Tuesday - August 21, 2007

Our Friends the Saudis Spreading Love and Peace in the Balkans

Do you know what Wahhabism is?  It is the strain of religion that is practiced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is puritanical and it is the same form of Islam that won't allow women to drive in Saudi Arabia and that outlaws Christian Bibles in the Kingdom.  Wahhabism is intolerant towards other religions and even other Muslim sects.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, flush with oil money has been exporting their intolerant religion for the last twenty years.  Now the Wahhabis are active in the Balkans.  The sooner the U.S. replaces oil with biofuels, the sooner the Saudis will be deprived of funds and therefore unable to export their brand of Islam.

Although still a small group, Wahabis, followers of a fundamentalist school of Islam, are increasingly seen by officials and observers as a growing threat to the Balkans. Tensions between Wahabis and mainstream Muslims have been simmering for the past 18 months as Wahabis seek to gain influence in Bosnia-Heregovina and also in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. In the past months, seven suspected militants were arrested in southern Serbia and a radical Islamist training camp and weapons cache uncovered. Evidence, the Serbian interior ministry says, that Wahabis are trying to recruit potential terrorists and plot attacks.

In April, at the request of the Serbian authorities, police in breakaway Kosovo province issued an arrest warrant for Ismail Pretic, who they claim is a Wahabi militant who may have fled to the United Nations administered province. Road-blocks have been erected in northern Kosovo to help apprehend Pretic, who should be considered "armed and dangerous," according to police.

Serbian security officials say militants at the Wahabi training camp in Serbia's southern Sandjak region - were planning an attack on local Muslims. On 17 March police discovered there an underground arsenal of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, 10 kilogrammes of plastic explosives and automatic assault rifles. Police said they arrested four suspected Islamist militants during the raid a further two on 19 March.

Up to 30 Wahabis had been gathering and undergoing training in the camp at Ninaja Mountain, about 30 km north of the town of Novi Pazar police said. The six men arrested all come from Novi Pazar, capital of Sandjak - a Serbian region populated predominately by Muslims.

“Wahabis did not act this openly before. When these men were arrested, it was clear they had received some financial support since they were all poor yet loaded with weapons. Their main target was and still is the Islamic community in Sandzak," Mufti Muamer Zukorlic, leader of Islamic community in Sandzak told Adnkronos International (AKI).

There was a connection between Bosnian and Sandzak Wahabis, Zukorlic points out.

“We had individuals from Bosnia-Hezegovina coming to hold lectures and they were considered to be leaders among local Wahabis," Zukorlic said.

"But, gradually Bosnian Wahabis stopped their contacts with locals. Here, we have about 150 sect members and they are not all the same," Zukorlic added. Visibly identifiable by their ankle length trousers and beards, Wahabis have campaigned to do away with with what they see as heresy, attempts that have erupted into violence several times.

Asked if the Islamic community can solve the problem of Wahabi radicalism, Zukorlic replied: "They no longer pray in mosques."

The fundamentalist Wahhabi movement which preaches a 'pure Islam' originated in Saudi Arabia in the early 18th century and preaches religious intolerance towards other religious groups, including moderate Muslims. Several clashes have been reported lately in Bosnia and in Sandzak between Wahabis and moderate Muslims, including in a shootout in Novi Pazar last November in which several people were injured.

The Wahabi movement first emerged in the Balkans during the 1992-1995 civil war in Bosnia, when thousands of mujahadeen fighters from Islamic countries came to fight on the side of local Muslims. Many have remained in the country since the war, and according to foreign intelligence sources have been indoctrinating local youths and even operating terrorist training camps.

Because of the Wahabi military support in the 1990s, the Bosnian government has been reluctant to crack down on Wahabi religious and military training efforts, analysts say. The Wahabis, who believe they are carrying out God's will, refuse to crack down on the alleged terrorists in their midst, stoking tensions between the Wahabis and the government.

“The Wahabi sect is a national security question for Bosnia, because Islamic analysts consider them as militant and therefore dangerous, " the chairman of Bosnia's three-man rotating state presidency, Negojsa Radmanovic, told AKI. "If Wahabis prove to be a security risk, the authorities will have to take action to ensure the public's safety and regulate Islam," he said.

Author: Satanic Source
Technorati Tags: Wahhabi Balkans
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