TRAIN AND ARM THE BOSNIANS — BUT ENSURE THAT THE ISLAMIC ‘FOREIGN LEGION’ IS SENT PACKING!

Precis: Dangerous Islamic extremists have
filled an ominous vacuum in Bosnia arising from the
West’s refusal over the past four years to arm and train
the Bosnian government’s forces fighting aggression and
genocide. Whether the Dayton Deal is ultimately
implemented or not, the only chance for a durable peace
in the region is if the United States and other
like-minded nations provide early, tangible evidence of
their commitment to enable Bosnia to defend itself.
That commitment, however, will require and must be
accompanied by an end to the involvement of Iranian
and other Islamic “foreign legionnaires” in
Bosnia.

(Washington, D.C.): As the Congress moves toward
adoption of resolutions concerning President Clinton’s
decision to deploy U.S. forces to Bosnia, Senate Majority
Leader Robert Dole is properly seized with one of the
most serious shortcomings of the Dayton Deal: The
agreement’s failure to assure that the Bosnian government
will, at last, receive from the West the means to defend
its people.

Such defenses are clearly essential not only to
preventing renewed aggression from the Serbs and/or
Croats once NATO forces are withdrawn. It may be that
the exit strategy for such a withdrawal itself depends
upon redressing the Bosnian Muslims’ disadvantage in
military firepower that made the worst predations
against them possible.

The Bosnians Have Cause to be Concerned

The Dayton agreement invites suspicion that neither
the United States nor its allies actually intend to
provide heavy weapons to the Bosnian government. The
accord stipulates that no arms may be brought into Bosnia
until 90 days after the 14 December signing ceremony. And
no large-caliber artillery, tanks, armored personnel
carriers, etc. may be introduced until at least 180 days
have passed. By that time, the Dayton Deal says that arms
control arrangements are supposed to be in place —
arrangements intended to “build-down” the
Bosnian Serb and Croat arsenals.

In congressional testimony and public statements,
Clinton Administration spokesmen have signaled that they
intend to wait and see whether the arms control
undertakings will “balance the playing field”
in Bosnia without having to provide weapons to the
government forces. For example, Secretary of Defense
William Perry told the Senate Armed Services Committee
yesterday that he did not see how it would be possible to
arm and train the Muslims until an assessment of the
balance of power is complete and the results of the
build-down are known “some months from now.”
(The expectations for the build-down agreement should not
be very high, however, since Secretary Perry has said
that it will be modeled after the Conventional Forces in
Europe [CFE] Treaty — an agreement that the Russians
have just violated with impunity.) href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾

Worse yet, Administration officials have sent
conflicting signals as to whether the United States would
ever play a direct role in providing training and
weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. As Richard Perle — a
distinguished member of the Center’s Board of Advisors —
notes in the attached op.ed.
published in today’s New York Times: “Instead
of immediately beginning to arm and train the Bosnians so
that American forces can be honorably withdrawn in a
year, the Administration is blundering toward an
ill-defined, unworkable scheme to subcontract this job to
other countries.”

In short, the Dayton Deal appears to be a formula
for leaving the Bosnian government and its constituents permanently
vulnerable. After all, it is predictable that six-
months from now considerable opposition will be expressed
from various quarters to lifting the embargo. For
example, European nations will argue — as they have for
the past few years — that arming the government forces
would pose a risk to their own peacekeeping troops in
Bosnia. Some in Congress would also object, citing the
danger to American personnel in-country if the U.S. is
seen as favoring the Muslims. And the Serbs can be
counted upon to exacerbate these congressional concerns
by protesting loudly and perhaps by making threats of
retribution if such assistance goes forward.

The ‘Muj’ Connection

Of course, arguments like these have already done
great harm to Bosnia. Indeed, they have heretofore
precipitated policy paralysis in Washington and other
Western capitals with respect to lifting the arms
embargo. That paralysis has, in turn, led to two, related
and highly undesirable repercussions: First, the
resulting Serb superiority in firepower has devastated
Bosnia, enabling heinous acts of genocide and
“ethnic cleansing” and, for the most part,
precluding the more numerous government forces from
providing an effective defense of their population and
territory.

And second, in a desperate response, the Bosnian
government has allowed an odious force — what might be
called an “Islamic foreign legion” — to become
a source of weaponry and trained manpower. In Bosnia,
this foreign legion (or mujahedeen) includes Afghan
guerillas, Egyptian terrorists, Hamas and Islamic Jihad
fighters, in addition to Iranian special forces and
Revolutionary Guard operatives.

The Islamic extremists appear, with Croatian support,
to have taken full advantage of the Bosnians’ plight. By
so doing, they have managed to secure a beachhead on the
European continent from which to wage war — not only
against enemies of Islam in Bosnia but also against those
perceived to exist elsewhere in the West. The foreign
Islamic forces and local muhajedeen under their influence
have, to varying degrees, been assimilated into Bosnian
army units — likely raising the total number of these
extremists in Bosnia substantially above the 3,000-4,000
generally said to be operating there.

Such forces pose a grave threat to American troops
assigned to “peace-enforcement” duties in
Bosnia. Many of the Iranian-sponsored radical Islamic
organizations bitterly oppose the Dayton Deal. They also
are inclined to target the United States — the
“Great Satan” — for invective and violent
action. Worse yet, the bulk of the Islamic foreign legion
in-country is located in Tuzla and Zenica,
population centers in or very near the U.S.
“sector” of Bosnia. And an American civilian
employed by the United Nations in Tuzla and murdered on
18 November was believed to have been executed by the
mujahedeen.

Particularly worrisome is evidence that the
militant Islamic movement is seeking a more permanent
role in Bosnia. Reportedly, key Bosnian government
agencies — reportedly including the Interior Ministry —
have come under the sway of Iran and other elements of
the mujahedeen. Naturally, the presence of Islamic
radicals in the Bosnian security forces would greatly
exacerbate Sarajevan Serbs’ concerns about their safety
and civil liberties should their communities be returned
to government control, as called for in the Dayton
agreement.

What to Do?

Islamic extremists are hazardous to the health of
any U.S. forces that are deployed to Bosnia. They are
also a threat to a Bosnian government committed to a
multi-ethnic, democratic state and to constructive
relations between Muslims and others throughout Europe.
Since the U.S. failure to respond positively to earlier
government requests for military assistance have, in
part, created conditions that gave rise to this threat,
America bears a special responsibility not only for
providing such assistance but also for reversing the
menace posed by the presence of Iranian foreign
legionnaires in Bosnia. Toward this end, two initiatives
are in order:

First, the United States must immediately
demonstrate that it will be a reliable alternative
to the Islamic foreign legion. This will require
tangible evidence that the U.S. is prepared to help now,
not at some ever-receding point in the future. The place
to start is with training on arms that would make a
critical difference to the Bosnian defenses. Fortunately,
these are weapons like anti-tank systems (e.g., the TOW
anti-armor missile), counter-battery radars, anti-sniper
technologies, etc. — that is, non-heavy weapons
that can and should be made available 90 days after the
Paris signing ceremony. A similar, concrete plan for
providing U.S. training on and access to heavy weaponry
must also be spelled out.

Second, a verifiable basis must be established for
ensuring that the mujahedeen are disengaged and removed
from the Bosnian theater. Satisfactory answers to the
following sorts of questions are essential to ensuring
that the danger posed by Iranian and other mujahedeen
involvement in Bosnia is rolled back in time to protect
American forces and preserve the integrity of the Bosnian
government:

• To what extent does U.S. intelligence believe the
  Bosnian government has affirmatively allowed the
  introduction of radical Islamic elements in order
  to secure arms, training and combat personnel?
  What, if anything, was discussed on this score in
  the course of the Dayton negotiations?

• In the wake of the Dayton accords, has the
  Iranian government been approached by senior
  military and/or political leaders of the Bosnian
  government seeking assistance with training of
  the latter’s armed forces and security personnel?
  Or have Iranian officials initiated such
  discussions? If so, what has been the upshot —
  and the tangible results, if any, in terms of
  aid, training or materiel from Tehran? Has the
  Bosnian government sought aid from other militant
  Islamic groups (e.g., those in the Sudan,
  Afghanistan or the United States)?

• What Islamic institutions, if any, are currently
  playing a role in equipping and training the
  foreign and indigenous mujahedeen in Bosnia?

• Which nations, if any, are providing training
  facilities for personnel from Bosnia, other
  Balkan states or Islamic states outside the
  region?

• Did Iranian Foreign Minister Velayati visit
  Sarajevo and Zagreb within the past week? If so,
  did he — as reported in the Washington Times on
  1 December — propose the early conclusion of
  military cooperation agreements with Bosnia and
  Croatia? And, if that report is correct, what is
  the status of these negotiations — and what are
  their implications for the obligation under the
  Dayton agreement to remove foreign personnel from
  Bosnia?

• What specific actions does the Clinton
  Administration expect to take if Iranian and
  other Islamic mujahedeen fighters do not
  promptly depart Bosnia, as called for in the
  Dayton accord?

• Given the apparent large-scale nature of foreign
  Islamic involvement that has emerged in Bosnia
  over the past two years, would the expulsion of
  small numbers of mujahedeen operatives
  substantially alter the possible threat posed by
  the mujahedeen to U.S. forces?

• What role, if any, is Croatia playing in
  facilitating Iranian and foreign mujahedeen
  involvement in Bosnia? Does Iran have financial
  or any other leverage over Croatia which could
  make it difficult for Zagreb to fulfill the
  pledges it — and the other parties — made in
  Dayton to end such foreign involvement? What
  extradition procedures have been established with
  the Croatian government, if any, with regard to
  known mujahedeen terrorists wanted in Egypt and
  other nations?

The Bottom Line

Irrespective of whether one believes that the United
States should honor President Clinton’s reckless
commitment to put American troops in Bosnia, it is
clearly essential that the Bosnian government be able to
defend its people and territory from another wave of
aggression and genocide. U.S. policy toward this conflict
over the past four years has been doubly damnable insofar
as 1) Washington consistently failed to help the Muslims
in the face of assaults from Serbia and, to a lesser
extent, from Croatia (in 1993), and 2) in so doing, it
drove the victims into the arms of Iranian radicals and
their expeditionary forces.

Assuming Senator Dole is serious about correcting,
once and for all, the past, misbegotten U.S. policy on
arming the Bosnians, he must insist that the Bosnians
reciprocate by lopping off the tentacles of Islamic
extremism now threatening to strangle multi-ethnic,
democratic Bosnia. To do otherwise, would be to invite a
contemporary counterpart of an Iran-Contra scandal. In an
Iran-Bosnia scandal, however, Americans may lose
their lives — and vastly more.

(1) See the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled Where’s Sam Nunn When We Need
Him? Mutating Treaties Require — But Lack — Senate
Oversight (No. 95-D 93,
16 November 1995).