With minds focused on the number of Western European foreign fighters joining ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra in the wake of the Paris and Brussels terror attacks, violent jihadism in the Western Balkans has not received the same level of international attention.
Yet, as the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) recently established in the first regional research of its kind, the number of jihadists that have travelled to Syrian and Iraqi battlefields from key Balkan states is striking, given the relatively small population size of each country.
BIRN journalists found at least 877 nationals from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia have travelled to Syria and Iraq since 2012.
Kosovo and Bosnia, once destinations for foreign fighters during the bloody wars that marked the collapse of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, have now become significant “exporters” of jihadists joining the ranks of ISIS and al-Nusra.
The Kosovo government believes at least 300 Kosovars have fought with jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq since 2012, and around 70 are still fighting there.
At least 200 Bosnian men are believed to have fought with jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq since 2012. Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) estimates approximately 120 are currently fighting with ISIS or al-Nusra.
Around 207 Macedonians and 107 Albanians, including women and children, have travelled to the conflict zones during the same period.
In Serbia, the security services estimate around 50 nationals have travelled to Syria and Iraq since 2012, while their counterparts in Montenegro believe at least 13 Montenegrins have fought with ISIS or al-Nusra.
It should be noted that many consider these figures to be on the conservative side.
Returnee fighter threat
The number of Balkan nationals leaving to fight with jihadi groups has greatly declined since 2015 – partly as a result of new laws criminalizing, in most cases, fighting in foreign conflicts and partly due to greater public awareness of ISIS atrocities and the realities of life in ISIS-controlled territory.
However, security experts say the flow of nationals to Syria and Iraq has not been stemmed entirely. They also stress battle-hardened returnee fighters, skilled in using explosives and weapons, sometimes return more radicalized than before they left, posing an acute security threat.
Around 300 Balkan nationals are believed to have returned home so far, including 130 Kosovars, 70 Macedonians, and 50 Bosnians. Officials confirm returnees are under surveillance, but some note resources are stretched.
In Macedonia, officials told BIRN they are increasingly concerned about the diversion of resources to deal with the refugee crisis and heightened border security following the attacks on Paris in November and Brussels in March.
With less manpower, they caution capacity to identify and monitor returnees and “home-grown radicals” could be compromised.
Bosnian experts, including Amer Veiz, head of SIPA’s counter-terrorism unit, confirm some returnees “are still involved in the recruitment of people to go and fight [with ISIS].”
Despite this, almost all officials acknowledge intelligence-sharing between the highly-divided state’s 15 police services is so rare as to be almost non-existent.
Across the region, security experts are calling for the urgent implementation of comprehensive counter-extremism strategies – some of which have already been drawn up – to focus efforts on preventing radicalization and rehabilitating returnees.
However, countering radicalization in the Balkans has been complicated by the fact that many states are struggling with heightened ethnic tensions and the institutional collapse that followed the fall of both communism and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Hardline groups emerged post-communism
During the communist era, the official Islamic bodies responsible for appointing imams and regulating mosques in the Balkans were either closed down entirely – as was the case in Albania – or greatly scaled back. Following the break up of the former Yugoslavia, some former republics had to create new religious institutions from scratch.
During the 1990s, many institutions were ill-equipped to immediately assume oversight of religious affairs in states where people were suddenly free to openly practice religion again.
And they have drawn fierce criticism for being slow to react to extremism and apparently failing to tackle radicalization and recruitment by violent jihadi groups.
Intelligence sources in all Balkan states claim most jihadists were radicalized and recruited in unofficial “para-mosques” that sprang up as foreign groups came to the region after the collapse of communism and the 1990s wars. They espoused a far stricter and conservative interpretation of Islam than traditional to the Balkans.
Bringing “para-mosques” under official control has been a top priority in each state and much progress has been made, but Islamic bodies acknowledge they have struggled to establish control over all those that reject the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam they represent, which is widely regarded as highly tolerant and advocates co-existence with secular values.
In addition, many underline extremists have successfully targeted highly marginalized and socially-excluded groups across the region.
Skender Perteshi, researcher and project officer at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, says extremists have exploited disillusioned, unemployed, poorly-educated youths who have little religious instruction and many grievances.
He estimates 70 percent of Kosovars who fought in Syria and Iraq were youngsters from non-practicing Muslim families and cautions counter-extremism measures should include education, job creation, and helping young people “feel important and useful to their country”.
It is a sentiment echoed by Mirsad Kurgas, founder of the Montenegrin Islamic community relations NGO Number 19. “Living in a majority Orthodox Christian country, those young people have felt excluded and somehow betrayed by their own community… by going to Syria they found a new purpose in life. They felt useful there,” he says.
In Serbia, observers note widespread anti-Muslim sentiment – a legacy of Ottoman occupation and the 1990s wars between Serbs and Bosniaks – has given extremists room to exploit and radicalize disadvantaged Roma and Bosniak Muslim communities.
Some regional experts are concerned there are significant data gaps and that the true scale of radicalization – much of which now takes place online rather than in mosques - is unknown and likely underestimated.
Without solid data and more research, security experts fear they will not be able to set up effective counter-extremism and early-warning systems to identify those youngsters who remain particularly vulnerable to online radicalization via popular social networks.
Dr. Mimoza Xharo, an Albanian security expert who has worked with the intelligence community for more than 20 years, notes there was an uptick in sharing violent jihadist propaganda immediately after the Paris attacks.
She and most Balkan security experts say the risk of terror attacks in regional states is minimal but stress they cannot be ruled out.
As Xharo cautions, domestic and regional security is “threatened by… online supporters [of violent extremism] who tomorrow might act as lone wolves”.
