Zeyno Baran on role of Bosnian war & Bill West on UK's actions against Afghan warlord
By Andrew Cochran
Zeyno Baran's op-ed in today's "Baltimore Sun" focuses on the role that the war in Bosnia played in the development of jihadist theology and terrorist cells:
"The war in Bosnia, particularly the arms embargo imposed on the Muslim population while the Serbs were massacring them, became the major turning point for the global Muslim consciousness...Bosnia thus became the entry point into Europe of jihadist ideology and those willing to fight for it. Afghan mujahedeen, Iranian mercenaries and recruits from South Asia, Turkey, North Africa and the Middle East united behind their Muslim brothers in Bosnia. Although most of these men returned to their homelands, they are ticking time bombs. Ideologically, they were transformed by their wartime experience, and many began to believe that Britain and the United States are enemies of Islam...Further, many learned military and guerrilla tactics and techniques that can be applied elsewhere against these enemies. Following a meeting in Istanbul in February 2002, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, is believed to have activated Europe-based sleeper cells formed during the war in Bosnia."
And Bill West's column in FrontPage Magazine today touts action taken against an Afghan warlord by the UK:
"Our British allies, however, have just brought justice to bear against one former Afghan warlord who stood accused of committing war crimes within his native country. Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, who went to Britain in the late 1990s with a false passport and claimed asylum there (another unfortunate testament to their liberal and lax asylum laws), controlled a key road from Pakistan to Kabul through the Khyber Pass from 1992 – 1996. Zardad was affiliated with an Afghan “political” group called the Hizbhi-I-Islami that apparently was at odds with the Taliban, and this was the basis of Zardad’s asylum claim. Zardad, however, had a darker past. He commanded up to 1000 men in his private militia, and used them ruthlessly to kidnap, torture and extort loot from innocent civilians during his reign of terror in his little chunk of Afghanistan before he fled to the UK."