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Showing posts with label Bulgaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bulgaria. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 October 2010

Balkans: Islamism gains ground

Militant Islam gains ground in the Balkans - GLG News:
...Jasmin Merdan, a young Bosnian who wrote a book after disassociating himself from Wahhabis groups in Bosnia, warned that "they express their convictions with violence, introduce anarchy in mosques and preach intolerance." Women in the Albanian city of Skadar have reportedly started covering their heads or wearing the niqab, a full body covering that hides everything but the eyes, in newly found religiosity.

The video posted on YouTube is one of several produced by home grown jihadists in the Balkans and circulating in the region. "Oh Osama, annihilate the American army. Oh Osama, raise the Muslims’ honor," a group of Macedonian men chant in Albanian on the video. "In September 2001 you conquered a power. We all pray for you." Similar songs calling on Southeastern European Muslims to join the jihad have been produced in Bosnian.

Governments and security forces fear that that increased Wahhabi activity will produce committed jihadis that could destabilize already fragile nations in southeastern Europe and, in the case of Bulgaria - where one sixth of the country's 7.6 million people is Muslim - produce a pool of jihadists whose EU passports would grant them easy access to Western Europe and allow them to blend into society.

...Bulgaria is the only EU member whose Muslim population are not recent immigrants. Most Bulgarian Muslims like those elsewhere in the Balkans are descendants of ethnic Turks who arrived during five centuries of Ottoman rule.

...The analysts say militant Islam is gaining ground on the fringe of a more general return to religion in the Balkans. Several thousand Orthodox Christian Bulgarians demonstrated in Sofia recently demanding that religious instruction be made compulsory in schools - a demand supported by mainstream Muslim organizations. 
Muslim organizations are believed to have spent large amounts of money over the last decade to build some 150 new mosques and educational centers in predominantly Orthodox Bulgaria. A minority are believed to promote Wahhabism.

Friday, 8 October 2010

Bulgaria: Extremist imam arrested linked to Saudi extremist Al Waqf Al Islami Foundation

The ringleader of the alleged illegal Bulgarian branch of the extremist Al Waqf al Islami Foundaton is the Imam from the village of Sarnitsa, Saud Muutlu, according to the Prosecutor's Office in the southern city of Pazardzhik.
The Imam and people believed to be his accomplices have been closely followed and monitored in the last two years, including with special surveillance devices.
According to the Prosecutor, the Bulgarian radical Islam branch has been founded in Istanbul. The pre-trial proceedings against an unknown perpetrator date from the beginning of 2009.
The organization has a plan to convert Bulgaria to Islam and is financed from Saudi Arabia via Turkey while the funds are transferred through illegal channels.
Saud Muutlu has a circle of lecturers, each paid EUR 300 a month. The organization also has a program for girls' education and its lecturers are paid EUR 200 a month. The Foundation has cells in the southern city of Blagoevgrad, the second largest city of Plovdiv and the capital Sofia. Special people monitor the upbringing and education of Bulgarian Muslim children round-the-clock.
The name of the Foundation means Foundation for Assisting the Good Understanding of Islam.
According to its teaching every child is born a Muslim and then parents make if an infidel, a practice that must be halted.
The probe of the seized literature is ongoing, but the investigation says they have serious reasons to believe the organization is a threat to Bulgaria's national security.
The Al Waqf al Islami Foundation was established in the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands and it is believed to be financed by extremist Muslim circles from Saudi Arabia.
Its headquarters were closed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, when the Dutch authorities discovered ties between the Foundation and the perpetrators of the attacks.
Source.