Balkans: May 6, 2004

Archives

The US government has frozen the assets of three Bosnian based charities (Al Furqan, the Al- Haramain and Al Masjed Al-Aqsa Charitable Foundation, and Taibah International-Bosnia branch) and declared them supporters of al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has long used Islamic charities (soliciting money for poor Moslems) and diverted some, or all, of the contributions to support terrorist operations. During the Yugoslav civil war of the 1990s, Moslem countries sent money, weapons and volunteers to aid the Moslem Bosnians. Hundreds of these volunteers stayed behind, and dozens of these have been arrested for engaging in Islamic terrorism activities.