EFL
Bulgaria has dismantled Islamic centres with possible links to Saudi-funded extremist movements, the head of military intelligence, Plamen Stoudenkov, said on Monday.
- of course in the USA, nearly every Islamic org has Saudi money behind it directly or indirectly
âThere are religious centres in Bulgaria that belong to Islamic groups financed mostly by Saudi Arabian groups, that possibly have links to radical organisations like the Muslim Brothers in Egypt,â General Stoudenkov said in an interview with the daily newspaper Dvevnik. He said the centres were in southern and southeastern Bulgaria, where the countryâs Muslims, mainly of Turkish origin, are concentrated, and âhad links with similar organisations in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia. For them Bulgaria seems to be a transit point to Western Europe.â Stoudenkov said the centres were dismantled by the authorities in September and November 2003.
| Maybe more fallout from conversations we haven't seen reported? |
He said the steps were taken to prevent terrorist groups gaining a foothold in Bulgaria, which shares a border with Turkey. Senior interior ministry official Boiko Borissov on Thursday played down the events, saying the police had âlaunched two or three operations against Muslim missionaries at Velingrad and Pazardikâ in the south. In an interview with foreign media, he stressed, âthere are no problems concerning Islam or terrorism in Bulgaria.â
| "And we're making sure there won't be." |
Bulgariaâs Turkish minority accounts for 10 percent of the countryâs eight million people. Younal Loufti, one of the leaders of the Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedom, the junior partner in Bulgariaâs governing coalition, said in late November that the party was guarding against extremism taking root in Bulgaria. He said five years ago that âsectsâ from Arab countries that tried to recruit followers in Bulgaria were âchased away by the population,â adding: âWe are very careful.â
| "We tried that totalitarian stuff. It wasn't any fun." |
Members of the Turkish population near the southern town of Kardjali confirmed that foreign groups had tried to recruit members there.
the source is a liberal Pakistani newspaper - who knows just how well this story was written - the article has a lot of somewhat contradictory info in it |