The United Kingdom

Despite its relatively high standard of living and social equality, the United

Kingdom has been and remains one of the most active bases of radical Islam across Western Europe. Certainly, it can be said that the Iranian revolution and the war in Afghanistan together started the ball rolling for the Sunni British fundamentalist movement. However, their ideas did not begin to have a wide appeal among local Muslim youths until the era of Bosnia-Herzegovina. When scenes of devastation and war crimes began to air on BBC television broadcasts, many British Muslims were shocked that such horrific events could take place in the context modern Europe without any Western intervention. It gave sudden and unexpected credence to the calls of violent radicals who suggested it was time for Muslims to start taking their personal security into their own hands. Dr. Zaki Badawi, the principal (at that time) of the Muslim College in London, acknowledged in early 1992, “Bosnia has shaken public opinion throughout the

Muslim world more deeply than anything since the creation of Israel in 1948.”[15]

The Bosnian war caused a particularly strong backlash in the outspoken circles of

indignant British Muslim college students. These educated and idealistic youths angrily protested against the persecution of fellow Muslims in Bosnia. One student, a classmate of several men who had left to seek training in Afghanistan and Bosnia, saw nothing wrong with taking up arms against the “enemies of Islam”: “You cannot turn a blind eye when Muslims are being massacred, because what will you do when it is happening on your doorstep?”16 Inside Bosnia, the 21-year old Londoner “Abu Ibrahim” criticised the “hypocrites” among his peers back in Britain who swore revenge on the Serbs and Croats, yet were too afraid to join the jihad in Bosnia:

“…what we lack here is Muslims that are prepared to suffer and sacrifice. There in Britain, I see Muslims, every medical student is saying that my third year is for Islam, my third year is for the Muslims. They get their job, they get their surgery. 50, 60, £70,000 a year they’re earning. And then, no struggle, no sacrifice.” Abu Ibrahim spoke of the intense sense of satisfaction he felt fighting in the Bosnian war, as compared to the apathy of the secular Muslims who remained in London. In Britain, “I watch the TV and tears roll down my face when I see the Muslims in Bosnia, Muslims in Palestine, Muslims in Kashmir. And then I come [to Bosnia] and you feel a sense of satisfaction. You feel that you are fulfilling your duty. You feel that you are doing what the Prophet and his companions done[sic] 1400 years ago.” [17] Another British recruit from south London featured on the same Bosnia jihad video sneered, “this is what they like to do in England, they like to talk, they like to talk, they like to organise… big conferences… in the London Arena… and they make a nice conference… Then, after the talk, they go back home and they sleep. They carry on watching ‘Neighbours’… They carry on watching ‘Coronation Street’… What life is this? These people talk too much… You want to see true Muslims, with unity, come to this place, and then you’ll see.”[17]

Even those who remained behind in the United Kingdom did their part to help the

cause of the mujahideen. Young activists in the fundamentalist Muslim Parliament established a charity to support jihad in Bosnia that later became known as the “Global Jihad Fund” (GJF).[19] According to its later website, the GJF was established to aid “the Growth of various Jihad Movements around the World by supplying them with sufficient Funds to purchase Weapons and train their Individuals.”[20] Two months after the signing of the Dayton Accords officially ending the Bosnian war, GJF administrators announced the distribution of a new brochure entitled, “Islam—The New Target”: “Contents include… a reprint of an acknowledgement certificate from the Commander of the Bosnian 7th Corps to Muslim Parliament (on behalf of the fund). Why don’t you get a copy or many copies of the brochure for local distribution or get a master to reprint. You and your friends could use it to increase genocide awareness and Jihad awareness in your locality.”[21] Two years later, following a twin Al-Qaida suicide bombing attack on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the administrators of the GJF indicated that the fund was being run by Saudi Al-Qaida spokesman Mohammed al-Massari and had found a new cause célébre in “support[ing] Sheikh Mujahid Osama bin Laden.”[22] When confronted by British investigative reporters, the GJF webmaster in London admitted, “I work for two people, really… Mr. Massari and Osama Bin Laden.”[23]

On the battlefield in Bosnia, British-born mujahideen recruits had a noticeable

and significant impact. On June 13, 1993, a British patrol of four APC’s was stopped at a roadblock near the central Bosnian town of Guca Gora.[24] A group of approximately 50 mujahideen fighters, who “looked north African or Middle Eastern,” had assembled there to intercept mobile enemy troops. The frightened British soldiers told journalists later that the foreigners had long, wispy beards, Afghan-style caps, and uniforms unlike anything worn by local Bosnian guerillas.25 Though the jihadis instantly trained their rocket propelled grenade launchers and rifles at the UN vehicles, the mujahideen commander on scene—an unidentified British Muslim wearing an Afghan hat and a blue scarf over his face—addressed the British officer in charge of the patrol, Major Vaughan Kent-Payne, in perfect English and coldly reassured him, “be cool, these people won’t

fire until I give them the order.”[26]

In the summer of 1993, the British mujahideen began to suffer their first series of combat casualties, including a Muslim convert named David Sinclair. Sinclair (a.k.a. Dawood al-Brittani) was a 29-year old employee of a computer company in the UK. After suddenly converting to Islam and adopting traditional Muslim dress, Sinclair ran into problems with senior management at his company. Within a week of wearing his new clothes to work, he was reportedly terminated. Mobilised into action, he thereupon decided to travel to Bosnia-Herzegovina and to join the Islamic military organisation based there. In the midst of his training, he generously gave away his two British passports to Arab-Afghan “brothers in need.” Dawood refused to return to the UK evidently out of a determination to avoid living the life of an infidel. During deadly clashes with Croatian HVO forces, he was shot and killed near an enemy bunker.[27]

Indeed, British Muslims were present for some of the most important ARBiH

victories of the Bosnian war, including the conquest of the Vozuca region in late summer 1995. That battle, popularly known among the Arab-Afghans as “Operation BADR”, cost the lives of dozens of foreign fighters—including “Abu Mujahid” from the United Kingdom, killed on September 10, 1995. Abu Mujahid was a recent British university graduate who had finished his studies in 1993, when the Islamic community in the UK was still in an uproar over the war crimes being committed by the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He first came to the Balkans in 1993 as a humanitarian aid worker purportedly transporting food and medicine to the embattled Muslims in central Bosnia. Abu Mujahid was using his position as charity employee as a cover for other, more illicit activities: “Over the next two years Abu Mujahid hurried back and forth between Bosnia and Britain carrying valuable supplies to the brothers there. Between trips he travelled the

length of Britain reaching its smaller parts in his efforts to raise money for the cause and increase the awareness among Muslims there.” Abu Mujahid returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina in August 1995 and enlisted in a jihad training camp soon after his arrival, receiving instruction from—among others—two elite Egyptian trainers imported to the region directly from Al-Qaida-run camps along the Afghan-Pakistani border. For all his anti-Western vigor, Abu Mujahid nonetheless proudly wore a G-Shock watch and U.S. Army boots. According to his teachers, he “excelled” at shooting and throwing grenades and he insisted that he would remain in Bosnia “‘until either we get victory or I am martyred’… One thing which was strange about him was that he always used to say, thinking back, I remember, maybe three, four, five times a day, he would say to me that ‘Inshallah [“God-willing”] I am going to be martyred. Inshallah, this time in Bosnia, I am going to be martyred.’”[28]

Following the initial assault during Operation BADR, Abu Mujahid disappeared

in the fog of war. Over a week later, a mujahideen search party recovered his body from the battlefield. One of the men who found Abu Mujahid later recalled, “At that point, the thought that went through my mind was that the brother had been there, left behind when I was there in Bosnia and he intended to stay there longer than me. But only Allah knew what could he have done for him to die in such a beautiful way? And the thought that’s still in our minds, Inshaallah, may Allah accept it from him, and may the people who loved him in this life, Inshaallah join him in the next.” Abu Mujahid’s body was brought back down from the mountain and then taken in a van to the frontline base camp. The

lead commander present, Abu Hammam al-Najdi from Saudi Arabia, would only allow fellow British mujahideen to go inside the van to see the remains of their departed compatriot.[28]

The foreign mujahideen who survived the end of the war in 1995 grew apprehensive when they discovered that the Bosnian Muslims were about to sign the Dayton Accords—“the peace of the enemy”—with the United States and Europe. British jihadi recruits were among the voices urging their commanders to wage an apocalyptic all-out terror campaign in central Bosnia targeting Western peacekeepers, the Serbs and Croats, and even other Muslims. In a direct English-language message aimed at fellow British Muslims, one mujahid fighter appealed, “the amir [commander] of the jihad… is here. And the amir of the mujahideen here says he needs more people, and more equipment, and more everything. So for the people who are sitting at home and saying that, ‘well, they don’t need people anymore’, it’s not true, it’s not true… we need as many people and as much money and everything that people can send us to help us.”[17] One British Muslim guerilla recounted the discussions taking place at the El-Mudzahedin Unit headquarters in a propaganda audiotape:

“[W]hen the Americans came to Bosnia… the situation had developed in such a way that it seemed as if we were going to have to fight the Americans. And [commander] Abul-Harith [the Libyan], he turned to me and he said, ‘We will become an example for these Bosnians. We will fight for our belief and the lost land. Please Allah, will give us victory and we will defeat [the Americans] or they will kill us. But we will not flee, and we will be an example for the Bosnians.’”[28]

According to various accounts, on the day of December 12, 1995, several fighters had left a non-descript delivery van in the parking lot of the Zenica mujahideen base. A Bosnian police investigation later concluded that these radicals were in the final stages of “trying to rig a car bomb” when they ran into an unknown technical error, and it prematurely exploded.[32] The massive and unexpected detonation killed as many as four mujahideen bombmakers and injured several other foreigners in the area. One wounded mujahid recounted, “You could feel the explosion… like a shining light… as I was on the floor, I remember seeing the face of Abul-Harith [the Libyan] as he ran to me. And he

took me and put me on the stretcher… And the building that he wanted to open, it was locked. And Abul-Harith he didn’t look for the key, he just knocked the door down and took me inside.”[28]

In this case, as reported by both Arab-Afghan and Bosnian authorities, the

deceased would-be bomber was an 18-year-old British honours student from southwest London known as “Sayyad al-Falastini.” Sayyad was born in the United Kingdom but spent most of his early youth in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When he returned to London at age 12, he soon became involved in the radical Islamic fundamentalist movement there that was recruiting young volunteers for jihad in Bosnia. At age 16, he first sought unsuccessfully to join the mujahideen battalion in the Balkans after hearing an inspiring Friday khutba (religious sermon) from an Arab veteran of Bosnia.[28]

However, after being elected president of the Islamic society at his college,

Sayyad started to methodically plan and save his money in a fund that would finance his dreamed jihad adventure. According to the mujahideen, Sayyad possessed this instinct because he was of Palestinian descent, and therefore, there was “a background of realising the importance of Jihad in his family.” During the summer of 1995, he left London and travelled to a Bosnian mujahideen training camp, fighting alongside his fellow comrades during Operation BADR. When combat hostilities gradually came to a halt after “BADR,” many foreign volunteers began filtering out of Bosnia and returning home, including a number of British recruits. But Sayyad was not ready to leave; his first taste of battle had exhilarated him and changed his life. Among the mujahideen, despite his young age, he was well liked and highly esteemed for his proficiency in English, Arabic, and Bosnian. Sayyad did not want the war to end, grumbling (like many of the Arabs) that the peace accords had been negotiated only “in order to halt the victories of the Mujahideen in Bosnia… For three years the world had sat back and allowed the slaughter of the Muslims to continue. But now as soon as the Muslims began to fight back and win, they ended the war.” Even in light of the Dayton agreement, Sayyad stubbornly refused to leave, and he recommitted himself to keeping the Islamic jihad alive in Bosnia. In the first few days of December, as the terms of Dayton were about to become a reality, Sayyad was torn by despair as he saw his beloved combat tour coming to an inexorable end. He angrily demanded of his fellow mujahideen, “Why are we all lost? Look at the [infidels]. Are they thinking of us and then they are laughing because they have their own state. But look at us, the Muslims, we do not even have a state yet but we continue to laugh!”[28]

At this point, Sayyad started to act peculiarly, as if he was readying himself for a

“martyrdom” operation. He would pray all night long and continuously recite verses from the Qu’ran. Previously, he had telephoned his mother to ask her to send some money for him to visit home. Suddenly, two days before the explosion in Zenica, he called her and told her not to wire the cash as “he would not be needing it.” There is good reason to believe that Sayyad may have been preparing for an imminent role as a suicide bomber. Regardless of his intentions, on December 12, something in his plan went terribly wrong. While Sayyad stood beside the van, it prematurely detonated, shaking the entire neighbourhood and thoroughly frightening nearby Croatian civilians.[28] By the “official” count of Al-Qaida, Sayyad became the sixth British Islamic volunteer soldier killed in Bosnia only two days shy of his nineteenth birthday. He was buried in a ceremony attended “by over three hundred of the cream of the foreign Mujahideen

fighters in Bosnia.”[28] The Arab battalion later eulogised him:

“Sayyad was a brother who made Jihad his wealth and his life giving every penny of his wealth for the pleasure of Allah and eventually giving every drop of his blood for him. We ask Allah (SWT) to accept Sayyad as a martyr, to make him an example for the millions of youth in the West who have chosen this life in preference with the hereafter.”[38]

The shadow cast by British mujahideen volunteers in Bosnia-Herzegovina

continues to plague law enforcement and intelligence agencies even to this day. On September 23, 2005, 34-year old British Muslim convert Andrew Rowe was convicted and ordered jailed for 15 years by a court in the U.K. for possessing details on how to fire mortar bombs and using secret codes to facilitate terror attacks. Back during the early 1990s, Rowe dramatically changed his loose lifestyle after converting at a mosque in Regent’s Park, London—an event which Rowe said “put meaning into my life.”[39] Rowe admits to traveling to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 on a “humanitarian” mission—in reality, acting as an envoy for the foreign mujahideen. When he returned to the U.K., he even claimed government invalidity benefits for wounds suffered during an alleged mortar attack in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 2003, Rowe was arrested on the French side of

the Channel tunnel while carrying a bound pair of socks bearing traces of TNT, plastic explosives, RDX, and nitroglycerine. According to Crown Prosecutors, the socks were likely used “to clean the barrel of a mortar or as a muzzle protector.”[39] Raids on Rowe’s various residences revealed coded documents with phrases such as “airline crew,” “explosives,” and “army base.” Investigators also found video recordings of jihad in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and Al-Qaida leader Usama Bin Laden.[39]

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