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NATO SAYS NO EVIDENCE OF |
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MILITANTS (TERRORISTS) IN |
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"We have no firm evidence that international terrorists are operating, training or recruiting in Bosnia-Herzegovina," Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said during his first trip since taking the position last week. NATO leads the peacekeeping Stabilisation Force in Bosnia, which is being cut from 12,000 to between 7,000 and 8,000 troops and may be taken over by a European Union-led force next year. Some local and foreign media have reported the Balkan country has become a recruiting and training base for militants. Usually, these reports quote Bosnian Serb and Croat politicians who have been eager since the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities to blame "fundamentalist" Muslims for Bosnia's war of the early 1990s. (read more...) But some of the reports -- alleging that many of hundreds of Islamic fighters who fought alongside Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) in the Bosnian war form the backbone of militant organisations have been attributed to unnamed Western intelligence sources. Under strong U.S. pressure following the September 11 attacks, Bosnia cracked down on Islamic charities suspected of supporting terrorism. "If we had the information, we -- us and Bosnia-Herzegovina agencies -- have the responsibility to act on it, of course as part of the global campaign against terrorism," de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference. Bosnia hopes to join NATO's Partnership for Peace
cooperation programme for potential alliance members this year and de Hoop
Scheffer said it depended on the reform of its military forces and the arrest of
fugitive (Bosnian Serb) war crimes suspects [Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic].
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Project
Famous Bosniaks / 2003 / |
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