BiH imam targeted by radical Islamists

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) police are trying to track down the radical Islamists who attacked imam Selvedin Beganovic, a Muslim preacher in Trnovo, northern BiH, this month. Beganovic came to the public's attention three months ago, after he openly opposed the departure of BiH citizens to Syria to fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

In an open letter, Beganovic called on Bilal Bosnic, who is suspected to be the spiritual leader of the group recruiting BiH citizens to fight with Islamic militants in Syria, to halt his practices.

Beganovic has been attacked seven times in the past three months. In the last attack, in front of his mosque, Beganovic was stabbed three times with a knife. He suffered minor injuries.

"I'm not accusing anyone, because the accusation and creation of mischief is, to me, worse than killing. So far I have been attacked several times. I'm not afraid for myself, but I'm scared for my family," Beganovic told SETimes.

According to police officials, the intensive search for Beganovic's attackers is ongoing.

"Police detained and questioned more than 30 people in this case," Ale Siljdedic, commissioner of police forces in Bihac, told SETimes. "What is promising, though, is that this time Beganovic saw the attacker and gave us his detailed description, so we're looking for this person. One arm of the investigation goes to members of the Wahhabi movement, but we cannot confirm that the attacker is a member of that movement."

Experts said that the attackers must be apprehended.

"Terrorism is not only brutal violence against the people, it is also a cause for fear among the citizens. This is what the attackers are trying to achieve, to make people afraid of them. Beganovic is doing his job seriously. He publicly said that children should not die in Syria or anywhere else. And that's the essence of preaching," Dzevad Galijasevic, the director of the BiH Humanitarian Law Centre and an anti-terrorism expert, told SETimes.

BiH Islamic Community leader Husein Kavazovic has repeatedly warned BiH citizens not to fall for extremist rhetoric aimed at pulling them into the fight in Syria.

"These are dangerous people," he said.

Citizens are angry over constant attacks on the imam, asking the police to find the perpetrators quickly.

"How can someone who preaches love and peace be a threat to something?" Elvedina Rucnov, a sociologist from Sarajevo, told SETimes. "[The radical Islamists] are a problem, but it seems that they do not understand that. This is a modern society, we have mobile devices, internet, this is not the 19th century anymore. Police should react quickly, and the court should sentence them immediately. This is a hate crime."

BiH, Kosovo and Albania are the main recruiting grounds in the Balkans for radical Islamists. More than 350 fighters currently in Iraq and Syria are from BiH, 150 from Kosovo, 140 from Albania and 20 from Macedonia.

According to the latest CIA report that the US State Department released on September 25th, several hundred jihadists from a number of Balkan countries have joined extremist groups in the Middle East.

Militant Islam was all but unknown to BiH's mostly secular Muslim population until the 1990s Balkans conflicts, when Arab mercenaries turned up to help the BiH Muslims fend off Serb attacks. These fighters, many of whom settled in BiH, embraced a radical version of Islam that BiH's official Islamic community opposes.

29 January 2015 SETimes