sponsored by the Saudi government under the present cover of allegeded efforts in spreading the words of genuine Islam through publishing, lecturing in mosques and by contacting individuals by organizing religious gatherings. Its leader was a man whose name is Abdullah Duhayman, today serving a prison sentence in another Algerian prison.

In addition, according to Western intelligence services the same man used to be Osama Bin Laden’s top lieutenant. Al-Khufan [sp] was registered at the end of 1992, in Zagreb. In the charge of this very organization was yet another Algerian whose name is Ad Din Qirban, presently wanted by the FBI in the U.S. on terrorism charges of attempting to bomb the US Embassy in Rome. According to Mr. Kopriva Spend, the Political/Religious Commissar of the Jihad Unit named, "Abu Bekir Sidik" the Bureau for Islamic Calling located in the Balkans could be defined as:

"Is merely a religious organization whose goal is to spread Islam. Besides, every religion has its organizations which are counterparts of the Bureau for Islamic Calling and many religions, when it is necessary, formed military units for the protection of the people and the religion. Through the Bureau, we educated our faithful Islamic people about Islam and its secrets and assisted people in realizing the beauty and beneficial nature of the Islamic faith. We tried to help them grasp their true Islamic identity."

Al-Muwafaq was registered in Zagreb as a branch of another associated organization headquartered in London. It dealt with charity work between 1992 and 1996. In charge of it was a Tunisian woman, Safik Iyadi, known to Interpol for "laundering" Kuwaiti dinars , later detained by Iraq during its 1990 invasion. Her main duties were to provide support to the TWRA and infiltrate terrorists from Croatia into Bosnia. There are also direct indications pointing to certain circles in the U.S. as to her associates participating in this terrorist act.

The Saudi Arabia-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation is a private, charitable educational organization dedicated to promotion of Islamic teachings worldwide. However, an increasingly large number of its funding derives itself from grants originating from Islamic terrorist sponsoring countries, from variant individual Muslim benefactors and from certain specific campaigns, which selectively target Muslim owned business entities worldwide selectively asking them to donate funds.

The Saudi Arabia-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation is a private, charitable educational organization dedicated to promotion of Islamic teachings worldwide. What is interesting is a fact that large sums of money for funding their activities are derivates of an assortment of grants originating from countries sponsoring Islam terrorism . Thus/likewise the money is donated by individual Muslim benefactors as well as it is collected from specialy designed campaigns which select and address Muslims with their own private businesses requesting them to donate fund for an ultimate cause..

The specific branch offices of Al Haramain located in Somalia and Bosnia, are without a doubt linked to provision of finances to terrorism. The Somalia office of Al-Haramain is linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and also to the Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI), a Somali terrorist group. Al-Haramain Somalia employed AIAI members and provided them salaries through the Al-Barakaat Bank, which was designated on November 7, 2001 under [E.O. 13224] because of its activities as a principal source of funding intelligence and monetary transfers in order to supply assistance to Osama bin Laden. The Bosnian office of Al-Haramain is also linked to Al-Gama'at Al-Islamiyya, an Egyptian terrorist group.

Al-Gama'at Al-Islamiyya was designated on November 2nd 2001 and is signatory to Osama bin Laden's Fatwah dated February 23rd 1998, targeting Americans and their allies. Al-Haramain was registered in Zagreb [1992]. Later its headquarters were relocated to Zenica in Bosnia [2 Lukovo Polje Street]. Its activities in Bosnia first and foremost focused on providing the : logistical support, enabling terrorist’s infiltrations from Croatia into Bosnia, supporting infiltratated terrorists providing necessary means for their training and financing. Associated to which support these illegal activities were the specific governments and intelligence services of the following countries:

- Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey (Provided Instructors);

- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kuwait (Provided Money);

- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan (Provided Al-Qaeda with Manpower);

-Organization of Islamic Conference (Provided Political Support from the localation at the United Nations and also from out of many other International Institutions);

- The governments of Slovenia and Croatia equally gave a green-light for Al-Qaeda’s terrorists transport and for the transport of their equipment across their state territories for a mere monetary percentage approximately between 15-30% of the total value transported interstate.

The main Islamist agency located in Europe is in Vienna, and is providing Islamists located in and around Bosnia with logistic and ideological support derived itself from Islamic fundamentalist circles before, during and after the Civil War named, TWRA.

"Bosnia must become a Muslim state eventually, for if that did not happen, then the whole war would be senseless and would have been fought for nothing"

This statementwas completed in 1994 by, Elfatih Ali Hasanein,the former Head of the Islamic Organization bearing the name of Third World Relief Agency (TWRA). This Muslim charity, founded in Vienna [1987] possessed/declared the official goal of encouraging an entire rebirth of Islam throughout Eastern Europe and then throughout the entire former Soviet Union and CIS. According to the CIA, one of TWRA’s activities was fundraising for the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. The agency was founded by a El-fatih Hassanein, a member of the ruling Saudi National Islamic Front and his brother Sukarno Hassanein. Currently the U.S. and other Western countries have classified the National Islamic Front as a radical Islamist fundamentalist political organization previously founded by Hasan Abdullah Turabi, Secretary-General of the Muslim Brotherhood [Another extreme Islamist Organization]. This organization played a key role in establishment of a network of other Islamic terrorist and/or extremist organizations.

Mr. Turabi was a professor at Khartoum Law School, dedicating his entire career to inquiring into new methods of introducing the Sharia Islamic Law into Sudan and other Islamic countries. He was also well known for his hot-tempered rhetoric speaches against secular ideologies. Today Turabi is known to the world today for his widely public refuge offerings to terrorists. Osama Bin Laden after he was exiled from Saudi Arabia. Sudan itself was declared by the United States a terrorist sponsoring state.

According to the Bosnian Muslim weekly magazine, Dani, El-fatih Hassanein, member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was once a student of University of Belgrade (he studied medicine) and was a friend with Islamic President of Muslim Republic within Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic since 1970. Izetbegovic himself was an Islamist scholar then, often visiting many such close Islamic/Muslim intellectuals back then, when he used to travel to and from Serbia,Belgrade. In fact, during his 1983 trial held in Sarajevo, Izetbegovic confirmed he was a good friend with Mr. El-fatih Hassanein.

Besides, an official cooperation existed once between the TWRA and former Islamic Bosnian President Izetbegovic and his associated government. This collaboration begun in late 1992. At this time, TWRA had just opened branche offices in: Sarajevo, Budapest, Moscow and Istanbul [All key centers for its later weapons-smuggling activities].

The Bosnian Muslim political wing and the man responsible for bringing mujahadeens to Bosnia and Herzegovina; Alija Izetbegovic, SDA and Bosnian Muslim president guaranteed El-fatih Hassanein’s credentials to the Die Erste Osterreich Bank (Austria), hence enabling him to open an account there. The Bosnian Muslims used the bank account to solicit and transit funds designed for arms purchases.

Just about earlier in March 1992, El-fatih Hassanein was issued a diplomatic passport and became the new [Cultural Attaché appointed to the Saudi Embassy in Vienna]. This position made possible for him to begin transfer of large sums of money through Croatia and Slovenia [he was also able to avoid any legal scrutiny by police via his diplomatic imunity]. Consequently, in October 1992 the former [Foreign Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haris Silajdzic] visited the, Die Erste Osterreich Bank in Vienna, later confirming the aforementioned activity. Hassanein had at that time, all necessary diplomatic credentials to financially represent the besieged Bosnia and Herzegovina and then, in 1993, Alija Izetbegovic wrote to that same Austrian bank yet again confirming that this Sudanese citizen had attained the entire trust of the Islamist component of Bosnian government at a time.

The diplomatic operations supporting terrorist begun innocently, undertaking them only then through using civilian projects serving as mere cover such as both the opening a poultry farm, a news agency and/or a simple textile factory – in one word he used the production of anything through which he later could facilitate waging civil war in Bosnia later. Moreover, both the creation of the Bosnian Muslim news agency TWRA was another important step he used for dissimilating Islamic disinformation and Islamic fundamentalist extremist ideology.

At the same time money was also flowing from the states of Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Brunei and Malaysia. One of the donors was Osama bin Laden himself. Die Erste Osterreich Bank representatives later claimed that between 1992 and 1995, some $350 million dollars passed through the hands of the TWRA: $80 million in 1992, $231 in 1993, $39 million in 1994-95 and the whopping sum of $500,000 by August 1996. Most of this money, according to bank officials was spent on weaponry purchases during the Islamic ccomcponent of the Bosnian Civil War [1990s]. Additionally, it was also primarily used to bribe many Croatian and Slovenian official and civilian authorities as well as many Bosnian Croat citizenry to "look the other way" so to speak when dealing with those smuggling weaponry into the "Islamic Portion of the Bosnian Army."

The first remarkably large operation carried out successfully by the TWRA was in September 1992 when a hired Russian cargo plane flying from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum flew into the Maribor airport carrying what was at a time referred to as "humanitarian aid."

Nevertheless, it was later discovered that the actual contents of this plane was over 120 tons of guns, mortars, mines and ammunition. These weapons were Soviet made and came from an old Soviet military base. Soon after the discovery of weapons purchase through a Bosnian-Turkish connection [Which German law enforcement agents later identified as being affiliated with at least thirty persons]; all ethnic Bosnian Muslim and Turkish nationals, all participating in this weapons purchase. The weapons were placed inside warehous in the former portion of East Germany. Hired Russian helicopters transported part of this weapons shipment to Tuzla and Zenica while the carrying plane refueled in Split. It is also believed these helicopter carriers were procured by representatives of the joint Russo-American company named, Eco-Trends.

The remaining 10,000 rifles, 750,000 rounds, rockets and other explosives remained for a year at another warehouse located in Maribor. The value of these weapons is estimated to be at least $10 million dollars. When the weapons were discovered, it became crustally clear that the TWRA paid for their warehousing. Since then, the agency has been targeted by anti-terrorist intelligence observations originating from Western states intelligence agencies. However, these western anti-terrorist states took no prior steps to halt any of the aforementioned transport of weapons; the question which remains is: Why?

TWRA also played a key role in the import of Iranian weapons, which began in May 1994 through Croatia, with the CIA’s consent.

Then during September 1995, counter-terrorist units from the Austrian police raided the TWRA offices located in Vienna, seizing several vanloads of documents. Those documents contained the above-cited facts, and stated that TWRA had other numerous connections with additional radical Islamic organizations and individuals with whom many radical Islamists residing within Bosnia are still connected . According to the apprehended documents, some members of this network inlcude: on account of

Sheik Omar Abd-el-Rahman [radical Imam from Egypt convicted of organizing the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. U.S. judicial authorities found information linking him with the TWRA. In addition, Austrian counter-terrorist police now possess audio tapes of conversations taking place one time between Sheik Rahman and TWRA officials in Vienna.

The dominant topic of these conversations was how to sell video tapes of the Sheik’s messages and sermons in European mosques. U.S. intelligence agents and operatives today directly link Sheik Omar Abd-el-Rahman (spiritual leader of “El Muhajedin” unit in Bosnia), Dr. Ayman al-Zawahari and Osama Bin Laden. Then in mid-January 1996, Islamist leaders broadcasted many of his Islamist sermons, all of those composed on the eve of his conviction for terrorism in relation to the World Trade Center in New York City. The sermon emphasized the crucial role of extremist Islamists residing within Bosnia and their part of the global struggle "for the cause of Islam."

Osama bin Laden was one of many other TWRA donors, and all worked together through Hassan Al-Turaby whom had strong ties with Hassanein. Since 1998, he was Head of the part of Al-Qaeda located within the state of Afghanistan. He was later suspected of organizing the terrorist attacks against both New York and Washington on September 11th 2001 in its aftermath during which both the U.S. and its political ally the U.K. invaded Afghanistan for the explicit purpose of destroying the "nest" of Al-Qaeda along with Osama bin Laden himself;

25. Key Bosnian Islamist Al-Qaeda Players

1) Irfan Ljevakovic [A founder of SDA party also involved in importi of Islamic terrorists into Bosnia and Herzegovina under auspices of the humanitarian work of the TWRA];

2) Alija Izetbegovic [Connected to above-mentioned El-fatih Hassanein for many years. He composed a letter to Die Erste Osterreich Bank in 1993 guaranteeing his honesty. Then, during the Bosnian civil war he allowed a large influx of Mujahedeen Islamist fighters to join the Bosnian Muslim Army. After the civil war, many of these men were illegally granted Bosnian citizenship and were allowed to settle in Bosnia; most reside today in the village, Bocinja];

3) Hasan Cengic [A theologian connected to terrorism in Iran since 1983. His father is Halid Cengic a veteran of the 13th Waffen SS division of World War Two. Hasan Cengic moreover organized the influx of Mojahedeen fighters into Bosnia and managed the Visoko supply base. He was later identified as the person through whom the TWRA sent weapons into Bosnia, starting in 1992, as well as a member of the TWRA’s governing board];

4) Dzemal Merdan[Dedicated his life to the teachings of the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini; he was also a key liaison to many foreign mojahedeen];

5) Husein Zivalj[A former Bosnian Ambassador appointed to the U.N., who after serving as Deputy Foreign Minister and former Bosnian Ambassador to Austria, was given a position on the TWRA governing board. He was present in New York during the terrorist attack on September 11th 2001 and then, two months later, resigned from his diplomatic posts at the New York United Nations Mission of Bosnia. It is important to emphasise that his resignation came only after several months of service on diplomatic duty];

6) Faris Nanic[Once a prominent member of the SDA political party in Zagreb and one time advisor to former Islamic President of Islamic component of Bosnia, Alija Izetbegovic];

7) Salim Sabic [Once prominent member of the SDA and once Head of the Vienna branch of International Associations for Aid to Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina once based inZagreb];

 8) Dervis Djurdjevic [Once a prominent member of the SDA, he was convicted of terrorist activities in 1983 and later sentenced to five years imprisonment; also he was an associate of El-fatih Hassanein and also was a one time member of the TWRA governing board];

Despite much evidence gathered by the Austrian counter-terrorist police who was more than sufficient to detain its employees and to bar its further operations, TWRA continued to operate until 1996. Between 1995 and 1996, some $350,000 was transferr through it. El-fatih Hassanein left Austria for Istanbul in 1994 after he was notify that an investigation into his former gunrunning and money laundering operations was open. He remained in close contact with Alija Izetbegovic thereafter decorating him in August 1996 for his so-called humanitarian efforts undertaken by him within Bosnia. Both men met privately in Istanbul and then in Sarajevo at which time Hassanein took visi upon Izetbegovic’s invitation.

According to intelligence information, Hassanein also visited Macedonia being actively engag with aiding the efforts of Albanian terrorists active in Kosovo. IT has also been discover that later he traveled through Macedonia traveling inide a NATO vehicle with French markings while carrying a false passport. Hassanein was one of the key organizers of the Albanian terrorist organization named [UCK] whose training camps were located in: Bajram Curri, Tropoja and Kukes.

The Macedonian security service classified him as Al-Qaeda’s leader for the entirety of southeastern Europe. According to the same source, Saudi citizen Umar Alvadi [sp] is his point man insofar as Macedonia.

Furthermore, the identical intelligence source also confirmed the most important player in this entire gun-running chain was an Austrian arms dealer named Dieter Hoffman not long prior employed by, El-fatih Hassanein. Insofar as international arms dealers’ arenas, Hoffman has a wide reputation for being a specialist able to easily procure both airplanes and helicopters capable of transporting weapons to destinations determined by his customers. Several times Hoffman was even contacted by many high ranking KGB [now FSB Officials] for purchases of airplanes and helicopters. He was particularly interested in engaging transportation of helicopters and anti-aircraft systems known as, "pins". Within only two years he had his own contracting company known as the, "Flying Tigers," who transported several hundred tons of war materials into Bosnia. One of their renown Routes for their airlifts was: Khartoum (for loading), Maribor (for landing and unloading), and then to Jablanica via Split and the Neretva valley either by helicopter or truck.

The Iranian intelligence also played a key role in the military training of both the Al-Qaeda’s global terrorists as well as training for the Islamic component of the "Bosnian Army." Iran has recently also been classified by the U.S. government as a state sponsoring terrorism [Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and also both the Refah party in Turkey and radical fundamentalists in both Algeria and Egypt]. The Clinton Administration remained unwavering on the path it had chosen in claiming to be committed to finding a peaceful solution to the Civil Wars that once raged within Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, in reality the Clinton Administration was genuinely unwavering in its being totally committed in forcing only a Muslim victory insofar as the entire Bosnia and Herzegovinan civil wars.

The very essence of this victory lied in the Clinton’s strategy of only empowering the Islamic Sarajevo leadership which, at the very best enjoyed only about twenty percent support and recognition in a country [Bosnia and Herzegovina] where more than two-third of the population is Christian and adamantly opposed to living under any resemblance of an Islamic run state. With full knowledge of these facts regarding Iranian rule and its role as well in the "Islamization and radicalization" of Bosnia’s Muslim fundamentalist, Bill Clinton’s full administration always managed to look the other way while showing their baised support for the Islamists only during the war itself.

Then just between 1992 and the end of 1995, aid flowed into to help "fellow Muslim brothers" in Bosnia which originated from Iran which sent the 7th Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran Brigade) some 2000 men, incorporating into the Bosnian Muslim Army.

Based in Zenica, the Iranian brigade trained local cadres, as well as participated in fierce fighting on all fronts. In addition to this force, Iran also sent some 400 officers of the Pasdaran intelligence and the VEVAK secret service work with the nascent Bosnian Muslim intelligence and other terrorist groups. Some spies worked through the Iranian charities, mostly registered in Zagreb. Mohammed Dzevad Azayes, a high-ranking diplomat at the Iranian Embassy in Zagreb, was in charge of coordinating the intelligence and terrorist operations under the guise of "charity" work.