by Esad HECIMOVIC
When between 1997 and 1999 court verdicts established criminal responsibility of a group of former Mujahedin for some of attacks in central Bosnia, policemen and prosecutors ignored one very important fact. The defendants in these cases were all employed after the war by the High Saudi Committee, the Organization of Active Islamic Youth (AIO), and other humanitarian and non-governmental organizations. The attackers earned their keep as organizers, librarians, teachers, distributors of religious literature, or from cash stipends they earned as activists of non-governmental organizations.
Suspicions about motivation for their activities were not removed by these verdicts. The prosecution failed to give answers to numerous questions about their connections with local and international organizations. Humanitarian organizations defend themselves by saying that their only guilt is in being naïve and displaying lack of caution, which implicated them in the activities of their dishonest employees or forging of official identification cards.
Hafiz, religious teacher, and fighter: Numerous local and international investigations indicate that these connections are not accidental. If very little money was needed for terrorist acts, and origin of these funds remains unknown, a much larger portion of donations is spent for missionary work, which links humanitarian workers and terrorists. The key example is that of sheikh Imad el Missri, who was sentenced in March 2001, in Egypt, as a member of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. After a trial in absentia, Egyptian authorities requested that Missri be extradited from Bosnia. The Bosnian authorities arrested him in July 2001. However, the local investigation only focused on the establishment of his true identity. He was deported in early October 2001 to Egypt. He was sentenced to ten years in prison for an earlier crime. In its annual report for 2001, the Anti-terrorist office of the US State Department also claimed that Imad el Missri was a member of the aforementioned Egyptian terrorist group, also known as El Jihad, and the Islamic Group. This group is included in the list of terrorist groups compiled by the US State Department, as well as in all lists of terrorist groups and sponsors of terrorism compiled by the leading governments in the West and the UN.
Sheikh Imad was one of key Islamic missionaries in Bosnia. He was active for a decade in humanitarian, non-governmental organizations and military units. According to his biography, published after his first arrest, Imad el Missri "abandoned in 1992 his well paid job of an economist in Saudi Arabia and came to Bosnia," where he fought in Prusac, Tesanj, and with the "El Mujahid" unit, after its formation in July 1993. During the war, as hafiz, a religious teacher, and soldier of this unit, he led 19 madrasas, each one lasting for 40 days. Attendance of these madrasas was a pre-condition for joining the unit that gathered local and foreign Islamic volunteers.
Correcting the faith: Missri provoked heated reactions for the first time in the autumn of 1993, when he published his work Mistaken beliefs. The small booklet, which announced radical changes in the way in which the political role of Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina was to be interpreted, was recommended for printing by the Islamic Center in Travnik. Several editions of this booklet were printed by the BH Board of the Kuwaiti organization for Renaissance of Islamic Tradition. After the war, this organization was most frequently suspected of connections with Mujahedin. The Kuwaiti Organization for Renaissance of Islamic Thought in Zenica had an office in a former carpet store "Sintelon" in the district Crkvice. It distinguished itself by unparalleled propaganda-education activities. According to the data obtained from the Zenica municipality, by September 1995, the organization published seven booklets in 70,000 copies and 10,000 copies of 10 books. The Zenica court, in February 1997, erased this organization from the registry of civic associations, but its work permit was reissued later. Now, its name can be found on internationally compiled lists of sponsors of terrorism because of its activities in Pakistan.
After the war, Imad el Missri continued with his missionary work, above all within the AIO. "Directly or indirectly he can be credited with tens of thousands of donated iftars [evening meals consumed during the holy month of Ramadan], tens of secured hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca] trips, and tens of scholarships for young Bosniaks who left to study shari'aS [Islamic canonical laws] law and other Islamic studies all over the Muslim world. He was especially active regarding the returnees to the Republic of Srpska, especially to eastern Bosnia. He secured valuable donations for them on several occasions. He continued his work through six longer madrasas and numerous lectures sponsored by the Active Islamic Youth (AIO). He was especially dedicated to work and lectures for expelled Bosniaks who currently live all over Europe and the world," the AIO announced after his arrest.
"Fabricated charges": The AIO has not so far officially reacted to claims of Egyptian and American authorities about sheikh Imad's membership in a banned terrorist group. "We do not know anything about that. We are convinced that Imad el Missri is an honest man, that he is a victim of a staged trial in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Egypt and that he did not have a fair trial either here or there. A lot of lies have been told about him. We do know that he is serving a ten-year prison sentence because of an alleged earlier attack on an alcohol storage room. He is serving his sentence in inhumane and difficult conditions, in an infamous jail. The Amnesty International claims that he was tortured after being deported from Bosnia-Hercegovina to Egypt in 2001," one leader of the AIO says, promising an official statement by that organization.
Usually, it is believed that every terrorist act requires an approval of the religious leader of a certain group or the organization that carries out the act. During hitherto conducted anti-terrorist investigations in Bosnia-Hercegovina, there was only one testimony claiming that precisely sheyh Imad gave such approvals for various attacks, weighing on the one side possible damage or benefit for the community. But, that testimony was rejected as the witness later became a cruel murderer and was sent to jail and forced to undergo psychiatric treatment.
The banned Egyptian terrorist group El Jihad is in the focus of American, Egyptian, Albanian and investigations of a series of Western governments about the abuse of humanitarian funds for support of terrorism in the Balkans. Most humanitarians, accused of or found guilty of support and carrying out of terrorist acts are suspected of being members of El Jihad or the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (known under its French name as GIA). The leader of El Jihad, Dr. Ayman el Zawahiri is the enemy number two of the US authorities, right after Osama bin Laden.
Models of abuse: There are several models for abuse of humanitarian organizations for support of terrorism. So far investigations usually focused on the first model, in which an infiltrated terrorist, searching for funding, joins a humanitarian organization as an activist, teacher, organizer of distributor of religious literature, and later earns trust of his bosses and takes over the running of the organization. Such was the case of planting of members of El Jihad in humanitarian organizations such as El Harameyn in Albania. In another model, one office of the organization supports terrorism in some country without knowledge of the headquarters. The American and Saudi authorities describe such a case as motivation for their decision to block the bank accounts of the El Harameyn office in Bosnia-Hercegovina, based on charges of links with El Jihad. The third model, when the whole humanitarian organization supports terrorism, is the most difficult to prove. In the case of El Harameyn, there are charges that this organization has provided cover for Al Qaida since 1997 all over the world. However, that is not an official charge of any government, and is only advocated by lawyers representing families of the victims of the September 11 attack.
In order to understand the connection between humanitarian workers and terrorists the key question is that of financial and ideological roots of support for terrorism. Financial roots of terrorism can be found in non-transparent financial transactions that allowed numerous abuses, from personal enrichment of participants in the chain to support for terrorism. Islamic missionaries who interpret support for terrorism as a part of their mission of calling to the true faith, protecting the Muslim community and assisting oppressed peoples and nations, represent the true, ideological roots of terrorism.
(The series of articles was completed within the Irex ProMedia Anti-corruption Fellowship Program)
This type of missionary work has its roots in what is usually referred to as Wahhabism. According to Imad El Missri's explanation, "Wehhabism is a Salafiyya [original Islamic practice, during first two centuries of faith] movement that demands that people return to the tradition of the true predecessors of salaf who were the best generation. The chief leader of the movement is sheikh Muhammed ibn Avdulvehhab," who lived in the eighteenth century. "Since then, pure knowledge has incessantly been pouring forth in the Arabian peninsula. People have been instructed in that pure knowledge. The state has become a servant of the knowledge and remains its servant until today, so that our sahwa has been initiated, spread, and strengthened in every way from the Arabian peninsula and its schools," Basic explains.
Out of six most important beliefs and ideas of Wahhabism, according to El Missri, the one with the most important influence in Bosnia-Hercegovina was that of "initiation of jihad as a religious duty against infidels and heathen". According to the interpretation provided by Dr. Sefik Kurdic in his lectures about jihad, the most important goal of jihad is the spread of Islam through missionary work, dawa. Although both cases concern Selafic missionaries and mujahedin, differences exist. With respect to terrorism, the differences are, according to Basic, in the knowledge of the faith: "Jamma'ah-ul-jihad really does not have the correct aqid'ah [religious belief, correct practice] and does not know the faith. Certain methods that have reliably produced only bad results in the past are nevertheless persistently used by certain individuals from Jamma'ah-ul-jihad, so that they are seen as terrorists even by the practicing Muslims. Truly, one needs to prepare for Jihad! Jihad is not a party. Jihad is not provoking crises, etc."
In 1998, in a series of criminal and anti-terrorist investigations the local authorities discovered links between terrorists and humanitarian organizations. This prompted the High Saudi Committee to publish a book of instructions for Islamic missionaries. "Dai'yas - Islamic workers, activists and enthusiasts of this faith can find in this book instructions about the most correct way and method for avoiding evil, especially given that Bosnia is an open land in which different religions, ideologies and beliefs exist,", sheikh Nasser the director of the regional office of the High Saudi Committee for Europe, wrote in the preface of the book.
Essentially, the book Methods for da'wah in prevention and removal of bad deeds, written by Abdul Hamid Al-Bilali, prescribes six steps for suppression of evil deeds and three conditions necessary for preventing evil by force.
The obvious motivation for these Saudi instructions to missionaries was an incorrect interpretation of the hadis [reports on sayings and the traditions of the prophet]: "If anyone of you spots an evil deed, let him prevent it with his hands, and if impossible, by words, and if even that is impossible, let him scorn the evil, and that is the weakest iman [choice; also faith and trust in Allah]." Young Bosniaks who completed various Islamic religious courses in humanitarian organizations did not want to be seen as "of weak iman". They soon started preventing "evil deeds" in the streets by force. According to these Saudi instructions, missionaries are prescribed six steps for stopping evil deeds. The first one is informing the sinner about his sins. Then a missionary is instructed to prevent evil deeds by instruction, advice and intimidation. Then a sinner is issued a sharp rebuke, and only then the sin may be prevented by force, under certain conditions. The sinner is first to be intimidated, and only after that hit by hand or kicked. There are three conditions for preventing evil by force. The first condition is that the evil deed cannot be prevented in any other way. The second condition is an assessment whether force would be beneficial or harmful in given conditions. If the damage to the missionary or the community were greater than benefits, force is to be avoided. The third condition is that the missionary must instruct good and deflect people from evil by words and his heart if he has no power; force is to be used only if he has power. Therefore, these are instructions for the ways in which force is to be applied, rather than a stand against use of violence as such. Consequently, Saudi instructions are more of a doctrine for use of violence, than a stand against use of violence motivated by religion and politics. To paraphrase: do not hit immediately, first make a threat!
These instructions were given by sheikh Abu Hamza el Missri, imam of the mosque in Finsbury park in London, to his followers. Video recordings of his speeches in which he hails terrorist attacks in Kenya, Tanzania and Yemen, were smuggled to the Internet and published last month. Sheikh Abu Hamza el Misri first claimed that "the tapes were edited and [his] words taken out of context", but later said that he "could not be charged with instigating violence because [he is] a cleric who only teaches Islamic law". Video recordings posted on the Internet include a tape of a British mujahid who boasts about killing Serbs and participating in training camps during the war in Bosnia.
Abu Hamza el Misri is the leader of Ensariya Shari'ah (abbreviated in English to S.O.S.), a radical group that is still active in Bosnia. One of the leading Islamic missionaries in Bosnia claimed in a conversation with Dani that precisely that group provoked a clash with the police special forces on January 18, 2002, when the "Algerian group" was deported from the Sarajevo central prison. Members of this group in Bosnia maintain a web-site where one can find some of the mentioned video recordings and much material inciting hatred, terrorism and violence. All the names mentioned on the site are fake and the only contact is possible via e-mail. They refused to talk to Dani, because "Dani is not an Islamic magazine".
As early as during the criminal investigations in 1997 and 1998, the leading missionaries of the Saudi and Salafiyya branch in Bosnia-Hercegovina accused the group Hijrah wel Tekfir of issuing fatwas that permit killing of non-Muslims and looting of their property. One of recorded lectures, distributed on audio-cassettes, Semir Imamovic, doctor of shari'ah law, who is also currently studying in Arab countries, claimed that Ensariya Shari'ah - S.O.S. is known in Bosnia as El Tekfir wel Hijrah.
"Tekfir [apostasy] and hijrah [seeking shelter in true faith], that means that those who do not perform a hijrah with them and do not join them, become infidels. They believe that every ruler is an infidel, that his subjects are infidels, that police and all those connected with police are also infidels, without any limitations. Then they are free to murder Muslims. For example, they will denounce a policeman as infidel and kill him. If some of his relatives are in contact with the policeman, they are also denounced as infidels and murdered, because anyone doubting that an infidel is indeed an infidel, must be an infidel himself. Their web-page promotes this reasoning and calls on Muslims to perform a hijra and move to Afghanistan, while they live in the West. Thus, some of them are active here and I warn you about them. Abu Hamza is one of their hojas. He lost both arms in Afghanistan. He is spreading these ideas. They spread those ideas here in Bosnia. They believed that we were not allowed to join the Army [of Bosnia-Hercegovina], because it was a tagut [evil, infidel, secular, rejecting shari'ah law] army, which did not apply Allah's law, so that we were not allowed to fight with them. When people realized what he was advocating, he was expelled and removed from mujahids," Imamovic explained.
In one of his books, sheikh Abu Hamza el Missri explains his attitude with respect to Bosniaks, giving a direct answer to the question whether inhabitants of Bosnia and Kosovo are Muslims or infidels. "The people in Kosovo and Bosnia fit much better the description of those who should be forgiven for their ignorance. They only recall the words La illaha illallah [there is no lord worthy of worship but Allah]. Thus, we regard them as Muslims, but we also must teach them their religion. When they improve their knowledge, if they reject [true] Islam, then we must condemn them. Prior to that, we must show sympathy and pray to Allah to increase their knowledge and turn them into good Muslims," is sheikh Abu Hamza's reply.
Although he is kept under house arrest in London and has been banned from delivering khutbahs [Muslim sermons], nevertheless, every Friday he writes a new khutbah that is published on the web, including the site of his supporters in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Ensariya Shari'ah is the classic example of a radical Islamic group that combines in its activities humanitarian work, such as assistance to refugees, with incitement of hatred, violence and terrorism.
Just as in the case of London sheikh Abu Hamza el Misri, when we question the responsibility of Islamic missionaries for incitement of hatred or violence, they respond by saying that they only interpret Islamic law, Qur'an ayet [verses in Qur'an] or hadis [reports on sayings and traditions of the prophet]. Most of their missionary work runs within humanitarian organizations and civic associations, so that the official Islamic Community has little influence. The Islamic Community reacted on at least two occasions, in 1995 and 1997, when internal conflict threatened to split the community.
Missionaries who act as a sort of "final judgment prophets" have been drawing a lot of attention. Usually they interpret hadis, such as the hadis about the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) and Rome, or the hadis about the killing of Jews. In the book Small signs of the final judgment, prepared by M.A. Fuad Sedic and published by the Active Islamic Youth, the conquest of Istanbul and Rome is predicted as a consequence of such an interpretation of hadis:
"Some experts believe that this prediction still hasn't been fulfilled because the Constantinople was conquered with force of arms, while the Prophet announced that the conquest that will come before the Final Judgment will be without arms and that the only arms needed for conquest will be ‘tekbirs' [shout "Allahu Ekber", "Allah is great"] and "la ilahe illallah" ["there is no lord but Allah"]. According to these experts, Mehmed the Conqueror's conquest of Constantinople was only an introduction and preparation for the main conquest. The fact that caliphate has been destroyed and that infidels today rule Constantinople, so that it has to be liberated one more time, is a proof of that. The famous expert Ahmed Shakir is one of them. He says that the second conquest of Constantinople, announced in hadis, will come when Muslims return to their true faith, from which they have deviated a lot. These are the two opinions regarding the conquest of Constantinople, and only Allah knows [which one of them is the correct one]. As far as the conquest of Rome is concerned, Rome still hasn't been conquered, but there is no doubt that it will be one day, as the Prophet has announced that in hadis."
Similarly, various teachers announce other great Muslim battles, such as a war against the Jews. "One of small signs of the Final Judgment is the hadis in Buhariya, which says: ‘The Final Judgment, the end of this world, will not come before Muslims start a total war against the Jews. In that battle Jews will be routed and Muslims will kill all of them. They will scatter and hide behind trees and stones. And every tree and a stone will say - ‘Oh Muslim, servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him'. Therefore, the end of world will not come until Jews, the origin of all evil in the world today, until that damned people is destroyed. Destroyed by whom? Destroyed by true servants of Allah."
Lecturers that promote such views enjoy significant Saudi financial support and hold important posts in humanitarian and non-governmental organizations with headquarters in Saudi Arabia.