Where do the North African Mujahadin go to Bosnia when leaving Iraq?

Security forces have detected a new trend starting this spring: Dozens of foreign fighters leaving Iraq have found refuge in Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than returning home, according to two senior European anti-terrorism officials. The veterans are assisted by an infrastructure of Arab militants who obtained Bosnian passports after fighting there in the 1990s, officials said.

“They go from Iraq to Bosnia and stay there awhile,” an anti-terrorism official said. “They are mainly North Africans. It’s not easy, but they enter Bosnia and live semi-clandestinely with the help of the mujahedin who have always been there. Eventually some show up in countries like France or Italy.”

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Abu Mansour Al-Amriki Algaeda's East African Trainer

Feb 2008,
History Commons

A militant in a video message released this month has an interesting background. The message supports Shabab, one of two radical Islamic groups fighting for power in war-torn Somalia. According to a US intelligence source, the militant in the video, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, is an ex-US soldier who fought in Bosnia in the early 1990s.

No US soldiers officially fought in the Bosnia war, but about a dozen Muslim ex-US Special Forces soldiers fought in Bosnia and trained al-Qaeda and other mujaheddin forces there around 1993 (see December 1992-June 1993).

At the time, the US military and Saudi government apparently had an interest in sending Muslim ex-Special Forces there (see December 1992-June 1993 and December 1992).

Mansoor is said to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda’s East Africa leadership, and is a lead trainer for Somali insurgent forces.

Although he only appears on video wearing a face mask, it is clear that he is Caucasian

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