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06/30/2006: Bosnian Investigation Confirms Balkanalysis.com Terror Report

06/30/2006: Bosnian Investigation Confirms Balkanalysis.com Terror Report

(Balkanalysis.com Security & Intelligence Brief 3) Disturbing, though not surprising information has been revealed in Bosnia, corroborating a Balkanalysis.com investigation conducted nearly 9 months ago.

A Sarajevo newspaper, Nezavisne Novine, reported yesterday that Bosnian investigators are showing growing interest in the financial resources and activities of a Kuwaiti charity that has been blacklisted by the Bush administration in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The charity, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), claims to be a humanitarian and educational organization; however, it preaches the strict Wahhabist doctrine in its bid to reshape the political life of Muslim countries, and has maintained terrorist links in places like Albania, Azerbaijan and Bangladesh. In the latter country, the RIHS was blamed for involvement in the 500 nearly simultaneous bombings of August 18, 2005.The Bosnian report comes as stark confirmation of this exhaustive survey of RIHS activity worldwide published on September 15, 2005. Balkanalysis.com was the first news agency anywhere to present documentary and photographic proof of RIHS activity in Kosovo. According to former OSCE security officer Tom Gambill, cited in the above article, UNMIK and American security staff did not want to “rock the boat” by cracking down on what was essentially a terrorist front which operated throughout Kosovo, at least through 2003.

Amazingly enough, despite the crackdown on RIHS activity in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, the Bosnia branch of the RIHS had somehow managed to escape attention. In fact, as recently as January 2006, the Kuwaiti group was advertising its efforts publicly. On January 9, the KUNA news agency quoted RIHS chief Othman Haidar regarding a Kuwaiti “program to assist hundreds of refugees here on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha.”

Haidar told KUNA that Muslim orphans and widows in nine Bosnian cities were being given meat and clothes through the Kuwaiti Zakat (Islamic social tax) “and other societies among those providing assistance for the poor in the country and elsewhere in the region.” Cash and goods were being delivered to “…the homes and places of the needy throughout the al-Adha days.”

Interestingly enough, the January 2006 KUNA report also claimed that “similar activities are underway in Kosovo and Albania and other areas in the Balkans”- which would indicate that the RIHS presence in the wider region has not disappeared, despite the group’s infamous reputation and association with al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Albania during the 1990’s.

Most interestingly, the Nezavisne Novine report yesterday also quoted an anonymous public prosecutor who said that “…from January 1, 2002 until December 31, 2005, the[Kuwait main] organization deposited 12 million KM [Convertible Marks] in an account in Volksbank. In the same period it deposited in the organization’s bank account in the Agricultural Bank of Sarajevo almost 17 million KM.”

These deposits, totaling approximately 14 million euros, were never accounted for. The funds disappeared and were funnelled from RIHS headquarters in Kuwait to the group’s Bosnian branches in Sarajevo, Zenica, Travnik and Kljuc. Intelligence sources independent from this report attest that it “is highly likely that some of the funds reached RIHS operations in Kosovo and Albania.”

The Bosnian newspaper also notes that the suspiciously wealthy RIHS has changed its structure and address frequently- a common tactic of Wahhabi groups fearful of attracting attention from the security services.