The Forgotten Liars
"IRAN'S EUROPEAN SPRINGBOARD?" by Yossef Bodansky &
Vaughn S. Forrest
(commentary by Timothy Horrigan)
This
is a report which Bodansky & Forrest wrote for a rightwing
Congressional caucus called the "House Republican Research
Committee" during the waning days of Bush I's term. The moderate
members of the caucus resigned in protest of the publication of this
paper.
At the time, Yugoslavia was in the process of falling
apart into several separate countries. One of these countries was the
republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose population is about 40% Muslim.
Bodansky & Forrest, and their right-wing patrons took a position
which was exactly the opposite of that followed by President Clinton,
and which was also quite different from Bush I's. They essentially
proposed supporting Serbia's oppression of the Bosnian people on the
grounds that a free Bosnia would serve as the "springboard"
for an Iran-led invasion of Europe. In Bodansky's & Forrest's
views, the Serbians were the Good Guys protecting us against the
Iran-backed Bosnian Bad Guys.
This is a rather bizarre theory,
but its potential appeal to Bush II is obvious. This theory could
serve as a backup rationale for the upcoming invasion of Iran, in
case the two primary rationales ("They've Got Nukes!" and
"They're Trying to Undermine Iraq's Democracy!") don't fly.
It could also serve as a pretext for interfering in the continuing
conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The region has been relatively
peaceful in recent years, but the last remnant of the old Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e., Serbia-Montenegro, is on the verge of
splitting into two (or possibly three) discrete nation-states. But
the main usefulness of this theory will be to serve as a pretext for
oppressing European and American Muslims and for marginalizing
anti-war protesters.
In retrospect, this paper also explains
why the right wing was so fiercely opposed to Clinton's military
intervention in the late 1990s against Serbia.
See also:
IRAN'S EUROPEAN SPRINGBOARD?
Yossef
Bodansky & Vaughn S. Forrest
Task force on terrorism &
unconventional warfare, House Republican Research Committee,
September 1, 1992
The escalation of the fighting in
Bosnia-Hercegovina has a significance for Europe that extends far
beyond the human tragedy of the conflict. The struggle for Sarajevo
and the fate of the area's diverse population is rapidly transforming
into a proxy battlefield for the future and fortunes of the growing
Muslim community of Western Europe. This fact directly affects the
extent and nature of the assistance provided by several outside
powers led by Iran to the local Muslim authorities.
Thus,
Tehran and its allies are using the violence in Bosnia-Hercegovina as
a springboard for the launching of a jihad in Europe. Consequently,
the character of the armed struggle waged by the Muslims of
Bosnia-Hercegovina --against the Serbs and Croats, as well as against
their own brothers --has been determined as much by the "needs"
of the Muslim world as by the peculiarities of the local situation.
The history of Yugoslavia's Muslim community has been one of
victimization by the Slavic majority. However, Bosnia-Hercegovina's
Muslims have long been considered by the Islamist leadership in the
Middle East to be ripe as a vehicle for the expansion of Islamic
militancy into Europe. Additionally, the pro-Arab policies of the
Tito government during the 1960s further enhanced the situation of
the Muslims as radical Arab movements were permitted to conduct
active propaganda in Yugoslavia, and during the 1970s were even
allowed to recruit volunteers to join Palestinian terrorist
organizations such as the PLO. Yugoslavia also provided extensive
military assistance to the Arab world and numerous experts and
technicians, many of them Muslims, spent long periods in the Middle
East.
That said, although Muslims constitute only some 40% of
the population of Bosnia-Hercegovina, they have defined the character
of the republic because of the peculiarities of the power structure
that was imposed during Marshal Tito's rule. Further, beginning in
the mid-1970s, Islam began experiencing an unexpected renaissance in
communist Yugoslavia. This was a direct outcome of Belgrade's close
relations with the Arab world and involvement in Arab radical
politics.
Indeed, the 1980s saw a marked increase in the
number of mosques throughout Bosnia-Hercegovina in the wake of a
revival of Islamic life. Increasingly, a growing number of local
youth were sent to higher Islamic studies in the Middle East,
especially Iran, where the classes in schools for radical mullahs
included some 250 Bosnians a year. This interrelationship developed
so much so that by the summer of 1984, Yugoslav security authorities
had become worried about the growing internal security risks posed by
illegal immigration, particularly of Muslims from Albania and the
Middle East.
Thus, as of the early-1980s, the Belgrade
authorities were aware of the "increasing militancy" of the
Muslim population and their growing contacts with Iran and other
radical Arab states. Belgrade recognized that having become a base
for "Muslim terrorists" operating against the West, the
Yugoslav Muslim youth were drawn into cooperation with, and emulation
of, Arab terrorists.
Consequently, in due course, Islamic
revolutionary violence began in 1983-84, albeit on a small scale, but
the precedents were established. For example, 18 Muslims were
convicted in Bosnia in August 1983 for "political and religious
activism" which amounted to membership in a clandestine
terrorist/subversion Islamist organization, including contacts with
Islamic Jihad. In March 1984, a Muslim terrorist threw a home-made
bomb into a crowd in a local municipality. He committed this act of
terrorism as a protest against the authorities' refusal to recognize
Islam and the suppression of religion by the communist authorities in
the township. It is important to note that these and other fledgling
Islamic terrorist activities received assistance from the Middle
East, especially Palestinian organizations. However, most of the
militants did not act in the name of Islamic solidarity because they
did not want to adversely affect the extensive support they were
receiving from Belgrade.
Meanwhile, the Muslim youth of
Bosnia-Hercegovina were being exposed to Islamist terrorism. The
Syrian-Iranian terrorist campaign in Western Europe was conducted in
the early-1980s under the cover of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary
Forces (LARF) from a forward base in Yugoslavia that included several
Islamic Jihad operatives. Other Palestinian terrorist organizations
operating in close cooperation with Syria and Iran were also using
Yugoslavia as their own forward base as well as for launching
operations by their international partners. Since 1987, Ahmad
Jibril's "foreign division," optimized to conduct
operations in the West, has been the primary operational channel of
the international terrorist system controlled by Syria and Iran. The
PFLP-GC had networks and offices in Yugoslavia that also housed
HizbAllah operatives. "Islamic Jihad's planners expect to be
able to use Yugoslavia as their base in Eastern Europe if only
because of the assured sympathy of the Bosnian Muslims," John
Laffin observed in 1988.
Many of these Islamist terrorists
established contacts with the local Muslim communities and began to
actively recruit supporters from their ranks. Tehran was very
encouraged by the local welcome, for by then, many Bosnians who had
undergone extensive terrorist training and Islamist indoctrination in
Lebanon and Iran were returning home, where they immediately began
organizing and radicalizing the local communities. However, with the
growing intra-ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia, many of the Iranian
controlled and trained terrorists and their local support networks
gradually shifted their attention away from Islamic Revolution to
supporting their Muslim brethren in the more local struggle against
the Serbs and Croats.
Meanwhile, Iran has also consolidated a
Muslim leadership network supportive of Tehran's world view. At the
center of the Iranian system in Europe is Bosnia-Hercegovina's
President, Alija Izetbegovic, "a fundamentalist Muslim and a
member of the Fida'iYan-e Islam organization," who is committed
to the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
The Fida'iyan-e Islam group advocates the struggle for the
establishment of Islamic rule wherever Muslims live, and as early as
the late-1960s, had already recognized the leadership of Ayatollah
Khomeyni and maintained close cooperation with his people.
Indeed,
in 1970, Izetbegovic published his Islamic Declaration stating his
world view: "There can be no peace or coexistence between
Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith and non-Islamic institutions,"
he wrote. "The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon
as it is morally and numerically strong enough, not only to destroy
the non-Islamic power, but to build up a new Islamic one." After
Khomeyni's triumph in Tehran, Izetbegovic renewed his call to
implement his Islamic Declaration, began organizing an Islamist
political movement, and within a few years was thrown in jail for
subversion.
Later, in early-May 1991, Alija Izetbegovic made
an official visit to Tehran where he reiterated his long-held views
about the future of his country. He was described by Tehran as "a
Muslim believer whose party is the strongest political organization
in Bosnia-Hercegovina and rallies Yugoslav Muslims" to the
Islamic cause. While in Tehran, Izetbegovic emphasized that "Islam
has very deep roots in Bosnia-Hercegovina" which affects its ~
policies. Alija Izetbegovic also declared that Bosnia-Hercegovina was
"anxious to expand" its diverse and comprehensive ties with
Iran. In return, Iran promised massive financial assistance and other
help to rejuvenate Bosnia's local economy. In Tehran, members of the
Bosnian delegation emphasized the importance of the Islamic factor in
generating Iranian investments in Bosnia-Hercegovina: "Muslim
intellectuals in Yugoslavia believe that in the event of inevitable
privatization of the Bosnia-Hercegovina's (sic) industry, the capital
from the larger neighboring republics of Serbia and Croatia could
flow into these industries and outvote Muslims in the republic's
economy. This will lead to their political weakness, they fear,
adding that Islamic countries' investments in the republican economy
could change such unfavorable developments."
In addition
to these economic considerations, special attention was paid to the
expansion of religious and cultural ties, including expansion of the
training of Yugoslav Muslims in Iranian schools as well as the
translation and publication of key Islamic texts, including the basic
Shi'ite works, in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Tehran, needless to say, has
been enthusiastic concerning Islamic-cultural assistance.
Later,
in pursuit of his goal to establish an Islamic Republic, Izetbegovic
also visited Libya in the summer of 1991, seeking financial and
political support. "At present," he explained upon
returning to Sarajevo, "I do not ask our brothers in the Muslim
states for weapons, only political support. However, if the civil war
expanding in our country endangers our Muslim brothers, then many
things can happen."
However, with the changes in the
military situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina, primarily the tightening of
the siege on Sarajevo, and the off-again, on-again cooperation
between the Muslims and the local Croat forces under Mate Boban, (who
repeatedly cuts off the supply of weapons to the Muslim forces),
Izetbegovic became convinced that it was necessary to undertake
drastic measures of a kind that had long been advocated by Tehran.
The Iranians had argued that before any escalation in the fighting
could take place, it was imperative to either gain the sympathies of
the West or, at the least, to ensure that there existed a legitimate
excuse that would enable the presentation of any action undertaken by
Muslim forces as justifying revenge for Serbian atrocities.
To
that end, beginning in May 1992, a special group of Bosnian Muslim
forces, many of whom had served with Islamist terrorist
organizations, began committing a series of atrocities, including
"some of the worst recent killings," against Muslim
civilians in Sarajevo "as a propaganda ploy to win world
sympathy and military intervention." For example, around June
20, Serbian troops besieging Sarajevo engaged a detachment of Muslim
special forces dressed in Serbian uniforms who were on their way to
attack the Muslim sector from within the Serbian lines. Such an
attack, if successful, would have been attributed to the Serbs. As it
was, some of these Muslims troops were killed in the brief encounter
and a few were captured.
Moreover, a UN investigation
concluded that several key events, mostly strikes against civilians,
that had galvanized public opinion and governments in the West to
take bolder action in Bosnia-Hercegovina, were in fact "staged"
for the Western media by the Muslims themselves in order to dramatize
the city's plight. Investigations by the UN and other military
experts count among these self-inflicted actions the "bombing of
the bread queue" (May 27), the "shelling" of Douglas
Hurd's visit (July 17), the "explosion in the cemetery”
(August 4), and the killing of ABC producer David Kaplan (August 13).
In all these cases, Serbian forces were out of rang , and the weapons
actually used against the victims were not those claimed by the
Bosnian authorities and the Western media.
However, despite
their putting the plight of Sarajevo on the front page of the world's
newspapers, these provocations ultimately failed to deliver the
results anticipated by Izetbegovic. The West proved unwilling to stop
the Serbian onslaught and to relieve Bosnia-Hercegovina's dependence
on Croatia for access to the outside world. Thus, when these actions
largely failed, beyond symbolic gestures, Sarajevo turned to Tehran
for assistance in undertaking more drastic measures.
Indeed,
Iran has markedly intensified its political involvement in
Bosnia-Hercegovina since late-June. From the very beginning, Tehran
argued that the plight of the Muslims was an issue directly affecting
the entire Muslim world. Therefore, Tehran argued, "the
governments ruling Islamic countries should take measures to prevent
genocide of Muslims in Europe." Although the West acknowledged
that the deterioration of the situation in Sarajevo called for a
military intervention, nothing was done by the UN. "It seems
that Muslims have been left with no choice but to take practical
measures to face the brutal Serbs and to make up for the indifference
shown by the fraudulent West.... It can even include facilities for
the participation of volunteers in the war against the Serbs to
defend Muslims."
Additionally, Tehran warned that "if
Muslims did not rise up today and take a practical, serious and
deterrent measures, the Serbs would commit similar crimes in other
Muslim-dwelling areas of former Yugoslavia and no Muslim would be
immune in any part of Europe." This was the first introduction
of the theme that would characterize the Iranian approach, namely,
that the situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina was a microcosm of the real
situation of Islam Yugoslavia. He argued that the "blatant
discrimination" exercised against the Muslims is but a part of a
global conspiracy against Islam which necessitates urgent steps "to
mobilize Arab and Islamic countries to help rescue Muslims wherever
they are."
Tehran's perception of the challenges facing
it was outlined authoritatively by Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah
Ali Hussayn Khamene'i in a sermon on 29 July 1992. The essence of
Khamene'i's sermon was to warn Tehran, and the entire Muslim world,
that they were on the verge of a fateful confrontation between Islam
and the West, a confrontation that might result in the expansion of
the Muslim world by force of arms. In this context, Khamene'i paid
special attention to the plight of the Muslim community in
Bosnia-Hercegovina because he considered its suppression an integral
part of a US-led Western/Christian campaign "against the Islamic
wave throughout the world." In short, Khamene'i's thesis was
that with the Church actively supporting the campaign against Islam,
the entire Muslim world, led by Iran, must mobilize to support the
Muslims of Yugoslavia and Western Europe as a whole.
In
Europe, Khamene'i explained, the West wants the Serbs to "destroy
that group of Muslims in that region. ... They do not want an
independent Muslim country in the heart of Europe." Furthermore,
the support of the Christian West to the Serbs is intended to further
the ultimate anti-Muslim objectives of the entire European community.
"They want to destroy them completely so that a Muslim entity
does not remain in Europe. ... In the future, any Muslim entity in
Europe, either as a nation or as a large minority within another
country poses a threat. That is why they put so much pressure."
Khamene'i pointed out that it is Iran's sacred obligation to
help the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina not just because of their
responsibility for the Muslims of the entire world, but also in view
of Iran's national defense considerations: "We are extremely
concerned about the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina. They are Muslims.
They are our brothers. They are a helpless minority in the middle of
a collective opposed to Islam in different countries. And they face
an armed community backed by a strong army which posses advanced and
modern weapons --these are the same people who for years equipped
Iraq against us; it was the same Serbs in the capital city of former
Yugoslavia." The entire Muslim world should rally to the help of
Europe's Muslims, and Iran will "give them every kind of
support," Khamene'i declared.
Subsequently, the Bosnian
Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic visited Tehran in early-August and
met with several senior officials. He hailed Iran's resolute position
and the inspiration of the Islamic Revolution to the struggle of
Bosnia-Hercegovina. In his meeting with Silajdzic, Hashemi-Rafsanjani
"declared the Islamic Republic of Iran's readiness to extent any
form of assistance to that country." He vowed that Iran would
provide Bosnia-Hercegovina with all its fuel requirements. Silajdzic
was also told that "experiences have shown that international
organizations have not acted in the interests of Muslims and that it
is Muslims who should care about themselves."
Mahmud
Veza'i went even further, ridiculing Western "duplicity"
concerning the plight of the Muslims. "In the heart of Europe
and the cradle of freedom and democracy a newly independent nation is
being massacred and annihilated in an unequal war and no serious
action is being taken to prevent this human catastrophe. This is
where once again this analysis gains credence that maybe this is the
way Bosnian-Hercegovina Muslim must pay the price of their religious
and cultural difference with the rest of the European family."
The accusation that the population of Bosnian-Hercegovina is being
sacrificed intentionally by the West because of it is Islamic soon
evolved into the center of Iranian analysis of the situation in the
region.
Indeed, within a few days, Iran significantly
increased the level of accusations directed against the West. Now,
Tehran accused the West of being the primary force motivating the
killings. "When the Serbs declare they are killing the Muslims
in order to prevent formation of an Islamic state in Europe, in fact
they have formally notified the West of their intentions."
Therefore, Tehran saw no alternative but for the Muslim world to
mobilize and directly intervene in the fighting on behalf of the
Muslims.
Toward this end, "Iran's specific proposal is
the formation of an Islamic army comprising volunteer forces from the
Muslim world to defend and support Bosnia-Hercegovina's] Muslims and
prevent further massacre of innocent people whose only guilt is being
Muslim." Tehran no longer believes that anybody would come to
the aid of Bosnia-Hercegovina. "Although it is the
responsibility of Europe to maintain security in that part of the
world, as long as the West refuses to abide by its commitments, the
responsibility should then be shouldered by the Muslims themselves."
Moreover, Tehran warned, time was running out for the Muslim
population and decisive action by the Muslim world was urgently
needed. "It is about time to put an end to the Serbian crimes
and this could only be done by volunteer forces from all over the
Muslim world who would rush to help their brothers in faith in the
Balkans," Tehran concluded.
Iran immediately began to
study the problem and closely examine the situation in
Bosnia-Hercegovina. Consequently, in early-August, a high-level
Iranian fact-finding delegation led by Ayatollah Ahmad Janati was
dispatched to Sarajevo. (Janati is a member of the Council of
Guardians and a veteran supervisor of terrorist activities including
the US and Canada in the late 1980s). The Janati delegation traveled
to Sarajevo via Zagreb and crossed the front lines on the way into
the Muslim heartland. Their mandate was to examine measures to
confront "the genocide" of the local Muslims. They studied
the weapons supplied to the Serbs from local industries, and several
foreign countries.
Upon returning from Sarajevo, Janati
stopped in Vienna. There he proclaimed the supply of "weapons
for self-defense" to the Muslims as Iran's highest priority. "It
is the truth and a reality that only such help can save the lives of
the Bosnians. We have already thought about that. Our foreign
ministry has invited all foreign and defense ministers of the Islamic
world to attend a conference on military aid in Tehran. If all
countries reach agreement, we will be the first to provide this kind
of help."
Returning to Iran, Janati urged Tehran to take
action, declaring that "the people of Bosnia-Hercegovina badly
need arms to defend their lives and property and that Islamic
countries should assist the people by rapidly forming a common army
and supplying arms to avert a great human tragedy in the region. ...
Their major need is arms. They have resisted truly courageously. They
are under great pressure now, but they lack enough arms to defend
themselves and are worried about their fate; if they do not receive
assistance, they may soon be defeated and their resistance may break.
Something should be done, and the Islamic Republic should take the
first step and overcome their needs and problems by every possible
means. If the Islamic countries can form a common army or extend
joint arms assistance to them, they can preserve themselves."
In a sermon a few days later, Janati further warned that if
the Muslims were defeated, they "will launch a guerrilla
movement" which would engulf all Europe. He added that in his
discussions with Bosnian officials, "their main demand was for
weapons." Janati emphasized that the fighting against Muslims in
Bosnia-Hercegovina must be considered a major phase in the unfolding
struggle for Islam. He explained that in recounting the atrocities
committed by the Serbians against the Bosnian Muslims, "the
memories of the Crusades are now being almost repeated." Janati
concluded that "the only solution [is] that Islamic states must
form a joint Islamic army and give them military and arms assistance.
If Islam is to be sovereign there can be no other way."
Subsequently, in late-August, Tehran formally declared the situation
in Bosnia-Hercegovina to be a test-case for the validity of its grand
strategy.
Needless to say, it would not take long for the
implementation of Janati's recommendations to commence. Indeed, since
the early-summer, Muslim troops had been reinforced by "volunteers"
from the ranks of several Islamist organizations. They arrived in
Bosnia-Hercegovina in answer to Tehran's call to fight the Jihad and
eager to commit martyrdom in the name of Islam. They included highly
trained and combat proven volunteers from Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon
(HizbAllah), and several other Arab countries. Most of the Arab
volunteers had previously fought in the ranks of Palestinian
terrorist organizations in Lebanon and the resistance in Afghanistan,
and in fact General Amin Pohara of the Bosnian Army confirmed that
some 180 mujahideen had arrived from the Middle East by mid-August.
(Iranian sources insist that their number is more than one thousand.)
Additionally, the flow of arms to the Muslim forces in
Bosnia-Hercegovina also increased markedly during August as the
Iranians flew into Zagreb strategically important weapons systems as
part of their emergency "humanitarian" assistance program.
At the outset, Tehran began supplying the Muslim forces with
high-quality weapons that might offset the tactical superiority of
the Serbian forces. The weapons supplied included "several"
Stinger SAMs provided by the Afghan Mujahideen to Tehran for further
distribution to "brothers in need."
Since then,
massive quantities of weapons needed to create a larger army capable
of waging mid-intensity wars have been shipped from Iran, Turkey and
Pakistan. For example, a 32 truck weapons convoy arrived at Konjic in
southwestern Bosnia in early-August on its way to Sarajevo, and a 60
truck weapons convoy arrived there in late-August. The convoys
arrived from the ports of Split and Rijeka, both in Croatia.
Additional shiploads of weapons have already arrived in Ploce and are
being unloaded for delivery by truck convoy. However, the security of
these lines of communications is extremely precarious even though
Zagreb agreed "to close our eyes" and "not ... make
any problems" to the flow of weapons to the Muslim forces.
As
before, the implementation of the Croatian policy would be entrusted
to the local Croat forces under Mate Boban and would be placed in
position to block the convoy traffic while on the territory of
Bosnia-Hercegovina. Indeed, in late-June, Boban's forces near
Busovaca seized a 38 truck weapons convoy that was on its way to
Sarajevo. Moreover, Sarajevo's agreement with Zagreb hinges on
Izetbegovic's surrendering to Croatia 17 Muslim ex-Yugoslav Army
senior officers now holding key positions in his Muslim forces in
order to stand trial for war crimes they had committed while in the
military during the fighting against Croatia. However, it is highly
unlikely that Izetbegovic can afford to hand over senior Muslim
officers for a show trial and certain execution at the hands of the
Christian Croats. Thus, the siege of Sarajevo and the suppression of
the local Muslim population will continue with no end in sight.
Tehran's warnings to Western Europe are not an idle threat.
The greatest potential threat comes from the Muslim emigre
communities in Western Europe. Even without outside agitation, the
rise of the Islamic communities in Europe will be a potential source
of Western social instability in the next decade.
In Western
Europe, Muslim communities will constitute 25% of the population by
the year 2000. (At present, Muslims constitute 7-9% of the population
in the UK, and 8-10% in France.) Moreover, the Muslim emigre
community, and especially the younger, European born, generation is
rapidly becoming militant Islamist in outlook. Since the mid-1980s,
Iran and the HizbAllah have successfully conducted a massive
recruitment drive among these locally-born Muslim youth and many were
provided with advance terrorist and clandestine activity training in
Iran. Thus, there is in the making a formidable threat because, by a
cautious estimate in mid-1991, about 3%-6% of the over 8 million
Muslim emigres in Western Europe were already actively involved in
Islamist activities.
However, the fundamental source of the
problem lies in the irreconcilable difference between Muslim society
and the West European environment. The Islamists in Europe have
fundamental and uncompromising differences with the society in which
they live. The Islamists consider democracy as "the worst
scourge the West inflicted on Muslim society in order to destroy it
from the inside and annihilate its ancestral values," and are
therefore determined to strike it at its core.
Specifically,
the religious freedom in the West are a source of trouble. Islam is a
communal way of life and the vast majority of emigrants and their
European born children live together isolated from, and hostile to,
the society around them. The separation of Church and State is
contradictory to the tenets of Islam and hence a constant source of
tension. The Muslim communities demand to be allowed to retain all
aspects of Islam, including laws unacceptable in the West (such as
blood vengeance and the killing of females for in revenge for the
desecration of family honor, to name but a few), and argue for making
Islamic law superior to the civil law of the land. For Muslims, the
mere acceptance of the Western law of the land means a contradiction
of Islam's tenet that the Sharia is the world's supreme law.
Thus,
in early-1992, Mohand Khellil, a journalist and sociologist living in
Paris, observed that despite the seeming integration into French
society of the younger, second generation of Muslim emigrants, "on
every side there seems to be genuine agreement that the Maghrib
immigrants are unassimilable." Furthermore, the economic
situation in Europe and the oppression in North Africa ensures that
they will not return home. Consequently, the Muslim communities of
Western Europe are drawn together against a perceived
all-encompassing external threat from the society in which they live.
The flow of largely Islamist emigrants from
Algeria and
Tunisia only helps swell a militant community already "resistant
to integration." Thus, the growing tension between the Muslim
communities and liberal society may very well result in an Islamist
outburst and even armed rebellion.
Thus, sentiments conducive
to Islamist terrorism are returning to Western Europe as a direct
outcome of the tremendous escalation of the Islamist struggle against
the West in Europe. A large segment of the Islamic communities all
over Western Europe "openly expresses the ambitious program of
radical Islamists engaged in total war against the West." For
example, Salah Tamimi, a Tunisian-born activist and a university
student in Paris, justifies his presence in France as a commitment to
the Jihad: "I am here in France to learn from the inside out the
system of the West that oppresses us, to learn its science,
techniques, and tricks. I will then be better equipped to fight it
... Even by violence."
Meanwhile, the vast majority of
the huge North African community in France ardently supports the
fundamentalist FIS [Islamic Salvation Front] in Algeria. Indeed,
there is growing evidence of clandestine organizational activities in
the Muslim community in several French cities in preparation for the
launching of a terrorist campaign in revenge for the support and
encouragement given by the French Government to the suppression of
FIS in Algeria. The local HizbAllah networks assist these clandestine
preparations, and the Islamists' call to avenge the carnage against
the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina merely intensifies the turmoil of
the already agitated and committed community.
Indeed, the
European Islamists have a good organization with state support. As
early as 1991, there had already been a surge in the preparations for
terrorist activities of the Sunni Islamist clandestine organizations,
all of them off-shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, in Western Europe.
At present, some 47 Sunni organizations in Western Europe are
organized under the umbrella of the Islamic Liberation Party [Hizb
al-Takhrir al-Islami or PLI] with headquarters near Hamburg. In
mid-1991, there were some 200 PLI operatives in France alone, all of
them well equipped, including having several passports with different
names for each key activist.
Meanwhile, as of the summer of
1991, Iran has already begun active preparations for long-term
terrorist operations in Western Europe. Most important, in this
context, is the advanced terrorist training provided to Islamists
from Tunisia, Algeria, France, and Belgium in camps in Sudan. In
late-May 1991, the first course for "65 mujahideen who will act
as a nucleus for Islamic action in Europe" was launched. In
addition to extensive terrorists and clandestine training, they also
receive psychological and Islamic tempering and conditioning courses
so that they can sustain clandestine operations under conditions of
"materialistic Western slavery" without losing their
identity and Islamic zeal.
In the fall of 1991, these efforts
were expanded with the establishment of "the Islamic Tide
Brigade in Europe," the organization responsible for training
and preparing Islamist terrorists for long-term operations in Western
Europe, under the direct supervision of the newly promoted Brig.Gen.
Bakri Hassan Salih, the Chief of Security Agency of the Sudanese RCC.
The first target countries are France, Belglum, Holland, and the UR.
In late-November 1991, a group of 16 Tunisian terrorists, a high
quality assassination squad, left Khartoum for Paris and Tunis.
Additional groups have begun penetrating Western Europe since
February 1992.
Thus, the rejuvenation of the PLI as a
terrorist organization since the fall of 1991 has come atop the
establishment of a comprehensive terrorist infrastructure controlled
by Syria and Iran and serving the organizations they sponsor. Between
the local assets and the newly inserted detachments, the Islamist
radical organizations associated with Iran and Syria have a vibrant
system of activists and supporters that constitutes a ready base for
operations. They also have large caches of weapons and explosives
safely hidden all over Europe. There are several car-bombs, mainly
"recycled" European cars so that the licence plates and
serial numbers are genuine, stashed away in several cities. A solid
command and control system that belongs to the sponsoring states,
mainly Iran, tightly supervises these preparations. The overt control
system is exercised through diplomatic channels. The covert system is
exercised through student and cultural associations used by
intelligence agents and operatives. These networks can be used for
deniable operations without directly involving the controlling
states.
***
The current crisis in former Yugoslavia
may well become the catalyst that will push the Muslim communities of
Western Europe into waging a terrorist campaign as an avenging Jihad.
The horrors and carnage of the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina are brought
home every night to the Muslims of Western Europe by the television
news. Consequently, Tehran's argument that the suppression of the
Bosnia-Hercegovina Muslims is the first step in a major campaign
waged the Western governments aimed at destroying the Muslim
communities of Europe is in agreement with, and strongly reinforces,
the beliefs already held by these emigre communities. The stream of
graphic images of violence in Sarajevo makes inescapable their
confronting the possibility that this will be the fate of all Muslims
in Europe, and therefore Iranian propaganda finds a receptive
audience in an already radicalized community.
Thus, as the
siege Sarajevo continues to intensify, so does the radicalization of
the Islamist world. Consequently, the great threat caused by the
continued carnage in Bosnia-Hercegovina comes from the foreign
volunteers and the numerous local Muslims trained in the Middle East
who are capable of carrying their avenging Jihad into the heart of
Western Europe, as advocated and urged by Iran, their ideological
source and sponsoring patron. These terrorists are highly trained and
qualified for such operations. Moreover, when deploying into Europe
they will encounter a vast local network of Islamist terrorists and
operatives living in the midst of an emigre Muslim community already
radicalized and agitated to be on the verge of an indigenous uprising
against the West European governments.
Now, further
exacerbated by the massive media coverage of the plight of the
Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina, these Muslim communities are highly
motivated and ready to provide help in the rapid expansion and
escalation of the new wave of anti-West Jihad advocated by Tehran.
by Yossef Bodansky & Vaughn S. Forrest
(This
paper may not necessarily reflect the views of all of the Members of
the Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. It
is intended to provoke discussion and debate.)
END