Bosnia and terrorism

WASHINGTON - The London bombings and the anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica, the Bosnian town where nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered, were two seemingly unrelated stories that occurred within five days of each other this month. Though separated by 10 years and 1,000 miles, the two are actually rather closely linked.

The war in Bosnia, particularly the arms embargo imposed on the Muslim population while the Serbs were massacring them, became the major turning point for the global Muslim consciousness. Even secular, nonpolitical Muslims were furious about what they perceived as Western indifference to the mass killings of their co-religionists. Muslims worldwide experienced a shared sense of great injustice.

Bosnia thus became the entry point into Europe of jihadist ideology and those willing to fight for it. Afghan mujahedeen, Iranian mercenaries and recruits from South Asia, Turkey, North Africa and the Middle East united behind their Muslim brothers in Bosnia. Although most of these men returned to their homelands, they are ticking time bombs. Ideologically, they were transformed by their wartime experience, and many began to believe that Britain and the United States are enemies of Islam.

Further, many learned military and guerrilla tactics and techniques that can be applied elsewhere against these enemies. Following a meeting in Istanbul in February 2002, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, is believed to have activated Europe-based sleeper cells formed during the war in Bosnia. Indeed, several of the terrorists who attacked the British consulate and the HSBC bank branch in Istanbul in November 2003 had fought in Bosnia.

It was only a matter of time before these men targeted the British homeland. Osama bin Laden, in a 2001 speech, blamed the Bosnian horrors on the British: "The British are the ones who put the arms embargo on the Muslims of Bosnia so that 2 million Muslims were killed."

What does this mean for policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic?

First, the British (and Europeans generally) should not blame the U.S.-led war in Iraq for attacks in Europe. Europe has its own soul-searching to do about its own activities, whether during the colonial period or during the 1990s Balkan wars.