An Opening for the The Islamic Jihad in Europe

G. Richard Jansen, Colorado State University

The Islamic Conquest and Islamization

Serbia including Kosovo was conquered by the Islamic Ottoman Turks in 1459, Bosnia and Herzegovina fell in 1465 and 1483 repectively. During this time Serbian Christians and Jews, as "people of the book", became dhimmis subject to the dhimma or protection offered to Christian and Jews in newly Islamized lands in exchange for their lives. Dhimmi status goes back to the 7th century when the Jews at the oasis of Khaybar in Arabia accepted the treaty offered to them by Muhammed. In exchange for their lives the Jews forfeited ownership of their lands were forced to defer to Muslims on the street, in business dealings and under the Shari'a law, and were forced to by heavy taxes to their

Muslim conquerers. This treaty of Khaybar became the model by which all Christian and Jews in newly conquered lands became subject to a condition referred to by the scholar Bat Ye'or as dhimmitude, a contraction of the two word dhimmitude and servitude. Christians and Jews in lands under Islamic rule remained in the status of dhimmitude until the emancipation ordered by the Ottoman Sultan in the middle of the 19th century.under pressure from the European powers. In reality the oppression of the Christians and the Jews in the Balkans moderated in 1912 after the first Balkan war.

World War II

Albania was occupied by Italian forces in April 1939. Greece was attacked by Italy in November 1940, but a bloody stalemate resulted that ultimately required German assistance. Rumania joined the Axis in November 1940 and Bulgaria in March 1941. The Yugoslav government was coerced into also joining the Tripartite Pact (Germany, Italy and Japan) on March 25, 1941 followed two days later by an anti-axis coup which Hitler did not later forget. Germany invaded Yugoslavia April 6, and by April 17 formal resistance by the Yugoslav army had collapsed. Croatia, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, became a Fascist state allied with Germany and which killed and persecuted thousands of Serbs. Slovenia was annexed to Italy and Montenegro was occupied by Italian forces. Serbia, Macedonia and Greece were occupied by Germany. The Yugoslav and Greek campaigns required 27 German divisions. Most of Kosovo was occupied by Albania except for the important mining region which remained under German control. Resistance to German occupation was fierce and took place primarily under the Loyalist Chetnicks under the command of General Mihailovic and the Partisans under the command of the head of the Communist Party Josip Broz, a Croat, later known as Marshall Tito. In 1943 the British Government withdrew support from Mihailovic and threw all it's support in increasing amounts to Tito and the communists. This enabled Tito to fight both the Germans and Mihailovic and the Loyalists thus consolidating post-war communist rule over Yugoslavia. The Serbian guerilla resistance required, at it's peak, 700,000 German soldiers for it to be controlled by Germany.. In Kosovo, under Albanian and German rule nearly 100,000 Albanians moved into Kosovo. Serbs were harassed and attacked by the occupying force of Albanians.

Islamic Jihad in the Balkans

It is unfortunate that the situation in the Balkans has apparently not been considered by the Bush Administration to be part of the war on terror, i.e. the global Islamic jihad. Rather it is held apart as a separate diplomatic issue to be resolved by diplomacy. Historically, the Balkans has always been understood to be a "tinder box" of religious and political tensions since at least the 1878 Congress of Berlin. The Balkans is an area of southeastern Europe where Islam had made its greatest advances against Christendom and where both Catholic and Orthodox Christianity came in diect contact and conflict with Islam. It is where Chritian boys were taken away from their parents and made into the Jannissaries,i.e. Islamic warriors for the Ottoman Empire. Alija Izetbegovic, the President of Bosnia-Herzegovian called for independence for Bosnia- Herzegovina in 1992 leading to the Bosnia war. In 1970 in his Islamic Declaration he had written this:

“The exhaustive definition of the Islamic Order is: the unity of religion and law, education and force, ideals and interests, spiritual society and State. The Muslim does not exist at all as an independent individual…There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith and institutions. The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough not only to destroy the non-Islamic power but to build up the Islamic one." It is clear that Europe and the United States blithely ignored clear evidence of what was likely to happen in Bosnia.

Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History