Islamism and Islamic terrorism in the Balkans

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There has been an increase in incidents involving alleged radical Islamism in the Balkans since the 1990s.

• Mostar car bombing on 18 September 1997, a terrorist attack was organized by Ahmed Zuhair (Abu Handala),^[1] a Saudi mujahideen who had fought in Bosnia.^[2] According to Bosnian intelligence services, Handala was later arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and detained at Guantanamo.^[3]
• Mirsad Bektašević, a Bosniak from Montenegro that emigrated in 1994 to Sweden, was arrested on 19 October 2005 during a police raid in Sarajevo, together with a Danish citizen. A home-made suicide belt, 18 kilograms (40 lb) of factory-made explosives, timing devices, detonators and a Hi-8 videotape with footage demonstrating how to make a home-made bomb were found.^[4] A video (to be published following planned attacks) of the two arrested, in ski masks, surrounded by explosives and weapons, was found, in which they say that they will attack sites in Europe to punish nations with forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.^[5] They were suspected of planning a suicide attack against a Western embassy in Sarajevo.^[6]
• Bugojno bombing on 27 June 2010, a terrorist attack on Bugojno police station, in which IEDs exploded by the guard walls, killing one, seriously wounding one, and wounding several other policemen. The perpetrator Haris Čaušević, an ethnic Bosniak, was sentenced to 35 years. He has stated that he has no remorse.^[7][8]
• Attack on US embassy on 28 October 2011. A 23-year-old Bosniak from Serbia Mevlid Jašarević, fired on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, resulting in one local policeman guarding the embassy being wounded in the arm, while the shooter was wounded by a police sniper.^[9] On 24 April 2012 Mevlid Jašarević was indicted by a federal grand jury in the D.C. on charges of attempted murder and other violations in connection with the attack on the embassy.^[10] A Bosnian court sentenced him on 6 December 2012 to 18 years in prison.
• 2015 Zvornik police station shooting on 27 April 2015. A man broke into the police station killing one policeman and wounding several others. The perpetrator, Nerdin Ibrić, an ethnic Bosniak, was killed inside the security compound by return fire.^[11]
• Husein Bosnić "Bilal", a Bosnian Muslim cleric and unofficial leader of the Salafist movement in Bosnia, was arrested in September 2014 and is currently on trial for recruiting ISIS fighters.^[12] In his various khutbas, he also advocated the "victory of Islam", promoting war and bloodshed. Moreover, in 2012 he called for other Muslims to join the Jihad and to defend Islam, for which he was briefly arrested and soon released.^[13]

The Iztok neighbourhood of Pazardzhik, inhabited by Muslims (Romani), includes an Islamist community headed by unlicensed imam Ahmed Moussa.^[14]

Kosovo has a mainly secular Muslim population, part of a cultural remainder from the Ottoman era.^[15][16] The traditional Islam in Kosovo is the Hanafi school, described as 'liberal' and 'moderate'.^[16]

Islamist volunteers in the Kosovo Liberation Army from Western Europe of ethnic Albanian, Turkish, and North African origin, were recruited by Islamist leaders in Western Europe allied to Bin Laden and Zawahiri.^[17] Some 175 Yemeni mujahideen arrived in early May 1998.^[17] There were also a dozen Saudi and Egyptian mujahideen.^[18]

Since the Kosovo War, there has been an increasing radicalization of Islam in Kosovo.^{[16][verification needed]} Wahhabism, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, has gained a foothold in Kosovo through Saudi diplomacy.^[16] Saudi money has paid for new mosques, while Saudi-educated imams have arrived since the end of the war in 1999.^[16] During UN administration, Saudi Arabian organizations sought to establish a cultural foothold in Kosovo.^[19] 98 Wahhabist schools were set up by Saudi organizations during UN administration.^[20]

The Kosovo Police arrested some 40 suspected Islamist militants on 11 August 2014. These were suspected of having fought with Islamist insurgent groups in Syria and Iraq.^[21]

By April 2015, a total of 232 Kosovo Albanians had gone to Syria to fight with Islamist groups, most commonly the Islamic State.^[22] Forty of these are from the town of Skënderaj, according to Kosovo police reports.^[23] As of September 2014, a total of 48 ethnic Albanians have been killed fighting in Syria.^[24] The number of fighters from Kosovo is at least 232 and estimated at more than 300 (as of 11 February 2016).^[25]

A 2017 UNDP study shows that Islamic extremism has grown in Kosovo.^[26]

• 1995 Rijeka bombing

Groups of ethnic Albanians were arrested by police in November 2016 in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia for planning terrorist attacks.^[27][28] They were coordinated by IS commanders Lavdrim Muhaxheri and Ridvan Haqifi, both Kosovo Albanians, and planned attacks on international and state institutions, ultimately with the intent to establish an Islamic state. They planned to attack the Israeli football team during a match in Albania, and potentially Kosovo government institutions and Serbian Orthodox Church sites.^[29] A group of ethnic Albanians, Kosovo-born immigrants to Italy, were arrested by Italian police in Venice on 30 March 2017 for planning blowing up the Rialto Bridge.^[30]

• Bilal Bosnić (b. 1972), Bosnian Salafi leader, terrorist organizer
• Ridvan Haqifi (1990–2017), Kosovo Albanian ISIS commander
• Mevlid Jašarević, Bosnian Wahhabist, terrorist (2011 Sarajevo attack)
• Lavdrim Muhaxheri (1989–2017), Kosovo Albanian ISIS commander
• Arid Uka, Kosovo Albanian terrorist (2011 Frankfurt Airport shooting)
• Kujtim Fejzullai (2000–2020), Macedonian Albanian terrorist (2020 Vienna attack)

• Hećimović, Esad (2009). Garibi: mudžahedini u BiH 1992-1999. Dan graf. ISBN 978-86-83517-48-0.
• Kohlmann, Evan F. (2004). Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network. Berg. ISBN 1-85973-807-9.
• Mincheva, Lyubov Grigorova; Gurr, Ted Robert (2013). Crime-Terror Alliances and the State: Ethnonationalist and Islamist Challenges to Regional Security. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-50648-9. Archived from the original on 2023-01-11. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
• Testa, Andrew (2016-05-21). "How Kosovo Was Turned Into Fertile Ground for ISIS". New York Times. Retrieved 2016-05-01.