Islamic State targets dissafected Bosnian Islamic specialists to reinforce jihad

ISLAMIC State is now targeting Bosnia and its high-levels of unemployment, ethnic tensions and government dysfunction to raise a jihadi army in the centre of Europe.

Veterans, former members of the predominantly Muslim "Armija BiH" and their Croat counterparts, former members of "HVO" (Croat Council of Defense) protest against the Bosnian government's refusal to pass a law on recognition of basic rights for more than 200,000 ex-fighters. Picture: AFP

ISLAMIC State is now targeting Bosnia and its high-levels of unemployment, ethnic tensions and government dysfunction to raise a jihadi army in the centre of Europe.

According to NATO sources, critical to their plans is exploiting the refugee crisis to move leading figures into Europe to then recruit supporters from within to carry out domestic attacks.

News Corp Australia has learned more critically, NATO intelligence agents have detected a shift from the mass recruitment of sympathisers and supporters to their cause to targeted recruitment of those with more sophisticated skills to carry out targeted attacks.

MORE: In search of ISIS’ European outpost

“The mass recruitment of terrorists will be cut over time, less members are joining and we can see that already. But it is becoming more sophisticated,” a NATO source told News Corp Australia.

“Recruitment of specialists, that’s the transformation in the future. During the refugee crisis many people will seek to manipulate them toward terrorism … but it’s those specialists that is a concern.”

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu walks in front of the restored Ferhat Pasha mosque after its official opening ceremony, in Banja Luka, Bosnia. The mosquewas blown up by Christian Orthodox Serbs during the 1992-1995 war. Picture: AP

MORE: Aussie sheik asked to spy for ASIO

The specialists include those in communications including hackers, engineering and those working with sophisticated electronics and more worrisome in the nuclear and biological industries.

It has also been revealed Islamic State is looking at carrying bombs in bodies and hacking computers to cause mass disruptions.

“We know their political and ideological aims but not their strategic aims,” the source said, adding Islamic State knew they were on the verge of losing the fight in Syria and Iraq and were already shifting focus to create new multiple war fronts across Europe.

“We have already seen what they are capable of in Paris and Brussels and what has been stopped elsewhere including Great Britain and Spain,” they said.

But NATO agents agreed one critical worrisome area was the Balkans which was divided geographically and socially, where at least 50 per cent of youth were unemployed and politically with clear ethnic divisions at a crossroads.

Poverty was encouraging some to look to join a cause, politically the country was still split along ethnic lines and radical mosques have been noted springing up with the aid of money from Gulf States. A recent Islamic State recruitment video has highlighted how the first Muslim battle in modern times sparked the Balkans war two decades ago and how Muslims needed to assert themselves again.

The former director for the co-ordination of police bodies in Bosnia for the past 17 years and leading counter terrorism figure Taib Spahic played down fears about the Balkans saying Islamic State supporters in the country were significantly less than elsewhere notably the UK.

EMBARGO APPLIES - DO NOT PUBLISH BEFORE 14 MAY 2016 .. Taib Spahic, former director for coordination of police bodies of Bosnia for 17 years and leading expert on counter terrorism in Sarayevo. Picture Ella Pellegrini

“They are here, we cannot escape from that fact and we have to face them and the police agency are very powerful in Bosnia and we are doing that,” he said.

“If we take a look at terrorism on the geopolitical level, we are seeing Europe and Western countries being targets for terrorism and Syria and Iraq where ISIS are producing terrorism. Then you will learn that the Balkans is in the middle between ISIS and terrorism and western countries as a target and because of that the Balkans and Bosnia particularly are the focus on a western level.”

About 330 Bosnians have joined Islamic State in Syria in Iraq, so from a population of four million people, Bosnia has one of the highest per capita rates of terror recruitment alongside that in Belgium.

Of those 330, at least 50 have been killed and another 50 have slipped back home to Bosnia. Half of Bosnia’s population are Muslim but secular, practising a very modern “European” form of the faith that does not include veils.

Mr Spahic said from that level of moderate faith and a population sick of war he did not believe the country was a hotbed of recruitment.

Originally published as Islamic State targets dissafected Bosnian Islamic specialists to reinforce jihad