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Europe
Bosnian Suspect to Surrender in Spain
2004-04-14
A Bosnian who is among the suspects in last month's deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid, Spain, will turn himself in, the man's father said Wednesday. The suspect, identified as Sanel Sjekirica, 23, told the daily Dnevni Avaz that he is in Sweden and will travel to Spain on Friday and make himself available to Spanish authorities in Madrid. Sjekirica told the newspaper that he learned that he is a suspect from media reports. He denied any involvement in the March 11 attack and said he "could not believe what was happening."
"Who? Me? No, no! Certainly not!"
Sanel's father, Alija Sjekirica, confirmed the report. "He is a good boy and he never got into any trouble," Sjekirica, 68, said by telephone from his home in the southern Bosnian city of Mostar. "I am sure that this is some kind of a mix-up." He told The Associated Press that his son fled to Spain in 1993 during the Bosnian war and was a student, though he was unable to specify what he is studying.
That's always a bad sign, Pop...
Sanel Sjekirica said he already had contacted Spanish police and informed them that he would be in Spain on Friday. "They told me that I am not a suspect but that there are some links they want to check," Sjekirica was quoted as saying. Spanish police last week asked the Bosnian office of Interpol to investigate Sjekirica, said Brane Pecanac, the head of the local Interpol bureau. Spain's Interior Ministry earlier this month released the names of three suspects, including Sjekirica, being sought for possible involvement in the group that carried out the attacks on commuter trains in Madrid. The bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800. Most of Bosnia's Muslims are secular and practice a moderate Islam, although extremist Islamic fighters — many from Arab countries — fought on the Muslim side in the country's 1992-95 war, which killed an estimated 260,000 people. Bosnia extradited six Algerians to U.S. authorities in 2002 after police arrested them in October 2001 following a U.S. intelligence alert that they were planning to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo and the U.S. military base in the northeastern city of Tuzla. One of the six, Bensayah Belkacem, had made several phone calls to one of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's aides — Abu Zubaydah, the operations chief of al-Qaida in Afghanistan — according to U.S. intelligence information. Many stayed and were awarded Bosnian citizenship. Several of the six Algerians worked for Islamic humanitarian agencies in Bosnia.
If I was the CIA, I'd have a list six miles long of Islamic charities and their... ummm... associates. And I'd share it with the FBI...
Posted by:Fred

#2  â€œMost of Bosnia's Muslims are secular and practice a moderate Islam, although extremist Islamic fighters _ many from Arab countries _ fought on the Muslim side in the country's 1992-95 war, which killed an estimated 260,000 people…Many [Arab extremist Islamic fighters/jihadist volunteers] stayed and were awarded Bosnian citizenship. Several of the six Algerians worked for Islamic humanitarian agencies in Bosnia…”
Well, I can tell you that some of the Arabs & their Islamic Bosnian hosts stayed there after the war’s conclusion, but many moved on to other conflict zones around the world. Some went to Chechenya, some returned home to their Arab home countries to stir up trouble, some went to Afghanistan to train new recruits and/or to fight the Northern Alliance, some went to Punjab & Kashmir, and a lot of them went to the United States of America. The Clinton Administration and the State Department had a refugee relocation program which brought veterans of the Bosnian & Kosovar conflicts to the U.S., to cities like Lexington, Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky and St.Louis, Missouri. There are hundreds of thousands of “ethnic Albanians” & “Bosnians” in those three cities. I lived in Lexington & now live in St.Louis. My sister went to school in Louisville. There are jihadists and terrorists sprinkeled in these Bosnian refugee communities. I had several friends in Lexington who are Bosnians, and my sister had some Bosnian friends in Louisville. They have friends from Egypt, Libya, & “Palestine”, and sundry other Islamic countries which I assume they met at the local mosques. For the record I don’t hang out with those Bosnians anymore (since 9-11), but I can tell you that the Clinton Administration let a lot of those jihadists from Bosnia walk right into our country. They even set them up with no interest business loans, etc. They were all trained in Afghan camps run by Bin Laden. The K.L.A., or Kosovar Liberation Army, was Clinton’s nominal allies in the Kosovo conflict. The K.L.A. were Afghan trained jihadists. I maintain that we, the United States, bombed the wrong guys in 1999. Slobodan Milosevic was among the first Westerners to combat Islamic terrorism. He was fighting Al-Qaida aided Muslim insurgents. We called it “ethnic cleansing”. There was talk of mass graves. Tell me, how many mass graves did they find? 3,000 bodies does not constitute genocide in my mind. It wasn't ethnic cleansing...it was a door-to-door government crackdown on Islamic guerrillas that were attempting to overthrow the Yugoslav government. Those “mass graves” were actually filled with the bodies of jihadists killed in combat with Christian Serb forces of Belgrade and their local allies. And I can tell you that all those Muslims I knew in Lexington were & are actively involved in drug sales, which worries me considering the article below about the Madrid bombers using drug money to finance their operations. Think twice the next time you buy your weed from a Bosnian. The money goes back to Afghanistan. The Bosnians in the U.S. sell weed from Afghanistan. I'm just worried that we're all overlooking potential enemies right here in our backyard. I fear the average American doesn't know who these Bosnians living amongst us are really all about. I first learned of Osama Bin Laden from these Bosnians several years before 9-11. They knew all about him. I remember hearing about the nationwide crackdown here in the U.S. after 9-11 and they said many suspects had been taken into custody in various cities and I remember hearing about suspects taken into custody in St.Louis, Louisville & Lexington. I used to drive right by their mosques and "Islamic Centers" all the time.
Posted by: Kentucky Beef   2004-04-14 2:15:10 PM  

#1  
The suspect, identified as Sanel Sjekirica, 23, told the daily Dnevni Avaz that he is in Sweden and will travel to Spain on Friday and make himself available to Spanish authorities in Madrid.... [Sanel's father] told The Associated Press that his son fled to Spain in 1993 during the Bosnian war and was a student, though he was unable to specify what he is studying.

Maybe he went to Spain to study Swedish.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester   2004-04-14 11:55:59 AM  

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