Far from being radicalised by the failure of the west to act, large numbers of Muslims were radicalised by western intervention in the Balkans.
Brendan O’Neill
Brendan Simms is right to argue that today’s Islamo-nihilism has its origins in the civil war in Bosnia. But he is way off the mark when he says it was the failure of the west, and in particular Britain, to intervene on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims that radicalised Muslims in Britain and elsewhere.
The exact opposite is the case: Muslims in Britain, America and across the Middle East were radicalised not by western sloth on Bosnia, but rather by the west’s transformation of that dirty civil war into a simplistic battle between good and evil.
Simms is guilty of some sins of omission, too. He fails to mention, for example, that between 1,800 and 3,000 mujahideen fought in Bosnia on the side of the Bosnian Muslim army. These holy warriors came from the Middle East, north Africa and western Europe (notably France and the UK). And their path to holy war in Bosnia was facilitated by western intervention.The mujahideen moved to Bosnia as part of a process of “Islamicisation” of the conflict, which took place under the watchful and approving eye of the Clinton administration. In 1993 and 1994, the Clintonites gave a green light to Iran, Saudi Arabia and various highly dubious radical Islamic charities to arm the Bosnian Muslims.
Despite having denounced Iran as “the worst sponsor of terrorism in the world”, the Clinton administration told both Croat and Bosnian Muslim leaders that they should accept shipments of weapons, ammunition, anti-tank rockets, communications equipment and uniforms and helmets from Iran.
Washington also allowed “Islamic charities”, which really were radical mujahideen-based organisations, to supply money and arms to the Bosnian Muslims. As the Washington Post reported in September 1996, US officials on the ground in Bosnia, who were motivated by “sympathy for the Muslim government and ambivalence about maintaining the arms embargo”, instructed other western officials to “back off” and “not interfere” with these shipments from radical Islamists.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brendan_oneill/2007/07/the_bosnian_connection.html