From: aarman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Ahmet Arman)
Subject: Help from Holy Worriers
Organization: The Ohio State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 00:42:57 GMT


HELP FROM THE HOLY WARRIORS

Inside  a  secret  military  camp: how  mujaheddin  fighters  are
training Bosnia's Muslims

Until the mujaheddin arrived last June, Alma Halep rarely stepped
inside  a mosque.  Like most  Bosnian's Muslims,  the 16-year-old
girl had  a lot  more in  common with her  ethnic Serb  and Croat
neighbours than her Islamic "brethren"  from the Middle East. War
has changed her habits. Now  she prays the traditional five times
a day at a mosque in Travnik, the central Bosnian town where she,
her mother  and her  younger brother  fled after  Serbs destroyed
their  home  nearby  Turbe. Besides  religious  instruction,  the
visitors from  the east  are offering military  assistance. "They
are very  good men," says  Alma, tucking  a few strands  of blond
hair under the blue scarf that  covers her head. "In our country,
some of the men don't want to be killed and are afraid to fight."
As for mujaheddin, "They are the  only ones who have come here to
help us."

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
mujaheddin 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  mujaheddin 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 mujaheddin instructors lead groups of 15 to 20
Muslims in exercise  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
mujaheddin 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 mujaheddin
don't exist here," insists a local man.

But when mujaheddin 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 AK-47s. Now 50, the
red-bearded Aziz claims  to be a veteran of holy  wars in Africa,
Kashmir, the Philipinnes and Ahghanistan. "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
organisations  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."

No marriage: While Bosnians want  their freedom, they worry about
the  price. Some  fear the  mujaheddin haven't  shown their  real
extremist side. "If  they want to offer  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  mujaheddin 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 mujaheddin 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 sometimes  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 neighbours.

Tom Post with Joel Brand in Travnik

NEWSWEEK, October 5, 1992