BELGRADE, SARAJEVO, PRISTINA, 12. July 2015- Countries in the Western Balkans have raised security levels and introduced new precautions to counter the threat of terrorist attacks by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Police in bulletproof vests, increased security at public buildings and joint patrols at the borders are only some of the measures introduced by the region’s security services after ISIS released a video urging its supporters in the Balkan to kill “unbelievers” in their home, BIRN team reported. The video published on June 5 features Balkan fighters calling on “fellow Muslim brothers” to join the fight for Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL, or “attack” non-Muslims in their respective countries. “For those of you that can’t come here, fight over there…If you can, take poison and put it in their drinks and their food. Let them die. Kill them in every place, whenever you can,” says a fighter who seems to originally be from Bosnia and calls himself Salahuddin. Experts say closer cooperation between regional security services is required, including permanent communication with leading global intelligence agencies, to prevent such attacks. Between 200 and 600 fighters from various Balkan nations including Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo have traveled to Syria since 2012 according to a June study by the Combating Terrorism Center, a research institution at West Point. Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania are the main recruiting grounds in the Balkans for radical Islamists seeking fighters for the wars in Syria and in terms of numbers, they come just behind Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, the latest CIA report says. In terms of context, at least 500 French nationals are thought to be fighting for ISIS, as many as 700 from the UK. Detentions and arrests in the Balkans: Bosnian security officials told BIRN that the ISIS video was probably made at least half a year before it was broadcast since some of the filmed ISIS fighters are known to have been killed in recent months. Some sources claim the video was timed for release for the beginning of June, right before Pope Francis was due to visit Sarajevo. Bosnian police have detained several dozen people they suspect are connected to Islamic terrorist networks. Bilal Bosnic, who was arrested in December 2014 on suspicion of recruiting Islamic fighters to go to Syria and Iraq, is now on trial. Denis Hadzovic, director of the Center for Security Studies, a think tank in Sarajevo, told BIRN that between 150 and 350 people from Bosnia had gone to the battlefields of the Middle East or were connected with ISIS. According to him, around 3,000 people pose a possible threat of terrorism in Bosnia. Beside Bosnia, the biggest recruiting base for Islamic fighters in the Balkans is overwhelmingly Muslim Kosovo.To date, no terrorist incidents have taken place inside the country but, according to estimates, around 200 people from Kosovo are fighting in the Middle East. Larger numbers of police in bulletproof vests have been visible on the streets of Pristina in recent days in response to heightened concerns of an attack, according to an internal police communication that BIRN has seen. Six admitted members of terror groups meanwhile remain under house arrest as they stand trial. Kosovo police arrested Kujtim Bllaca, Bejtim Ibrahimaj, Adil Bushi, Hajrush Lajci, Skender Syla, Muxhahid Brava in September 2014 along with about 80 other suspects. Most of those arrested were later released due to a lack of evidence. However, 32 others, including Bllaca, Ibrahimaj, Bushi and Lajci, were indicted and have been on trial since June 1. All 32 are charged with active membership of, or affiliation to, ISIS or Al-Nusra. The narrator of the ISIS video released in June is Abu Muqatil Al Kosovi, formerly Ridvan Haqifi, an ice cream seller and self-declared imam from the Kosovo town of Gjilan/Gnjilane. “Dark days are approaching you … We will kill you with Allah’s permission. We will come to you with explosives,” Al Kosovi says in the Al Kosovi’s threats are taken seriously, which is why, following additional information about potential attacks on Pristina and Skopje, police in both countries have raised their levels of alert. Experts in Macedonia say that at least 14 Macedonian nationals have died fighting in the Middle East and that many more are still there and could cause trouble on their return. Macedonian police have stepped up their vigilance but security experts say the risk remains ever-present. A security professor at the Skopje Faculty of Law, Metodi Hadzi-Janev, warned on TV on June 30 that ISIS could be using the flow of Middle Eastern refugees through the country to infiltrate its members. “Aside from the serious humanitarian aspect, no one can guarantee that amid the suffering refugees there aren’t some ISIS members who might be instructed to infiltrate,” he said. Security levels have been raised in Albania, too, where police on July 1 arrested Baki Coku, wanted by Italian police as a suspected member of a terrorist organisation linked to ISIS. Two imams and seven of their supporters are on trial in Albania, accused of recruiting fighters for ISIS and the al-Nusra front. While mainly Muslim Kosovo and Albania and half-Muslim Bosnia are the main recruiting grounds for ISIS in the region, other Balkan countries with significant Muslim populations are also concerned. In Serbia, armed police now guard the most important government and public buildings as well as some embassies. The Serbian Interior Ministry has ordered health and educational institutions to increase their security procedures and report all suspicious activity and persons, a security source told BIRN. The public transport company in Belgrade has been told to undertake similar steps. A source in Serbia said several hundred people are under supervision for possible connection to radical Islamists. Only about 2 per cent of Serbia’s 7 million people are Muslims, however, so the threat is seen as containable. “About 25 Serbian citizens went to the battlefields in Syria and the Middle East, which is almost negligible compared to Bosnia,” Aleksandar Djordjevic, head of the Serbian Security Information Agency, pointed out in Belgrade on April 1. Serbian police launched joint border patrols with Hungarian and Austrian police on the border with Macedonia at the end of June. Serbian police director Milorad Veljovic on June 22 said that around 1,000 people try to enter Serbia a day via Macedonia and Bulgaria, fleeing conflicts in the Middle East or Africa. Neighbouring Romania is a country of no particular interest to ISIS as its Muslim community numbers only some 40,000 people. However, the Romanian government recently expelled nine foreign nationals accused of recruiting members for Islamist militant groups, seven in April and two others in June. A recent report by Croatia’s Security and Intelligence Agency said ISIS fighters mainly use Croatia only as a transit zone. Only one Croatian citizen, Dora Bilic, is known to be connected to ISIS, having left for Syria with her husband, an ISIS fighter. Regional cooperation essential: Experts in the Balkans say the regional security services need to cooperate more closely to prevent potential terror attacks. “Regional intelligence agencies are too weak to fight the threats alone, so they have to work together closely and exchange data with the leading global security services,” Aleksandar Radic, an expert in Belgrade, stressed. A massive ISIS attack in the Balkans is unlikely, he noted. However, the security services are vulnerable because they are “primarily aimed at protecting political interests in their countries, not at outside security threats”, he added. In mid-June, attending the global security forum, Globsec 2015, in Bratislava, Slovakia, Macedonia’s President, Gjorge Ivanov, called for increased cooperation between regional security services. “Without increased trust and cooperation between the security services, our region will continue to be vulnerable to the threats of violent extremism and radicalism,” Ivanov said, urging the United States to offer greater assistance to the intelligence agencies in the region. The US State Department’s “Country Report Terrorism 2014,” issued in June, also said better cooperation between security services was needed, particularly noting a problem in Bosnia, where power is divided between two autonomous entities. Problems in Bosnia with coordination and cooperation relate to “overlapping law enforcement jurisdictions” as well as to “personal, political, and institutional rivalries” between the various police, security and judicial bodies, the report said. A retired US General, John R Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, told a security forum in Montenegro on June 6 that the ideas behind Islamist terrorism need to be confronted as well. “We have a long-term battle and it is likely to last longer than a decade,” he said. “We have to send messages that neutralize the ISISmessage. We will not defeat ISIS while the very idea of ISIS is not defeated,” Allen added.
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