Algerians in Bosnia

[Al-khiyal]

According to the commission, those whose citizenships were stripped hailed from a variety of locations in the Middle East and North Africa, but largely from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Algeria. Out of the 1,300 cases so far revised, at least 100 were Algerian natives.

A police source close to the anti-terror investigations told ISA Consulting that most of the Algerian fighters came to Bosnia in mid-1992 through the Algeria based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), via the Croatian capital Zagreb - though the Bosnian Security Ministry has no evidence that Mimun himself was a member of the group. The source also said that some Algerian nationals arrived in Bosnia through the Egyptian militant group Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya.

The source said GIA had sent some high-ranking officials to Zagreb, where they set up a charity front called Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) or Al-Kifah - a center used for the logistical operations of infiltrating Bosnia.

Western media quoted several unnamed intelligence officials as saying that MAK was founded in the mid-1980s by Osama bin Laden to raise funds for recruiting foreign fighters for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Al-Kifah also had branches in Pakistan and New York, and offices in 32 US cities. The New York branch was shut down right after the 1993 WTC bombing after an investigation proved that all of the bombers were connected to that office.

Later on, at least six members of the Al-Kifah Zagreb office, including its head, Kamar Eddine Kherbane, were arrested throughout the world on various charges, including weapons smuggling, plotting terror attacks and membership in militant groups, including GIA, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Qaida.

Algerians were also the first initial target of the US-led war on terror in Bosnia. In October 2001, after a US intelligence tip-off, Bosnian security forces arrested six native Algerians.

The six were suspected of being members of the GIA and al-Qaida cells that had plotted to bomb US and British embassies in Sarajevo. Those allegations, however, were later dropped.

Three months after the arrest, the six men, all post-war charity workers, were released by the Bosnian Supreme Court, but under US pressure were extradited to Guantanamo Bay, where they are languishing. US authorities have not officially charged them. Five of the six men were naturalized Bosnian citizens, while the sixth was a permanent resident of Bosnia.

Though the international community was initially pleased with the work of Bosnia’s revision commission, whose mandate expires in February, it later became frustrated, particularly the US, with Bosnian authorities’ failure to accomplish the next step - deportations.

In July, the international community's high representative to Bosnia, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak, stepped up the pressure on local authorities, particularly Security Minister Tarik Sadovic, from the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), to move ahead with the deportations.

Sadovic had stalled over alleged technical difficulties, arguing that he was not authorized to sign the deportation orders and had attempted to place the onus of the move on his assistant.

However, after Lajcak threatened to impose sanctions against Sadovic, the security minister ordered that the deportation processed be expedited, and soon afterwards preparations were underway, with the Bosnian government announcing the pending deportation of the first group of 48 people originating from 11 African and Middle Eastern countries.

It appears now, though, that the long-awaited deportations may in fact start and end with Mimun. Deputy Mektic said no one else would be deported for the time being, citing the complicated legal procedure.

After citizenship is revoked there are several levels of legal resources those who are targeted may seek. However, Bosnia's parliament is discussing a new anti-terrorist law to simplify the process. Shortly after announcing the deportations, the Bosnian government was criticized by human rights groups, who pointed out that many of those whose citizenships have been revoked could face torture or the death penalty in their home countries.

Tunisian-born Karray Kamel bin Ali, alias Abu Hamza, is one such man who has exhausted most legal measures to avoid deportation. Abu Hamza is believed to have been the informal leader of the Wahhabi movement in Bosnia, and a revision commission source told ISA that he was slated to be among the first group of those deported. The Tunisian’s citizenship was revoked in April, and authorities have labeled him a potential national security threat with links to figures with “terrorist aspirations.”

Abu Hamza gained Bosnian citizenship during the 1992-1995 war due to the fact that he fought with and was commander of the El-Mujahid unit and married a Bosnian woman. According to police information, Abu Hamza was part of a 15-20 member group of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya members that arrived in the central Bosnian cities of Zenica and Travnik in the summer of 1992. Living in Bosnia until 1998, he used several names and falsified Yemeni and Libyan documents to gain citizenship.

However, Abu Hamza has managed to postpone his deportation to Tunisia (where he was sentenced in absentia to 13 years in prison) after being arrested only a week before the deportation date for his involvement in a bizarre shooting incident in a village near Zenica.

Abu Hamza and three associates, all members of the Wahhabi movement, were arrested in June after an attack on a house owned by Zijad Kovac in which three members of Kovac’s family were wounded. On 30 November, Abu Hamza was sentenced on two years and 10 moths in prison for the assault.

Rather than deporting him, however, Bosnian authorities released him the same day as his sentencing, citing overcrowded local prisons. Local media reported that security forces have remained on alert since and during the trial, in which Abu Hamza threatened the media, police and “all enemies of Islam.”

On 21 December, a court in Zenica ordered that Abu Hamza be incarcerated following the filing of a complaint last week by his wife, who claimed he had assaulted her. The prosecutor in the case, Sasa Sarajlic, also presented the court with threatening letters he received from Abu Hamza, according to local media reports.

[Al-khiyal]

SARAJEVO, December 27, 2007 -- Officials of the Mujaheddin organization Ensarije have announced a "human rights violation protest".

According to the organization's Deputy President Imad al Husini, a.k.a. Abu Hamza, the rights of "Bosnia-Herzegovina citizens of African-Asian decent" are being violated.

"When the holidays end we will be organizing protests in Sarajevo over the violation of our rights. We plan on gathering 5,000 people, but we will respect all legal procedures," Abu Hamza told Banja Luka daily Nezavisne Novine.

He said that the decisions for taking away the Bosnian citizenships from Arabs who fought in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia on the side of local Muslims in that country are of a political, not security nature.

Abu Hamza said that the government in Sarajevo has no evidence that these people are a threat to national security.

Recently an Algerian, Atau Mimun, was deported after being stripped of his citizenship. Abu Hamza said that Mimun cooperated with the police and information agencies.

"They asked him for information regarding the Fahdova mosque in Sarajevo and other things. When he did not do what they told him, he was deported," Abu Hamza alleges.

A commission for looking into citizenships handed out in Bosnia in between 1992-1995 has formed in march 2006.

The commission passed decisions to strip 400 people of citizenship, mostly Arabs who came to Bosnia-Herzegovina to fight in the Mujaheddin units.

The UN war crimes court at The Hague is currently trying former Bosnian Muslim army chief Rasim Delić for command responsibility in cases of war crimes committed by the Mujaheddin, against Bosnian Serb and Croatian soldiers and civilians.

Bosnia's Mujaheddin to protest deportations

[Al-khiyal]

Spokesman for former Arab fighters: European security forces searching for 100 Algerians

January 9, 2008 -- Bosnian officials said they did not found any trace of about 100 Algerian-born citizens whose Bosnian nationalities had been withdrawn by authorities in Sarajevo.

The Bosnian government believes that most of them have left Bosnia and gone to live in a number of European countries.

“Leaving Bosnia was their only choice to escape from security and judicial pressures,” Abu Hamza spokesperson for former Arab fighters told Echorouk.

“It is clear that America and the West put more pressure on the Bosnian government to make 2008 a year of definitive settlement of the Arab fighters’ issue in Bosnia,” he added.

According to the Syrian-born leader, the US campaign against the former Arab fighters has extended to Western security forces that search for and arrest them.

“It seems that they find difficulties in that because most of them have got new passports with different names,” he said.

On 16 December, 2007, Bosnia deported 37-year-old Algerian Atau Mimun to Algeria.

Last July, Bosnian authorities published a list of 75 Algerians including 11 women and high-ranking officers in the Bosnian army whose Bosnian nationalities might be withdrawn.

Several volunteers from Algeria, Syria, Jordan and Egypt were fighting against Serbian forces between 1992 and 1995. A war was declared by Serbia against Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Muslims, two years after the collapse of Yugoslavia.

Under intensifying pressure from the international community, Bosnian authorities on 16 December deported the first of nearly 600 naturalized Bosnian citizens from Islamic countries.

Human rights organisations have implored Bosnian authorities to stop the deportation decision which will deprive the citizens of their families.

They fear that those former Arab fighters will be tortured or maltreated if they return to their native lands.

[Al-khiyal]

Bosnia’s foreign fighter dilemma

January 13, 2008 (ISA) -- A Bosnian court on 11 January reversed the government’s decision to strip Bosnian citizenship from Tunisian born Abu Hamza, who was often linked by security forces to criminal and radical Muslim groups. ISA experts reported in late December that Abu Hamza was one of the first candidates slated to be deported from Bosnia to his country of origin.

After the Bosnian government’s Commission for Citizenship Revision revoked the citizenship of Abu Hamza, also known as Karray Kamel bin Ali, in April 2007, he submitted an appeal to the Bosnian court, arguing that the move violated legal procedures.

When the commission revised his case, they found several irregularities. The commission discovered that Abu Hamza had given false identity information in his citizenship application and that he had falsely claimed that he was a member of the Bosnian Army at the time of application. The authorities have also labeled him a potential national security threat with links to figures with terrorist aspirations.

However, based on the documentation presented by his lawyer, the court found that at the time of his citizenship application, Abu Hamza was commander of the El-Mujahid unit (this unit was under the official jurisdiction of the Bosnian Army, though it operated autonomously and comprised foreign fighters from Islamic countries) and that under Bosnian laws he had the right to gain citizenship through his marriage to a Bosnian woman, who left him after the war.

In its decision, the court said there were legal elements proving that Abu Hamza had gained Bosnian citizenship legitimately and that an evaluation of whether any documents had been falsified did not fall under commission’s jurisdiction. Still, the court called for authorized institutions to investigate Abu Hamza’s case further.

However, Bosnian security forces have shown a keen interest in Abu Hamza for at least a decade. According to police information, Abu Hamza was part of a 15-20 member group of members of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya who arrived in the central Bosnian cities of Zenica and Travnik in the summer of 1992.

Living in Bosnia until 1998, Abu Hamza used several names and falsified documents, such as El Akil Abdellah Ahmed, born in Yemen; Bega Kamel, born in Libya; and five other names with Yemeni and Libyan documents, each with different places of birth and dates, all proved to be false. Some of those documents he used while applying for Bosnian citizenship.

Initially, he became known to the Bosnian public after murdering Egyptian Hisham Diab, alias Abu Velid, in 1997 in Zenica. An investigation into the case later showed that the real Hisham Diab was still alive and an active member of an organization called "New Jihad."

Diab was formerly a close associate of the radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The identity of the person Abu Hamza killed in Zenica remains unknown.

After managing to evade arrest for three years, Abu Hamza was finally captured in Germany in 2000 and deported to Bosnia, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in January last year.

After his release, he become an "advisor" to his former cellmate, Jusuf Barcic, a self-proclaimed Bosnian sheikh who led several raids on mosques in Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica in early 2007, to the outrage of the local moderate Islamic community. Barcic also served a seven-month prison sentence for domestic violence.

When Barcic died in a car accident in early May 2007, Abu Hamza assumed his role as an aggressive preacher calling for a return to traditional Islam, which is supported by the radical Wahhabis in Bosnia. Bosnian police now believe that it was Abu Hamza who organized previous incidents in local mosques, rather than their original suspect, Barcic.

Then, just weeks before ISA sources from the Commission for Citizenship Revision announced that Abu Hamza might be in the first group to be deported, since he was classified as threat to the national security, he was involved in a shooting incident in a village near Zenica.

Abu Hamza and three associates, all members of the radical Muslim Wahhabi movement, were arrested on 9 June after an attack on a house owned by Zijad Kovac in which three members of Kovac’s family were wounded.

Police still do not have a motive for the attack at the Kovac home. The Kovac family is not known to have any criminal connections or to be involved in any religious matters. The family owns a small sawmill in Zenica.

However, Zijad Kovac is a distant relative of Zahid Kovac, a Zenica prosecutor at the time when Abu Hamza was tried for the murder of Abu Velid. Speaking to local media, prosecutor Zahid Kovac said he did not believe that he was the intended target, but did not exclude the possibility that the attackers had come to the wrong address.

Another theory put forward by police is that the attack was intended to end with the detainment of Abu Hamza in order to prolong his stay in Bosnia with a court case. Should he return to Tunisia he would face another prison term, having been sentenced to 13 years there in absentia.

On 30 November, a local court in Zenica sentenced Abu Hamza to two years and 10 months in prison for the assault on the Kovac home.

Yet, Bosnian authorities released him the same day as his sentencing, citing overcrowded local prisons. Local media reported that security forces have remained on alert since and during the trial, in which Abu Hamza threatened the media, police and “all enemies of Islam.”

On 21 December, a court in Zenica ordered that Abu Hamza be incarcerated following the filing of a complaint the previous week by his ex-wife, who claimed he had assaulted her after his release. The prosecutor in the case, Sasa Sarajlic, also presented the court with threatening letters he received from Abu Hamza, according to local media reports.

Since early 2006, some 600 citizenships of naturalized Bosnian citizens from Islamic countries have been revoked. However, authorities have been slow to act on international orders to have those in question deported to their home countries.

On 16 December, Bosnian authorities deported Algerian Atau Mimun to his native country, after his citizenship had been revoked following evidence that the he had contacts with some figures linked to terrorism.

Mimun arrived in Bosnia in 1992 from Pakistan and according to Bosnian media reports, served as trainers for mujahideen fighters in camps located in the Pak-Afghan border area. He also gained Bosnian citizenship in 1994 due to his membership in the Bosnian Army and marriage to a Bosnian woman.

Out of an estimated 6,000 Arab volunteers who arrived during the early stages of the war, some 1,500 gained Bosnian citizenship and the Bosnian Foreign Ministry estimates that around 1,000 remained in the country as naturalized Bosnians.

After Mimun was deported, the Bosnian Security Ministry said no one else would be deported for the time being, citing the complicated legal procedure.

The Bosnian court’s decision on 11 January to reverse the citizenship ruling for Abu Hamza, which will reverse his deportation order as well, will likely throw a wrench in plans to deport others slated for the process. Particularly those who have not been linked to specific crimes or have not been deemed threats to national security will follow in Abu Hamza’s legal footsteps - a development undoubtedly supported by human rights groups who have criticized the deportation process. However, the international community, which has been pressuring the Bosnian government to deal with these war-time foreign fighters and their legacy, will respond negatively.

[Al-khiyal]

Bosnian Muslim officials investigated for issuing Jihad passports

SARAJEVO, January 24, 2008 (AFP) --Bosnia prosecutors said Thursday they were investigating local officials suspected of having granted citizenships to hundreds of Islamic fighters during the 1992-95 war.

"It had already been established that some citizenships were granted illegally, but we are looking for elements of criminal responsibility" among officials, said Boris Grubesic, a spokesman for the state prosecutors' office.

"We are looking into officials who worked in relevant institutions at the time when these citizenships were being granted," Grubesic told AFP.

Due to the irregularities, a specially established state commission revoked the citizenship last year of hundreds of foreigners including a number of Muslim former fighters in Bosnia's war.

One of them, Algerian Atau Mimun had already been deported from Bosnia last December. Officials said at the time that Mimun was suspected of links to militant groups.

Bosnia came under the spotlight after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. due to the presence of former fighters from Islamic countries.

Although they were ordered to leave under the terms of the Dayton peace accords, some stayed on after obtaining citizenship.

In 2007, Bosnia jailed three Muslims found guilty of intending to carry out an attack in Bosnia or another European country with the aim of forcing the withdrawal of Western troops from Iraq or Afghanistan.

[Al-khiyal]

Thousands protest against deportation of Islamic fighter from Bosnia

ZENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina, February 2, 2008: Up to 5,000 people protested Saturday against the government's decision to expel a Syrian native who fought on the side of Muslim Bosniaks during the 1992-95 war.

Imad al-Husini, known as Abu Hamza, was stripped of his Bosnian citizenship last year after a special commission found that naturalization procedures had been ignored in the cases of some 500 people from countries including Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Tunisia, Sudan and Russia.

Husini, the vice president of the war veterans' organization Ensarije, and the most visible former Islamic fighter in Bosnia, has led a protest against the revocation of citizenship and the expulsions.

His legal appeal was dismissed January 21 and he was given two weeks to leave Bosnia voluntarily or he would be deported. His lawyers said they will bring his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Organizers of the rally claim Bosnia is not respecting basic human rights and say there is no legal basis for deportation since Husini has no criminal record. He has a wife and six children in Bosnia.

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Bosnia was accused of granting citizenship to people who had links to international terrorism networks. Many foreign Islamic fighters came to Bosnia during the war to fight beside the Muslims here. Some married local women, obtained citizenship and remained in the country after the war.

After September 11, such people were under particular scrutiny, and investigations revealed that a number of them had a dubious past and links to people suspected of being members in international terrorist networks. This prompted the government in 2001 to set up a commission to review the cases of everyone who was naturalized after Bosnia became independent in 1992.

The special commission checked more than 1,300 naturalizations. It makes recommendations to the government, which has the final say in whether to revoke citizenship.

[Al-khiyal]

Former soldiers fight to stay in Bosnia

June 26, 2008 -- Bosnia-Hercegovina is preparing to expel hundreds of Muslim former soldiers who went to the country in the early 1990s to fight for Bosnian government forces during the conflict.

"I came to help the people here," says Aiman Awad, who could now be facing deportation.

"I am very sorry because this country is violating our human rights and breaking all the rules."

When he took up arms in 1992, Mr Awad says he was promised citizenship.

But a clause in the 1995 US-sponsored peace agreement stipulated that all "foreign fighters" - as they are known - must leave the country.

Amnesty International estimates that more than 660 have so far been stripped of their citizenship and that overall about 1,500 still live in Bosnia.

A further six, all originally from Algeria, have been in Guantanamo Bay since 2002.

"It is in the vital interest of Bosnia-Hercegovina to make absolutely clear to the world that there are no groups here that might be part of networks supporting terrorism," says Miroslav Lajcak, a Slovak diplomat who is the internationally appointed High Representative, who has ultimate control in the country.

"The legal obligation is clear. Those people should be have been out of Bosnia many years ago."

Aiman Awad is campaigning to stay in Bosnia with his friend Imad al-Husin who lives in a small apartment overlooking Mount Igman just outside Sarajevo.

Both men dress in black and sport closely shaved heads with long beards.

Sitting on the steps of their local mosque, they deny any connection to any terror group.

"No, we haven't," says Imad al-Husin.

"But trouble is that the American president says you are either with him or against him. And I am certainly not with Bush."

Both men are in the middle of a process that could see them deported to Syria, although neither has lived in the country for many years.

"The Bosnian people don't want to throw us out," says Aiman Awad.

"It's the politicians. They're doing it because it's good for their jobs."

Thirteen years after the end of the war, Bosnia is now preparing to sign a key agreement to start the long process of joining the European Union, of which meeting "counter-terrorist" objectives is a key part.

The police, however, believe they are on top of the problem.

"The simple fact they came here to fight in the war does not now mean they are terrorists," says Brig Gen Vincenzo Coppola, head of the EU police mission that oversees all of Bosnia's police forces.

"If this issue is not carefully managed, it could lead towards problems. But so far it has not, and a strong, effective presence of terrorism in this country has not yet been proven."

For centuries, Bosnia has been a frontier between Christian Europe and the Islamic East.

The Sarajevo skyline is a blend of mosque minarets and church towers, with mingling sounds of bells and the call to prayer.

Last century, it was the starting point for both World War I and the 1992-1995 conflict, so there is little surprise that it has now become vulnerable to the "war on terror".

In the run-down suburb of Novi Grad, where apartment blocks remain pockmarked from the war, Nada Dizolaravic sorts through piles of documents collected while campaigning for her husband's release from Guantanamo Bay.

Omar Boudella and five others, all originally from Algeria, were arrested on terror charges shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

They were suspected of planning bomb attacks on the British and US embassies.

The court found them innocent, but immediately after being cleared they were taken to Guantanamo Bay.

The Pentagon describes them as illegal enemy combatants, although none has yet been brought to trial.

"My husband isn't a terrorist," says Nada, shaking her head.

"He worked for a humanitarian organisation. It's very difficult to be a Muslim nowadays. The whole world is anti-Islamic."