Quotes from John R. Schindler

A brief autumn stroll" (einen kleinen Herbstspaziergang) was what staffers in Sarajevo, singing the tune of jingoistic journalists and politicians throughout the Dual Monarchy, expected once the troops crossed into Serbia, a rosy assessment shared even by many well-placed functionaries in Vienna. "We'll be able to chase off the Serbs with a wet rag," promised Lt. Col. Purtscher, chief of the Balkan operations group on the General Staff.

Beric reluctantly concluded that non-Muslims had been fooled, and that Izetbegovic's exploitation of multiculturalism was a useful tactic to gain Western support, but was insincere and abandoned when it was no longer needed.99

The most notorious was the King Fahd Islamic Center in Alipasino Polje, which was filled with dynamism and hate, and there was no shortage of avid young Muslims, such as AIO recruits, in attendance (though it was observed that the mosque was paying war widows 200 marks-about $100-per month to wear hijab).

Who is bin Laden? What is his education, what is his authority, what is his credibility, what is his government, what is his contribution to Islam? Nothing gives him credibility. As far as I am concerned, he is nothing but a maniac who abuses religion and the religious feelings of uneducated Muslims in Peshawar. He misleads them and pushes them to suicide.12

Wahhabis fight against everything that has enriched Islamic culture and Islamic tradition throughout history."33

We're not fanatics and criminals like those from the 5th Corps. We all bow, go to mosque, and respect the Koran. We don't need an Islamic state under Alija Izetbegovic. Whether my sister will wear a veil is up to her to decide and not up to some stupid imam."8

Any doubts regarding what the Saudis were doing evaporated when investigators looked into SHC computers, videos, and documents and uncovered before-and-after pictures of the World Trade Center, $200,000 in cash, files on pesticides and crop dusters, and information on how to counterfeit U.S. State Department ID badges. SFOR needed several trucks to haul away the confiscated items.

It was only in the 1990s, in Bosnia, that "the Che Guevara of Islam"43 really came into his own, developing al-Qa'ida into the flexible, well-funded multinational jihadi organization it became. It was the Bosnian civil war that transformed bin Laden and his cadres into the backbone of the mujahidin worldwide.

Saudi Arabia continued its policy of supporting jihad and spreading Wahhabism with Koran and Kalashnikov to the war's end and beyond. By the time the guns fell silent, Riyadh had lavished the Bosnian jihad with well over a billion dollars in aid, much of which went to fund the holy warriors.

The SDA's vision of an Islamic mini-state carved from central Bosnia bore strong resemblance to the plans of Bosnian Islamists during World War II, who desired satellite status under the Third Reich; the later concept was much the same but under American protection: a Balkan Islamistan subject to Holbrooke rather than Himmler.

Instead, there has emerged a new jihadi organization, dispersed and decentralized, which draws its inspiration from al-Qa'ida and its glorious raids. This rising threat, truly a global jihad in the making, is potentially deadlier than bin Laden's secret army; it exists wherever there are angry Muslims, and it feeds on the "virtual jihad," what some term

The bitter irony of the story told here is that in 1990, no Islamic society on earth was better positioned to reject jihad and realize a modern, reformed version of Islam than Bosnia.

You can't enter the mosque any more because of them. They pray in a completely different way and do everything wrong. They turned Sarajevo into a black hole and now the whole world is against us.... They sowed the seed of evil and left us with it."90