They have come from a host of Islamic countries-Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, among them-to fight a holy war. As they explained to a NEWSWEEK reporter who went inside a secret training camp and spoke with their elusive leader Abu Abdul Aziz, they are supporting a struggle for survival because no one else will. The European Community, the United Nations and the United States have all ignored Bosnian pleas for military intervention. In the absence of Western help, someone must keep the heavily armed Serbs from “killing the Muslims like sheep,” argues a uniformed mujahedin from the Middle East (he won’t say what country). “I am just doing what I can,” he says, tugging his thick black beard while lounging outside the Travnik headquarters of the Muslim Forces, an offshoot of the Bosnian Army. Like other Islamic volunteers, he came to train Bosnian Muslims, provide them with money for small arms and fight side by side with them on the front line against the Serbs.
The Islamic warriors began to trickle into the Travnik area this summer, first posing as journalists, then appearing more openly in locally purchased camouflage jackets and pants. Today there are said to be 200 or 300 mujahedin around the town and an additional 200 or so in the central part of the republic. Their training camps put Muslims, who were poorly prepared for war, through two weeks of boot camp plus religious indoctrination. In the final two days mujahedin instructors lead groups of 15 to 20 Muslims in exercises near the front. “Nobody can stop the people who come here from the Middle East or Turkey to help the Bosnian people,” says former Yugoslav Army Col. Emir Redzic, who now commands the Muslim Forces in Travnik. “You can’t keep them from coming.”
Few Bosnians would want to. “They are very good fighters,” says Osman Sekic, a 46-year-old woodworker from Visenjevo. “They have no fear for their lives.” Local soldiers who have fought with the mujahedin are impressed with their bravery and their ability to strike terror in the hearts of Serbian fighters, who cringe at the sound of war cries to Allah. The Islamic warriors are admired as martyrs. “They came here to be killed,” says Elis Bektas, a 22-year-old platoon leader in the Bosnian Army and former philosophy student. “For them there is no going back.” Small villages like Mehurici are enormously grateful to Islamic warriors whose secrecy they jealously protect. “The mujahedin don’t exist here,” insists a local man.
But when mujahedin commander Aziz drives through Mehurici in his new black four-wheel-drive Nissan, the town turns out for him. Children wave, old people turn and smile, and other villagers approach with invitations to weddings and parties. Aziz, who arrived in Bosnia three months ago, has little time for celebration. He heads up the road to a field outside town and parks his vehicle. As he pulls off his black plastic sandals and reclines on a couple of vividly colored prayer rugs, two Bosnian Muslims jump out of the Nissan and take up positions 10 yards to either side, scanning the terrain with their AK47s. Now 50, the red-bearded Aziz claims to be a veteran of holy wars in Africa, Kashmir, the Philippines and Afghanistan. “I come from Islam,” he says guardedly. People who know him in nearby Travnik say his home is Saudi Arabia, where his wife and nine children see very little of him.
The warlord spends part of his time proselytizing. Every day, with the help of a translator, Aziz teaches the Koran and Islamic tradition to a class of 15 children, 8 to 13 years old. But his main purpose isn’t pedagogical or humanitarian. “We are not here to bring supplies like food and medicine,” he says, a silver revolver gleaming from his waistband. “There are a lot of organizations that can do that. We bring men.” How many? “Enough.” They come from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, say villagers. Seventeen of his men, Aziz admits, have been killed in the conflict; he expects many more will die. “It will be a long war if the United Nations and the United States don’t do anything,” he suggests. “If the Muslims in Bosnia are not secure, we will fight until they get their freedom.”
While Bosnians want their freedom, they worry about the price. Some fear the mujahedin haven’t yet shown their extremist side. “If they want to offer the people religion, culture and language, that’s good,” says 27-year-old Zafir, a Muslim from Travnik who asked that his last name not be used. “But if they insist on it, that’s not good.” Bektas, the platoon leader, is concerned the mujahedin are really fighting for Islam, not Bosnia. “It’s good for us that they are here,” he says. “But after the war, who knows?” So far, at least, locals have been more eager to embrace Kalashnikovs than the Koran: men still drink beer unmolested, and women have resisted the chador–as well as several proposals of marriage from Arab fighters.
But Croatians aren’t taking any chances. The mujahedin must pass through their borders to enter Bosnia; Croat dealers control the arms flow. Zagreb has tolerated the Islamic warriors–except when it’s expedient not to, as in the recent seizure of an Iranian 747 loaded with guns or the slaying of six Saudi Arabians by Croats who stole the weapons being brought to local Muslims. The Croats may be sometime allies of the Bosnians in the war against the Serbs. But they may not hesitate to use the threat of an Islamic state to turn against their Muslim neighbors.
