Virtual terror from the Western Balkans

According to the German government in the Western Balkans, danger continues to take place by the Islamist scene. More trips towards Syria and Iraq are from Bosnian villages with the concentration of sausage.

The federal government does not deliberately exclude the “from a potential threat on the part of specific files and separate groups from the Islamist scene” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This stems from a federal government response in terms of the request submitted by the Left Party parliamentary group in Bundestag, which has DW exclusively. There are separate contacts among radical Islamists from the Balkans with those in Germany. But Federal Information Service (BND) has no concrete data on increasing Islamist tendencies in Bosnia.

An article in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper last November said that BND is increasingly focusing attention on Balkan countries, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But there remains room for speculation, because concrete answers to the request of the leftist parliamentary group are kept secret. The government did not want to be positioned publicly for possible payments of Persian Gulf states to Balkan countries. The same applies to sending imams from Saudi Arabia and Turkey to Bosnia.

The federal government, unlike the BND, tries to downplay the growing risk of IslamE” in public opinion, thinks Sevim Douglasen, foreign policy expert in the left parliamentary group. The growing number of Islamists willing for violence in the Balkans has serious consequences to security in Germany. “It is also unacceptable, which the government continues to keep secret from the role of Persian Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia, but also Turkey's”, says of DW Douglasen.

No information provided for number of fighters

The government classified as “specifically protected” data for the number of terrorists from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, which have joined jihadist groups in recent years. According to media reports from these two secular countries, the largest number of Islamist- exported fighters has emerged.

However, the government provides information: terrorists from Balkan countries join not only the so-called Islamic state and the front of the former Al Nusras. About ten per cent of Islamists fight among different Syrian Free Army groups. The largest number of trips to Syria and Iraq is from Bosnian villages. There residents navigate in their religious and social lives from “and fundamentalist traditions”, the German government found.

Strengthening Liberal Islam

This is a radical deviation from traditional Balkan Islam”, analyses Vedran Dzihic, a researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Policy. The members of the Salafiste movement in Bosnia are seen in the streets. They are active in the field of culture and have mosques of their communities”, he says in an interview for DW.

It is clear that the sausages in the Balkans with the help of Saudi Arabia and other countries are creating a parallel structure, in contrast with traditional Balkan Islamic communities. The need is, Dzijic says, to combat poverty, to be given an EU perspective to Western Balkan countries, to strengthen the liberal interpretation of Balkan Islam, and to establish more efficient co-operation with the secret services. / DW