Psychological Strategy and Terrorism A Staff Report

The Srebrenica Icon

How a Trojan Horse for Islamist
Terrorism Was Built With Western Help
in the Heart of Europe
T
uvvv is cvowixc vviuvxcv that radical Islamist offi-
cials in Bosnia-Herzegovina actively worked with
Osama bin Ladens organization in preparing, and pos-
sibly providing management and logistics for the Sep-
tember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
There is, moreover, a growing body of intelligence
which indicates that the Iranian and bin Laden terrorist
network, assets and alliances built up in Bosnia-Herze-
govina, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia and elsewhere in
the Balkans are preparing for significant newoperations, particularly in the
build-up to, and operation of, the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
And there is now a clear understand-
ing that the radical Islamists have cre-
ated a newTrojan horseto ensure that
their actions in the Balkans remain free
from scrutiny, criticism and contain-
ment.
The Trojan horse came into effect
on September 20, 2003: it was the mon-
ument built in Srebrenica to ostensibly
commemorate the Muslim victims of
Serb genocide in 1995. The monu-
ment is a pointed representation solely
of the claims disputed by the studies
of the French and Dutch governments
and NATO, as well as other sources
of the radical Islamists of Alija
Izetbegovis radical Islamist Party of
Democratic Action (SDA). Its purposes
include the reinforcement of the per-
spective of the Muslims of Bosnias civil
war as the sole victims; the creation of a
shrine to which Muslims worldwide
would pay homage in annual pilgrim-
ages, creating the first Muslim holy
place in Europe; and the suppression
of any enquiry into the massive
build-up, now underway, of radical
Islamist terrorist planning designed to
allowamong other things the em-
battled Iranian clerical leadership and
al-Qaida to distract the US from taking
the war on terror effectively against
their main power bases.
Significantly, the SDA the actions
of which inthe lead up to September 11,
2001, are described to some extent be-
low paid former US Pres. William
Clinton $250,000 to unveil the
Srebrenica monument on September
20, 2003.
Within this complex framework is an
attempt to ensure that SDA leader
Izetbegovi does not face war crimes
charges under the International Crimi-
nal Tribunal for (former) Yugoslavia
(ICTY) in The Hague.
1. Bosnias Link to 9-11
D
ocuxvx1s )us1 ac-
quired by Defense &
Foreign Affairs,
show links between
radical Islamists in
key posts in the Government of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) and
known and suspected Islamists
with terrorist links.
One of the key Bosnian Islamist offi-
cials, Huso (he later called himself
Hussein) ivalj, was B-H Ambassador
to the United Nations during the Sep-
tember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on
New York. He arrived just before the at-
tacks and left the post just after.
It is nowbecoming increasingly clear
that the movement of ivalj to the New
York post just before (and his departure
just after) the September 11, 2001, at-
tacks was not coincidental.
The clarity of the links between the
Bosnian Islamists and anti-US terror-
ismis nowbecoming apparent at a time
. uvvvxsv vovvicx .vv.ivs s1v.1vcic voiics ,, :oo,
Bosnias Islamist
leaders are tied
directly to 9-11.
Balkan-based Iranian
and al-Qaida assets
are gearing for major
new terror operations
to break out of the US
war on terror, with
concern for the 2004
Athens Olympics
The new Srebrenica
monument has been
raised as a means of
staving off concerns
about the Islamists as
a terrorist threat.
when former US President William
Clinton and his former military ap-
pointee and Supreme Allied Com-
mander Europe (SACEUR), Gen. Wes-
ley Clark (now a Democratic Party
presidential aspirant for the US 2004
elections), have begun moves to justify
their military support for Bosnian and
Kosovo Islamists in moves which will
almost certainly lead to a new wave of
ethnic division in B-Hand in neighbor-
ing Serbia.
1
ivalj had earlier between 1992
and 1995 been B-H Ambassador to
Vienna, Austria. At that time, he ap-
proved a significant number of visas
and passports to radical Islamists of
non-Bosnianorigin. He thenwent onto
be Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs,
the most senior Muslim position in the
Ministry. He maintained a constant
shuttle during his time as Deputy Min-
ister from Sarajevo to Vienna, the
United States and a number of Arab
countries.He ensured that the Vienna
Embassy became a key location for on-
going support of radical Islamists, and a
wide range of visas and passports were
granted to non-Bosnians in the time
following his own termthere as Ambas-
sador. A list of visas approved for Mus-
lims at the Embassy between 1997 and
February 2001 is in the possession of
Defense & Foreign Affairs.
ivalj, one of the most important
radical Islamists in the B-H, working
closely with al-Qaida and Iranian ter-
rorist officials, has a US Green Card
(permanent residency), and his family
is believed to be living still in Florida.
ivalj nowis believed to be a director of
Islamic Bank, in B-H. He spent some
time, during the communist era in the
former Yugoslavia, in prison with Alija
Izetbegovi, who later became the
Islamist President of B-H. Significantly,
ivalj used his position in Vienna to is-
sue, in 1995, a B-H passport to Safet
Catovi [Passport No. BH-46600], and
Defense & Foreign Affairs has the docu-
mentation onthis. Earlier, he had issued
a B-H passport to Osama bin Laden,
head of the al-Qaida networks.
ivalj had been a Vice-President and
member of the governing board of the
Third World Relief Agency (TWRA),
which had been funded by Osama bin
Laden, and with which the Egyptian
Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman (the
so-called blind sheikh) was involved.
Omar was convicted for his rle in the
1993 World Trade Center bombing in
New York. TWRA was founded in Vi-
enna in 1987 and had links with the
Izetbegovi Government in B-Has well
as with Dr Hassan al-Turabi and his ter-
rorist operations in Sudan.
Yossef Bodanskys seminal work,
Some Call it Peace: Waiting for War in
the Balkans (ISSA, 1996), noted: In
mid-January 1996, the Islamist leader-
ship released a sermon of Sheikh Omar
Abd-al-Rahman made on the eve of his
sentencing (for his leadershiprle inthe
Islamist terrorist networks in New York
in 1993). This sermon stressed the cen-
trality of Bosnia and the Islamist cause
and specifically threatened the US with
terrorism in retaliation.
When ivalj became Ambassador to
the UN in January 2001, he secretly and
illegally gave special UN status to
Catovi in New York, giving him the
status and UN yellow pass [red passes
are for attachs and other diplomats, up
to first secretary; yellow is reserved for
the Ambassador or Permanent Repre-
sentative (PR) or Deputy Permanent
Representative (DPR)]. This allowed
him free access to the UN buildings.
ivalj kept this appointment secret,
largely because it was illegal. Under B-H
law, the post of DPRwas reserved exclu-
sively for Croats or Serbs when the Am-
bassador (PR) was a Muslim.
Catovis UN pass was known to be
due to expire in October 2003 [ie: it was
current at the time that the first report
on this situation was published in De-
fense &Foreign Affairs Daily on Septem-
ber 17, 2003]. It is important to note
that the background of Catovi is not
clear. He may not (in fact, is probably
not) Bosnianby origin, having obtained
his passport outside the country (in Vi-
enna). Catovi, using his UN cover,
acted as spokesman for two radical
Islamist groups in the US; both groups
were later shut down by the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Signifi-
cantly, Catovi has not been declared as
a diplomat to the US State Department.
It is understood that he has either a US
Green Card or US citizenship. Before
obtaining his UN cover, Catovi
worked in the US. Given his known
connections with the radical Islamist
organizations, he was linked with a
number of Islamist training organiza-
tions in New Jersey, on private property
close to the cities of Trenton and
Clifton.
These organizations participated in
Zima 94-95 (Winter 94-95), which was
labeled as an humanitarian operation,
but in reality was an operation initiated
by ivalj to provide logistical support
for the Bosnian Muslim Army and for-
eign jihadists fighting against Serbs.
This operation, in which Catovi was
listed [with his telephone number at the
time: 908-874-8434] as one of the rep-
resentatives, was designed to provide all
logistical support except weapons.
As well, the operation was designed
to funnel monies to public relations or-
ganizations to ensure that the Muslims
were presented during the operations
which included the military opera-
tions in and around Srebrenica in a
positive light. One of the funds with
which Catovi was linked was The
Global Medical Relief Fund, which ac-
tually gave its address as that of the B-H
Mission to the UN: 866 UN Plaza, Suite
585, NewYork, NY10017. The use of le-
gation offices for private charities is a
violation of the Vienna Convention
governing diplomatic missions.
2
Catovi was also a spokesman for Be-
nevolence International Foundation,
based in Palos Hills (Chicago), Illinois,
in the US. BIF was founded by Enaam
(or Ennam) Arnaout to raise funds for
various causes, many linked to terror-
ism. In November 2002, the US Trea-
sury designated BIF and two closely-
linked groups as financiers of terror-
ism, and blocked their accounts. In
February 2003, Enaam Arnaout
pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.
3
Catovi also organized a Summer ji-
had camp in Pennsylvania only a
month before the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks. One of Catovis inter-
locutors was Imam Siraj Wahaj, the
spiritual father of the first (1993) attack
on the New York World Trade Center.
[See: Model Bosnia Study.]
Also listed as a key participant in
Zima 94-95 was the B-H Consul-Gen-
eral in New York, Cemalovi Asim, who
remains in New York, even though his
duty was due to expire in 2001. Despite
being replaced as Consul-General in
2001, he remained in the mission. His
telephone number, listed in the Zima
94-95 documents, was shown as the
B-H Mission to the UN [212-751-
9015], not the consular number.
Catovi was paid a secret salary while
in New York, and the B-H Mission to
,, :oo, uvvvxsv vovvicx .vv.ivs s1v.1vcic voiics ,.
1 See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, September 8, 2003: US Official Implicated With Bosnian High Representative Ashdown in Attempting to
Force Fabricated Report on Srebrenica.
2 This particular data from Islamic Fundamentalists Global Network and Modus Operandi: Model Bosnia study, produced by the
Documentation Centre of Republic of Srpska, Bureau of Government of RS for Relations With ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for
Yugoslavia), September 2002. (hereinafter referred to as Model Bosnia Study).
3 See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, July 7, 2003: Al-Qaida-linked Terrorist Operations Escalate in Bosnia as US, International Officials Turn
a Blind Eye.
the UN paid his healthcare insurance
until January 2002. The Bosnian-Serb
First Secretary of the B-H Mission to
the UN after ivalj left the post, discov-
ered the fact that Catovi had the UN
yellowbadgeand was using the UNas
a cover. He also discovered the use of the
Mission as a cover for the charities. He
then raised the matter with the new
Ambassador, Mirza Kusljugi. Within
two days, the Bosnian Serb was dis-
missed from his post.
As a result, Catovi remains pro-
tected by B-H Ambassador to the UN
Kusljugi, who took over the post after
ivalj. Significantly, Kusljugi was in
the military presidency of the city of
Tuzla during the war, and in 1992, dur-
ing his term in Tuzla, military and
mujahedin units under the control of
the Presidency, of which he was a mem-
ber, killed at least 200 captives from the
then-Yugoslav Army (JNA). Kusljugi
went on, subsequently, to participate in
the preparatory commission for the In-
ternational Criminal Court (ICC),
which was subsequently to be used to
attempt to bring United States officials
under its authority.
The Model Bosnia Study noted of
Kusljugi:As a member of [the] Mili-
tary Presidency [of] SDP [Social Dem-
ocratic Party] Tuzla and member of
[the] Military Presidency of the city of
Tuzla, Mirza Kusljugi contributed with
his treatments and actions to ethnical
cleansing of Serbs and other un-Mos-
lem population in [the] Tuzla region.
Number of Serbian citizens depopu-
lates from 22,000 in 1991 to 2,000 in
1995. ... he participated in making [the]
decision on prohibition of Serb return
to Tuzla, 1992. ... Mirza Kusljugi par-
ticipated [in the] planning of attack on
JNA convoy that was according to an
agreement to leave Tuzla peacefully on
15 May 1992. On that occasion more
than 200 officers and privates of former
JNA were massacred. During the war,
Mirza Kusljugi had directly cooper-
ated with TWRA from Vienna. ... Mirza
Kusljugi was engaged [in] misinfor-
mation and spreading [a] fake picture
about [the] civil war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. As member of military
headquarters, Mirza Kusljugi is re-
sponsible for crimes committed by
units in which complement were
mujahedin-Islamic fundamentalists,
warriors of jihad.
Equally, given the background of
ambassadors Kusljugi and ivalj, the
original B-H Ambassador to the UN,
Muhamed Sacirbegovi, who also
served as Foreign Minister for the
Izetbegovi Government, was reported
by Defense & Foreign Affairs sources to
have brought in substantial amounts of
cash, using diplomatic privilege, to the
US to use to fund Islamist causes. Sig-
nificantly, he allegedly appropriated
some $2.5-million+ of the illegal funds
for himself, causing the B-HMinistry of
Internal Affairs to request that Interpol
issue an international arrest warrant for
Mr Sacirbegovi (aka Sacirby). He was
dismissed as Ambassador in 2000, but
allegedly still lives in the US. Sacirbeg-
ovis actions merely highlighted the
fact that substantial funds were being
transferred to Islamist movements us-
ing the B-H diplomatic cover.
Much of the new material unearthed
by Defense & Foreign Affairs remains to
be translated, but this work is under-
way. Much of the already translated
material, however, gives some idea of
the extent of the use of diplomatic
channels of B-Hby the Islamists to pro-
vide visas and passports to radical
Islamists. Defense & Foreign Affairs has
a copy of an instruction from former
B-H President Izetbegovi a radical
Islamist, who met several times with
Osama bin Laden, and who pointedly
represented only the Islamists in the
new country, not the moderate Muslim
community, nor the Croats or Serbs
in which he instructed Muslim ambas-
sadors from B-H to give passports to
anyone who would support his cause.
These actions, quite apart from sup-
porting international terrorism, di-
rectly polarized the new, delicately-bal-
anced multi-ethnic state of Bosnia &
Herzegovina.
[One case is an application for pass-
port by an individual listed as Abdul-
karim Meslat, in which he said: I
hereby state that I feel as a citizen (italics
added) of the Republic of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, that I am prepared to
obey the Constitution, laws and other
regulations of the Republic of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, practice all the rights and
obligations of a citizen of Republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and protect the
sovereignty and integrity of the Repub-
lic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its repu-
tationinthe international community.
This statement is a freely given ex-
pression of my loyalty to the Republic
of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and desire to
become a citizen of the Republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina.]
Within this framework, apart from
the links between the B-H officials and
the original bombers of the New York
World Trade Center in 1993, five of the
known terrorist attackers on the US in
2001 had direct links through and with
Bosnia, and literally all were supported
by Bosnian-linked Islamist charities.
The significance of the placement of
Amb. ivalj inNewYork inthe brief pe-
riod leading up to the September 11,
2001, attacks, and his departure shortly
thereafter cannot be overlooked. Nor
can the links between the bin Laden and
Iranian terrorist organizations with the
Bosnian Islamists and the 1993 bomb-
ers who as Yossef Bodansky pointed
out in 1996 promised terrorist retal-
iation against the US.
Despite the clear warnings during the
1990s, however, the US Clinton Admin-
istration supported and encouraged the
radical Islamists who were bent on at-
tacking the US.
2. The Srebrenica Gambit
O
x 1uv vvv of the ded-
ication of a monu-
ment to Muslims
killed at Srebrenica,
in Bosnia-Herzegov-
ina, in 1995, a group which in-
cluded a former UN official, intelli-
gence experts, and journalists,
released a statement on September
18, 2003, challenging the alleged ca-
sualty number of 7,000 victims as
vastly inflated and unsupported by
evidence.
They asserted that one-sided inter-
ventionist policies permitted al-Qaida
forces and radical Islamists backed by
the Iranian clerical government to take
root during the Bosnian war, clouding
the future of the region. As well, they
agreed that the memorialization of
false numbers in the monument actu-
ally appeared to be intended to perpetu-
ate regional ethnic hatred and distrust
and to deliberately punish one of the
victim groups in the Bosnian civil war.
Former US President Bill Clinton,
who had worked closely with Alija
Izetbegovi through much of the 1990s,
was paid $250,000 to attend and legiti-
mize the dedication of the monument
at Srebrenica, which was constructed
using one million dollars of US Em-
bassy funds at the request of High Rep-
resentative Paddy Ashdown, and a fur-
ther 4-million Bosnian marks which the
High Representative, Paddy Ashdown,
effectively forced the Government of
Republica Srpska the mainly Serb re-
public within the Federation of Bosnia-
Herzegovina to pay.
Former BBC journalist Jonathan
Rooper, who researched the events in
Srebrenica since 1995, said that the re-
gion was a graveyard for Serbs as well as
Muslims and that a monument to in-
flated casualties on one side serves nei-
ther truth nor the goal of reconcilia-
tion.
Phillip Corwin, former UN Civilian
o. uvvvxsv vovvicx .vv.ivs s1v.1vcic voiics ,, :oo,
Affairs Coordinator in Bosnia during
the 1990s, said: What happened in
Srebrenica was not a single large massa-
cre of Muslims by Serbs, but rather a se-
ries of very bloody attacks and counter-
attacks over a three year period which
reached a crescendo in July of 1995.Mr
Corwin is author of Dubious Mandate,
an account of his experiences during
the conflict. He points out that
Srebrenica, which was designated a safe
zone, was never demilitarized as it was
claimed to be, and that Muslim para-
military leader Nasir Ori, who con-
trolled Srebrenica, launched repeated
attacks on surrounding Serb villages.
He noted: I was the United Nations
chief political officer in Bosnia the day
that Srebrenica fell. Coincidentally, it
was the same day that the Bosnian Gov-
ernment tried to assassinate me as I
drove over Mount Igman on the way to
Sarajevo.
Intelligence expert and strategist
Gregory Copley, President of the Inter-
national Strategic Studies Association
and the ISSAs Balkan & Eastern Medi-
terranean Policy Council, said that US
Ambassador Donald Hays, who serves
as Deputy High Representative of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, had mis-used the
power of the Office of the High Repre-
sentative (OHR) governing Bosnia to
force Bosnian Serb elected officials to
sign a fraudulent document accepting
the official version of events in Sreb-
renica. The leaders of Republica Srpska
invited the office of the High Represen-
tative to join their investigation of the
events in Srebrenica. Instead they were
ordered to sign a statement drafted by
OHR endorsing casualty figures they
publicly disagreed with. We know that
the Prime Minister of Republica Srpska
was threatened with removal by the
OHRfromoffice if he failedto comply.
Copley added: It is significant in
that the former US ClintonAdministra-
tion fought this war unquestioningly
supporting only the Croat and Muslim
factions and disregarding the historic
alliance of the Serbian peoples with the
US. Then, after the war, the Clinton Ad-
ministration failed to follow US tradi-
tion in helping to heal the wounds of
war, but, rather, perpetuated ethnic di-
visions and hatreds. This differs from
the US rle in all other wars.
Unfortunately, most of the policies
and officials put in place in the region
by the Clinton Administration remain.
The current Bush Administration has
neglected the Balkans and has, instead,
allowed the Clinton policies to con-
tinue, which has meant that divisive
politics continue. This, then, requires
the ongoing commitment of US peace-
keeping forces in both Bosnia and in the
Kosovo province of Serbia.
He added: Deputy High Represen-
tative Donald Hays forced the
Republica Srpska Government to issue
a statement which accepted the radical
Islamists version of the Srebrenica af-
fair, despite the fact that the Office of
High Representative does not have any
investigative capability of its own to
make a valid assumption on the matter.
As well, the International Criminal Tri-
bunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The
Hague no friend of the Serbs has
itself not completed its investigation of
Srebrenica, and nor has the office of the
Government of Republica Srpska which
has been working with the ICTY.
Amb. Hays and OHR chief Paddy
Ashdown forced the Republica Srpska
statement merely to ensure that the
opening of the shrine to be attended
by Clinton would vindicate Clinton
Administration policies of support for
the radical Islamists.
What is significant in this matter is
not merely the coercion, but the fact
that the OHR took the position of one
community in B-H in fact not one
community, but essentially one party,
the Islamist SDA of Alija Izetbegovi
and forced it on another B-H commu-
nity in an arbitrary way, which did not
help the healing and unification process
in BiH as a whole, but, rather, made
communal differences worse.
The OHR also did not take into ac-
count the fact that the governments of
France and the Netherlands, and
NATO, had made their own studies,
which differed substantially from the
SDAposition on the Srebrenica affair of
1995. Instead, he chose the opinions of
the SDA, which have not been verified
by proper forensic evidence.
As well, the International Criminal
Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) had not
itself completed its investigation on
Srebrenica, and the OHR pressure was
clearly designed to forestall any proper
and conclusive studies. The Govern-
ment of Republica Srpska itself, which
has been working very closely with the
ICTYto be able to put this whole matter
behind it, has not completed its studies
on Srebrenica.
So all of this raises a serious question
as to why the OHR insisted on the RS
Government statement at this time.
Copley noted: What is of concern is
why the OHR should take such a posi-
tion which favors only one political
party in B-H, and why the entire con-
text of the Srebrenica affair is not dis-
cussed. Many thousands of innocent
people and combatants of both Serb
and Muslim backgrounds were killed
over a period of several years, and there
were clearly deliberate provocations
planned by the SDA leadership as far
back as 1991-92 to attempt to force a
Serbian response to Muslim provoca-
tions.
The SDAs provocations were clearly
genocidal war crimes themselves, and
they did indeed lead to a Serbian re-
sponse which was, although completely
unacceptable, largely prompted by the
massacre of Serbian families by Muslim
units. It is impossible to explain the
tragedy of Srebrenica without looking
at the context and the planned manipu-
lations by Alija Izetbegovi to create an
affair which was designed to provoke
sympathy for his cause. Not the cause of
Bosnias Muslim peoples, but Izetbeg-
ovics radical Islamist cause.
Again, I would ask: why did the
OHR insist on bringing the matter to a
head at this time?
Yossef Bodansky, who has written
several books on the war in Yugoslavia
and also serves as Research Director of
ISSA, calls the 7,000 figure disinforma-
tion and notes that all independent
forensic evidence points to Muslim ca-
sualties in the hundreds. Continued
emphasis on such allegedly high num-
bers of Muslimdeaths at Srebrenica also
obfuscates the Muslim murders in that
city, earlier, of Serb civilians. Bodansky
also wrote extensively on the link be-
tween Osama bin Laden and the
Bosnian Islamists in numerous articles
and special reports and three books, in-
cluding Offensive in the Balkans: the Po-
tential for a Wider War as a Result of For-
eign Intervention in Bosnia-Herze-
govina (1995), Some Call it Peace: Wait-
ing for War in the Balkans (1996), and
Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War
on America (1999).
Rooper said that at least 1,000 Serbs,
mostly civilians, were killed by Oris
forces, and he did not hide his crimes,
even showing videotapes of slaughtered
Serbs to Western journalists.
Meanwhile a group of academic ex-
perts and journalists from the United
States, Canada, Germany, France, Ser-
bia, and the United Kingdom has been
organized by Prof. Edward S. Herman
of the University of Pennsylvania to ex-
amine the evidence regarding events at
Srebrenica in July 1995 and earlier, how
the media reported these events, and
the political rle of claims about
Srebrenica. It is expected that a report
from this group would be available in
June 2004.
Rooper points out that the figure of
40,000 inhabitants which the UN used
in July 1995, before the capture of
Srebrenica, roughly matches the num-
ber of former residents accounted for in
the aftermath. A commander of the
Muslim-dominated Army of B-H later
,, :oo, uvvvxsv vovvicx .vv.ivs s1v.1vcic voiics ,.
confirmed to parliament in Sarajevo
that 5,000 B-H troops escaped largely
intact to Tuzla while the UN registered
some 35,632 civilian survivors.
While the capture of Srebrenica was
reported in July 1995, as it unfolded, an
international outcry only took place a
month later, after Madeleine Albright,
then US representative to the UN, held
up a photo which she said provided evi-
dence that thousands of Muslim vic-
tims had been buried at a field near
Nova Kasaba, 19km from Srebrenica.
Excavations which took place following
the war, however, yielded 33 bodies at
Nova Kasaba. Two years after the event,
a total of 400 bodies had been found at
20 sites near Srebrenica, an area which
had seen bloody fighting over a three
year period.
Instead of acknowledging that there
was no support for the original figures,
Rooper says various means were used to
prop up the official story.
Spokesmen for the Clinton Adminis-
tration suggested that Serbs might have
moved the bodies to other locations.
Rooper points out that excavating,
transporting and reburying 7,000 bod-
ies was not only beyond the capabili-
ties of the thinly-stretched, petrol-
starved Bosnian Serb Army, but would
have been easily detected under intense
surveillance from satellites and ...
drones. By 1998, thousands of bodies
excavated from all across Bosnia were
stored at the Tuzla airport. Despite
state-of- the-art DNA testing, only 200
bodies have been linked to Srebrenica.
Some 3,000 names on a list of Sreb-
renica victims compiled by the Red
Cross matched voters in the Bosnian
election in 1996. I pointed out to the
OSCE that there had either been mas-
sive election fraud or almost half the
people on the ICRC missing list were
still alive, said Rooper. The OSCE fi-
nally responded that the voting lists had
been locked in warehouses and it would
not be possible for themto investigate.
The distorted Srebrenica statistics are
part of a larger picture which intelli-
gence experts such as Bodansky and
Copley find troubling. They said that
US policymakers have been slow to rec-
ognize that Bosnia is a strategic base for
operations in Europe by al-Qaida and
the Iranian surrogate, HizbAllah.
In 1993, when the Clinton Adminis-
tration was strongly backing the Mus-
lim President of Bosnia, Alija Izet-
begovi, Osama Bin Ladin was a regular
visitor to his office, according to Renate
Flottau of the German weekly, Der
Spiegel. The Bosnian daily, Dani, re-
ported that the Vienna Embassy of BiH
issued a passport to bin Ladin in 1993.
To refer to US and EU Bosnia policy
as a success story is to disregard sub-
stantial evidence to the contrary. In-
stead of misplaced symbolism in
Srebrenica, US and EU policymakers
need to take a hard look at assumptions
which have guided their actions in the
region, Copley said.
HR Ashdown had taken the leader-
ship rle for the Islamists Srebrenica
monument for reasons known only to
himself. He had received a donation of
$1-million from the US Embassy for
this monument which had been por-
trayed as a monument to the suffering
of innocents at Srebrenica. He required
an additional 4-million marks to com-
plete the project.
A small number of families of vic-
tims of the 1995 Srebrenica fighting
sued the Government of Republica
Srpska for compensation. Was it coinci-
dence that the courts judgment on this
came just before the monument was
due to be opened? Was it coincidence
that the judgment was for 4-million
marks? Was it coincidence that the pay-
ment was ordered to be paid by the
Government of Republica Srpska not to
the plaintiffs, the families of the victims,
but to the monument project which was
headed by Mr Ashdown?
There are too many coincidences.
Then we move on to the fact that the
timetable for the opening of the monu-
ment was determined, in fact, by the
schedule of the former US President,
William Clinton, who was to be avail-
able in the area while he was on his
way to fundraising functions in the
Middle East so that Clinton could
compound the political message of the
monument (as close as possible to the
anniversary of the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks on the US). So we have
a case where Mr Ashdown promoted a
schedule based on the political avail-
ability of Mr Clinton. And, not surpris-
ingly, we then see that Mr Clinton was
paid $250,000 for his participation in
the unveiling of the monument by Mr
Izetbegovis SDA party, and that Mr
Clinton visited Mr Izetbegovi in hos-
pital in Sarajevo.
All of this despite mounting evidence
that Mr Izetbegovi and his SDA col-
leagues have actively supported terror-
ism and al-Qaida leader Osama bin
Laden, and that there are profound
links between terrorists related to the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the US
and Mr Izetbegovi.
We can take this further. Because of
Mr Clintons schedule and involvement
with SDA not just now, but through
historic links and meetings between
Clinton and Izetbegovi and the like
Mr Ashdown undertook a number of
actions. Firstly, he used his power as
High Representative to force the Gov-
ernment of Republica Srpska to accept a
verdict on Srebrenica which it would
never have done voluntarily. Secondly,
he gives every appearance of having in-
fluenced the courts to ensure that
Republica Srpska would have to pay for
the monument which essentially was
designed to tell the world that there
were only Serb aggressors and only
Muslim victims.
The whole point was to distort the
truth in two ways: firstly, by only telling
part of the story; secondly, by taking a
number of Muslim victims which was
plucked out of the air and not substan-
tiated by forensic evidence. Indeed, Mr
Ashdowns efforts remain geared to
both suppressing independent investi-
gations and forestalling any further dis-
cussion of the actual facts of the issue.
In this regard, by attempting to put
the affair behind us, Mr Ashdown did
exactly what Tito did with regard to the
concentration camp in which 700,000
people mostly Serbs, Jews and Gypsies
were killed at the Jasenovac concen-
tration camp run by Croatia during
World War II: he drove the truth under-
ground, where simmering divisions and
injustices merely bubble away for gen-
erations. He was not resolving the issue
by shining the light of truth on it, but
was raising doubts for generations to
come. The comparison is apt.
Then Mr Ashdown, again using his
powers as High Representative to serve
his position as head of the monument,
in a clear conflict of interests, expropri-
ated the battery factory at Srebrenica,
for use by the monument. In this re-
gard, he also forced the Republica
Srpska Government to pay compensa-
tion to the shareholders of the factory,
buying out their shares. But in so doing,
he caused loss of future profits to the
shareholders, and loss of future earn-
ings to the workers.
Behind this Western politicking, de-
signed to preserve a political legacy for
former US Pres. Clinton and former
SACEUR Clark, and to give HR Ash-
down freedom from oversight, is the re-
ality that a new terrorist wave is getting
underway in Bosnia and surrounding
areas. The actions of the High Repre-
sentative and various former and
current US officials disguise the
al-Qaida and Iranian links and thus
make new terror attacks more likely.
Iran and al-Qaida did not invest
heavily for a dozen years in building
their infrastructures in this area for no
reason. Now that both are under seige,
these assets will be used, and the Dayton
Accords, the Olympics and Europe
stand to suffer. #
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