The “El Mujahed” unit was charged with the murder, ritual execution,
ritual beheading, torture, and imprisonment of Bosnian Serb and Bosnian
Croat civilians and POWs. Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat civilians and
POWS were forced to dig trenches under fire for the Bosnian Muslim Army
and were used as human shields during offensive operations of the Bosnian
Muslim armed forces. According to the ICTY indictment, “at least 200 Bosnian
Croat and Bosnian Serb civilians were killed.” Bosnian Croat and Bosnian
Serb POWs were killed and tortured.
At the Orasac Camp, which was staffed and run by Saudi-Afghan mujahedeen,
Bosnian Serb civilian Dragan Popovic was ritually beheaded by mujahedeen
on October 20, 1993. Other POWs were then forced to kiss his severed head.
During the Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire occupation of the Balkans, Serbian
Orthodox Christians, the kaurin, or unbelievers, were ritually beheaded
by Muslim Turkish forces to terrorize the rayah or Christian population
known as Dhimmis, a conquered population. Ritual beheadings were part of
the Dhimmitude policies of Muslim occupation forces, who sought to subjugate
and conquer the Christian infidels of Europe. There were Muslim “Crusaders”
and there were Christian “Crusaders”. Ossama bin Laden falsely and mistakenly
asserted that there were only Christian Crusaders. But Islam has been expansionist
ever since the time of Mohammed, invading eastern and western Europe, Asia,
and north Africa, and forcefully converting the subjugated subjects to
Islam. Bosnia was under Muslim Ottoman Turkish occupation for over four
centuries. Spain was under Muslim occupation for over 700 years.
ICTY prosecutor Witkopf characterized the beheading of Bosnian Serb
civilian Dragan Popovic as “a beheading that can only be described as a
ritual beheading.” Other POWs and civilians were forced to dig their own
graves. POWs were terrorized and physically and psychologically abused
and mistreated. POWs were also forced to give blood.
Islam is stated to be a religion of peace and compassion. But this is
not how Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat Christians perceived Islam in Bosnia.
The Al-Qaeda and US-sponsored mujahedeen were supposed to provide protection
to embattled Muslims in Bosnia. Most of the mujahedeen were able to gain
entry to Bosnia posing as workers for so-called Islamic humanitarian and
charity organizations. But the war crimes and atrocities the mujahedeen
committed in Bosnia against Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat Christians showed
the utter contempt Islam has for Christianity and for Christians. The mujahedeen
war crimes put Srebrenica in perspective. They also showed that co-existence
between Islam and Christianity was not feasible in Bosnia. The Bosnian
Serbs maintained this all along, contrary to US propaganda. The mujahedeen
war crimes proved this point. What US foreign policy sought to accomplish
in Bosnia was the domination and subjugation and marginalization of the
Serb and Croat Christian population by Muslims.
The mujahedeen war crimes demonstrated the contempt the mujahedeen had
for Christianity and for so-called Western civilization and culture. Evan
Kohlmann wrote about “their remarkable fanaticism and blind cruelty”. Mujahedeen
troops from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia had “routinely performed crude,
disfiguring, non-medical circumcisions on Bosnian Serb soldiers”. An 18-year
old Bosnian Serb soldier “was so brutally circumcised that eventually the
entire organ required amputation.” No only were Bosnian Serb Orthodox Christians
the victims of Islamic terror, horrific war crimes committed in the name
of Allah. Bosnian Croat Roman Catholic Christians were also victims. The
mujahedeen ethnically cleansed all non-Muslims from Zenica, the mujahedeen
stronghold. In 1992, Dejan Jozic, a 13-year old Roman Catholic Bosnian
Croat teen, was asked by mujahedeen: “Why doesn’t your family leave Zenica?”
Three mujahedeen then attacked Jozic and wrestled him to the ground. The
ring finger of his right hand was then amputated. The Jozic family then
fled from Zenica after this shocking example of Islamic terror. The US
propaganda machine censored and suppressed these horrific acts of genocide
committed by Muslim forces in the name of Islam. The CIA propaganda outlet
in Europe, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, similarly covered-up and censored
these Muslim war crimes and atrocities committed against Orthodox and Roman
Catholic civilians and POWs.
A
Bosnian Serb POW described his treatment after the engagements in the Vozuci
region on May 27, 1995:
I was captured by a group of 12 mujaheddins including a Bosnia Muslim
who served as interpreter… One of the mujaheddins ordered me to kneel down,
took out his butcher knife with semi-circular blade and small handle which
he held hanging around his neck, on his chest. He wanted to cut my had
[sic] off, but the Muslim interpreter intervened, telling him something
in Arabic… They put a knife under our necks, as if they were going to cut
our throats. Then they brought a cardboard box in which there were two
cut off human heads with blood still dripping… One day, they brought us
out in the camp area for all the mujaheddins to see us. In my assessment,
there were one thousand of them. The lined us up in such a way that we
were surrounded by them, and they were singing and shouting something in
Arabic. One of them had a knife in his hands and was persistently trying
to come close and cut our throats, but two others prevented him. He was
foaming with rage.
Another Bosnian Serb POW stated:
As soon as we arrived, the mujaheddins tied us with a hose, into which
they let air under pressure, to make it expand and press our legs. This
cause terrible pains and Gojko Vujicic swore [to] God, so one mujaheddin
took him aside and cut his head off. I did not see what he used for the
cutting, but I know that he brought the head into the room and forced all
of us to kiss it. Then the mujaheddin hung the head on a nail in the wall.
Bosnian Serb POWs were “held like animals and starved for days, slowly
being tortured to death.” Serb POWs were given knives and forced to kill
each other or be killed themselves.
[O]nce they fell from wounds, Mujahedeen would decapitate them, with
cleavers or chain saws, and those who were still alive were forced to kiss
severed heads that were later nailed to tree trunks. Prisoners were hung
upside down by ropes, they were nailed, or the Mujahdeen [sic] tied bricks
to their testes and penises and pushed them into barrels where they slowly
drowned pulled down by the weight of the bricks.
Videotapes were made of these war crimes by the mujahedeen and sold
to encourage recruits to join the mujahedeen and Al-Qaeda. Mujahedeen also
forcefully converted Bosnian Serb POWs to Islam. The US media and government
censored and suppressed these horrific war crimes and atrocities committed
against Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat Christians by Muslims. Why? The
Bosnian Muslims were the proxies of the US government, of NATO, and of
the EU. The US media and government carefully concealed and covered up
the war crimes its Muslim Al-Qaeda proxies committed in Bosnia. If that
failed, the appropriate media spin was put on the story by US government-sponsored
reporters.
US reporter John-Thor Dahlburg of the Los Angeles times was told by
a Bosnian Muslim soldier who was a member of the mujahedeen forces that
the mujahedeen “like to kill. Whenever they could kill with their knives,
they would do so.” The US media and government knew of the war crimes and
atrocities that were being perpetrated against Bosnian Serb and Croat Christians.
Nevertheless, this information was censored and suppressed. Instead, the
US media and government focused on alleged Bosnian Serb war crimes against
Bosnian Muslim troops in Srebrenica. But why is it no crime or Geneva Convention
violation when Bosnian Muslim troops and mujahedeen torture and execute
Bosnian Serb civilians and POWs? It is a perverted and convoluted moral
calculus. Why can the mujahedeen take over Bosnian Serb towns and villages
and torture and execute Bosnian Serb POWs at will? Why can the Al-Qaeda
mujahedeen do this without any criminal culpability? Why are the Bosnian
Serb forces accused of war crimes and even genocide when they retaliate
in kind?
Muslim Ottoman Empire Redux
The mujahedeen goal was to re-establish the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Empire
in Bosnia and in Europe, the so-called Muslim empire or Khalifah or khalifate
or Caliphate. Al-Qaeda still has the goal to re-create a Muslim Caliphate
that would include Bosnia and Kosovo. Ironically, US foreign policy is
achieving for Al-Qaeda what they could not achieve on their own. Kohlmann
chronicles several mujahedeen operations and offensives in 1995 against
Bosnian Serb forces. But he failed to mention that these mujahedeen offensives
were launched in conjunction with massive US and NATO bombings and strategic
air strikes, known as Operation Deliberate Force, against strategic Bosnian
Serb positions. The air strikes began on August 30, 1995, and consisted
of 60 US and NATO aircraft flying over 500 sorties against Bosnian Serb
targets. The US/NATO air force was in fact the air force for the mujahedeen/Al-Qaeda.
Kolhmann does not even note this fact. It was US/NATO airpower that allowed
the mujahedeen to drive out and kill Bosnian Serb troops and take over
Bosnian Serb villages and towns.
Indeed, one Bosnian Serb village, Bocinja Donja, was taken over by mujahedeen
soldiers once the Bosnian Serb inhabitants were driven out. There is a
sign on the outskirts of town that warns residents to “be afraid of Allah.”
There are up to 100 mujahedeen in the formerly Serbian town. The mujahedeen
ever wrote graffiti on one abandoned Serbian house: “El Mudjahidin”. The
mujahedeen/Al-Qaeda military victories were a gift or present from the
US/NATO. The US/NATO only empowered and encouraged Al-Qaeda to later kill
17 US sailors aboard the USS Cole and approximately 3,000 civilians in
the 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. The story would come
full circle.
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Abu
Abdel Aziz Barbaros, the "senior Al-Qaeda" who commanded the Bosnian Muslim
mujahedeen unit of the Bosnian Muslim Army.
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Iraqi
Connection
There were reports that Ossama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda mujahedeen veterans
from the Bosnian civil war were now killing US troops and Western civilians
in Iraq. In a Tanjug news report from December 29, 2004, “French Journalists’
Captors Were Bin Laden’s Veteran from Bosnia”, it was reported that French
journalist Christian Chesnot, of Radio France Internationale, along with
Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro, was held by “veterans of Ossama Bin Ladin
from Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Chesnot was held hostage for four months in Iraq
by the “Islamic Army in Iraq”. Chesnot told Tanjug reporters:
Our captors told us they had fought in Bosnia… One of them, a youngish
man, aged 30 or so, told us he had been in Bin Ladin’s camp in Afghanistan
and that he had fought in Bosnia… We realized that this was one of the
Arab war leaders that had fired rockets in Bosnia and chanted ‘Jihad, Jihad.’…
We realized also that some of our abductors were members of what we called
Planet Bin Ladin.
Chesnot stated that one of their abductors played them a tape of Bosnian
music and informed them that two Macedonian hostages and the Italian journalist
Enzo Baldoni had been executed by the Islamic Organization in Iraq. One
of their Arabic captors spoke about the “international jihad”, “Sheikh
Osama”, and “the dream of a Muslim state from Andalusia to China, and the
fight against Christians.”
The US would experience blowback from its creation of the Afghanistan
mujahedeen not only in the 9/11 attack, but in the US occupation of Iraq.
9/11 Commission
Steven Emerson presented a report on July 9, 2003 to the 9/11 Commission
in which he detailed the activities of the commander of the Bosnian Muslim
“El Mujahed” unit, Abu Abdel Aziz Barbaros:
When senior Al-Qaeda recruiter Shaykh Abu Abdel Aziz Barbaros was interviewed
in 1994 about his experiences organizing the Arab-Afghan jihad in Bosnia,
he explained: I---alhamdulillah [Arabic, “All praise is due to Allah”]
----met several prominent Ulema [Muslim scholar]. Among them…. Sheikh Abdel
Aziz Bin Baz… and others in the Gulf area. Alhamdulillah, all grace be
to Allah, they all support the religious dictum that “the fighting in Bosnia
is a fight to make the word of Allah supreme and protect the chastity of
Muslims.”
Abu Muaz al-Kuwaiti, one of the mujahedeen commanders in Bosnia, explained
why the mujahedeen were in Bosnia:
As for why we came to Bosnia-Hercegovina, we did not come here except
for Jihad in the Way of Allah (Glorified and Most High), and to assist
our Mujahideen brothers.
According to Evan Kohlmann, Barbaros told other senior Al-Qaeda members
who were assembled at a meeting in Zagreb that the Al-Qaeda objective in
Bosnia was not to bring humanitarian assistance to Bosnian Muslims as US
propaganda claimed, but “was to establish a base for operations in Europe
against al-Qaeda’s true enemy, the United States.” Thus, Al-Qaeda saw through
the US game from the start.
The mujahedeen were formed, armed, trained, and financed by the US Government
beginning in 1979 when US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
initiated their use as proxies. He manipulated Islam to get them to fight
Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The goal was to make the Soviets bleed according
to Brzezinski. The mujahedeen were just pawns in his bigger chess game.
Brzezinski was a Roman Catholic Pole who still spoke with a Slavic/Polish
accent. His ultimate goal was to get the Soviet forces out of Poland so
that Poland could join the US NATO alliance.
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A
rare photo of the 10,000 strong mujahedeen unit in the Bosnian Muslim Army
on parade in downtown Zenica in 1995. They are wearing green head bands
that read in Arabic: "Our way is the Jihad."
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US
President Ronald Reagan declared the mujahedeen were “freedom fighters…
defending … freedom…” in the early 1980s and the US Government established
“Afghanistan Day” in the US. Absurdly, the “war on terrorism” is rationalized
as a global struggle to safeguard “freedom” from “freedom fighters…defending….freedom…”
Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski did much to transform
a US policy of realpolitik based on divide and conquer, divide et impera,
into a moralist Manichean foreign policy based on “good” and “evil”, invoking
God to sanction US foreign policy in a cynical manipulation of religion.
This US manipulation of religion to advance US geo-political strategic
interests during the Cold War unleashed the mujahedeen Jihad and Al-Qaeda.
US support empowered the mujahedeen and encouraged bin Laden to expand
the mujahedeen Jihad across the globe beyond the borders of Afghanistan.
Ed Bradley of CBS’ 60 Minutes even argued that Muslims should be grateful
to the US Government because it allowed them to kill Serbian Christians
and to take their lands. Didn’t we kill the Serbian Christians for you
Muslims? Didn’t we take their lands and give them to you Muslims? Didn’t
we demonize the Serbian Christians for you Muslims with our propaganda
so you could kill them? Where is the gratitude? This was Ed Bradley’s reasoning.
But Muslims saw through the ruse and sham. The mujahedeen and Al-Qaeda
share the view of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that the United States
is the “Great Satan” and is the actual enemy of Islam. Abu el-Ma’ali even
issued a communiqué from Zenica on September 22, 1995, where he
stated that: “We know that we will have a day in which to fight the Jews,
and the Almighty will grant us victory…” They knew that Bosnia was just
a rehearsal and a game. The real target for Al-Qaeda and for the mujahedeen
is ultimately the United States and Israel. US foreign policy in the Middle
East and Zionism are the ultimate targets. Bosnia was just a diversion,
a sideshow. Slobodan Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs were merely straw
men and a smokescreen to cover up the real targets of Islam.
The mujahedeen were just cannon fodder and worthless pawns in advancing
the goals of US foreign policy. Brzezinski told the mujahedeen that “God
is on your side”, exploiting Islam as a religion and using it to get Muslims
to kill Soviet troops. But the mujahedeen saw through this shameless ploy.
The denouement of this policy came on September 11, 2001, when veterans
of the Afghan war organized the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center
in New York. What went around, came around.
Al-Qaeda, or The Base, was created in 1988 by bin Laden with veterans
of the war in Afghanistan because he wanted the mujahedeen war to be extended
as a global or world-wide jihad. In 1992, the Soviet-backed regime was
overthrown and a civil war emerged between various mujahedeen factions.
In 1996, the Taliban (from Pashtun “students of the book”, the Koran, from
Arabic talib, “student”) mujahedeen seized power in Afghanistan with help
from Pakistani troops and the Pakistani and US governments. US foreign
policy favored the Pakistani-sponsored Taliban over the Russian-backed
Northern Alliance which allowed for the emergence of the Taliban Government.
In 2001, the US would reverse its allegiance away from its Taliban ally
to the Russian-sponsored Northern Alliance. The Taliban was the fruit of
US policy in Afghanistan. US policy had allowed the Taliban to emerge.
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Former
US President Bill Clinton at memorial to killed mujahedeen soldiers at
Srebrenica. The memorial is in Arabic, not Slavic "Bosnian" language. [Click
to enlarge photo]
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Pact
with the Devil
The US Government knew Al-Qaeda forces were being deployed to Bosnia
but allowed them to come through channels established in Croatia. Unmarked
Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft were bringing arms and weapons
to the Bosnian Muslim troops at the airport in Tuzla. Bosnian Serb forces
even recorded communications from the aircraft and determined that it was
piloted and manned by US forces on a clandestine mission. Transport aircraft
routinely landed in the Zagreb airport where arms, weapons, and supplies
from Iran were unloaded for trans-shipment to Bosnia in plain sight. It
was common knowledge that the US was in cahoots with Teheran and mujahedeen
forces to bring arms and troops from Iran to Bosnia illegally, in contravention
of the UN arms embargo. The US turned a blind eye to the shipment of arms
to the Bosnian Muslim forces by Iran, a Muslim fundamentalist state. The
US was instrumental in allowing the Afghan-Arab mujahedeen and Al-Qaeda
to infiltrate Bosnia.
US Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith and Bosnian Muslim president
Alija Izetbegovic should also be charged with war crimes. Indeed, US President
Bill Clinton can be charged for war crimes based on command responsibility.
The US Government used diplomatic code to conceal the fact that it was
working with Al-Qaeda and Iranian forces in Bosnia. The US Government told
US diplomats in the Balkans that it had “no instructions” on Al-Qaeda and
Iranian terrorist troops entering Bosnia. This was a green light to Al-Qaeda
and Iranian forces. US President Bill Clinton bears criminal responsibility
for bringing Al-Qaeda to Bosnia where these terrorist forces committed
atrocities and war crimes against Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb civilians
and POWs. Why isn’t Bill Clinton in the dock at the ICTY?
Richard Holbrooke claimed that the Bosnian Muslim regime could not otherwise
survive without Al-Qaeda mujahedeen support and the aid provided by Muslim
fundamentalist Iran. Izetbegovic was even allowed to visit Teheran by the
US Government during the civil war, although the US media ignored the event
and suppressed it. As Holbrooke himself conceded, it was a “pact with the
devil”. This “pact with the devil” did not begin or end in Bosnia.
It was a pact with the devil that saw its apotheosis or denouement with
the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Why weren’t US President Bill Clinton or Alija Izetbegovic indicted
for war crimes at The Hague? Instead, we see the ICTY charging two patsies
and small fry, Hadzihasanovic and Kubura. Why not go after the big fish
and the big fry?
The ICTY announced that it was investigating Alija Izetbegovic for war
crimes on October 22, 2003, the day of his funeral. The ICTY waited until
his death and funeral to announce the war crimes investigation because
the ICTY did not want to undermine the political mission of the ICTY which
the US/NATO/EU set for it, which was to hold the Serbian leaders and people
totally responsible for the civil wars in Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia.
Florence Hartmann, an ICTY spokeswoman, released a statement, which was
quoted in the BBC news story for October 22, 2003, “Bosnia Leader was War
Crimes Suspect: “Izetbegovic was one of the suspects who was under investigation…The
fact he died means all investigations are stopped.”
Izetbegovic, like Bill Clinton, bears command responsibility for the
atrocities and war crimes of the Al-Qaeda mujahedeen in the “El Mujahed”
unit of the Bosnian Muslim Army. They knew or had reason to know that Al-Qaeda
mujahedeen were committing atrocities against Bosnian Serb civilians and
POWs and did nothing to prevent them. Izetbegovic was photographed with
the commanders of the 7th Muslim Brigade of Zenica and Bill Clinton was
at a memorial for dead mujahedeen troops in Bosnia.
The ICTY has brought war crimes charges against the following Bosnian
Muslim military leaders: Enver Hadzihasanovic, Amir Kubura, Mehmed Alagic,
Sefer Halilovic, the chief of the supreme command of the Bosnian Muslim
Army, Naser Oric, the Bosnian Muslim military commander of Srebrenica.
Bosnian Muslim camp guards Hazim Delic and Esad Landzo were convicted for
war crimes against Bosnian Serbs at the Celebici camp. Bosnian Muslim Zejnil
Delalic was acquitted.
Blowback
Before the attack on 9/11, Al-Qaeda regrouped in Bosnia during the civil
war there where it found a new mission and was able to consolidate its
bases and to finalize its strategy of global terrorism. What we are not
told is that this was all “Made in the USA”. It was a “pact with the devil”
that resulted in blowback and the result was the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attack on 9/11.