Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Sandzak region of southwestern Serbia it is considered cosmopolitan and tolerant. Sunni Muslims have lived here with Christians and Jews for centuries, creating their own form of European Islam. But since the 1990s, this Islam has repeatedly come under pressure from outside influences. An attack on a security guard at the Israeli embassy in Belgrade on June 29, 2024 is now sparking fears that a new wave of radicalization could break out.

Before the Bosnian war (1992-1995), there were no Salafists or Wahhabis in the Balkans, says Vedran Džić of the Austrian Institute for International Policy in Vienna. “They don’t have their roots in the Balkans.” To this day, radical groups are a small minority among Muslims.

Influence of radical groups during the Bosnian war

During the Bosnian war, Muslim Bosnians received significant military support, especially from Islamic countries, and foreign fighters also brought radical Islamic movements to the country, which did not disappear after the end of the war. They are the “foundation of political Islamism” in Bosnia-Herzegovina, writes Carsten Dummel in an analysis for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS). Dumel was the Foundation’s office manager in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, from 2014 to 2018.

About 4,000 mujahideen from Arab countries fought on the Bosnian side at the time, many of whom remained in the country after the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. Radical groups have established themselves in some parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sandzak since the late 1990s. of 1990 with open support from Saudi Arabia. Saudi money was used to build Salafist mosques and maintain cultural institutions.

During the war in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State served as a platform for young people who were socially disillusioned and went to fight for jihad in those two countries, according to Dzic. At the time, Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the European countries with the highest number of IS fighters per capita. These IS supporters actually came from some well-policed, so-called Salafist villages in Bosnia. After the end of IS in Syria and Iraq in 2019, this form of radicalization declined again. Since then there have been no further Islamist attacks in the Western Balkans.

Saudi withdrawal

But radical organizations continue to exist, even as Saudi Arabia has reduced its financial aid. According to media reports, the attacker in Belgrade, a Serbian convert, was radicalized in them. Most recently he lived in the predominantly Muslim town of Novi Pazar in the southern Serbian region of Sandzak. In January 2020, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that they would no longer support mosques abroad. In 2021, the country’s de facto ruler described the “ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam as outdated” in a televised address.

A pillar of extremism has been broken here. New factors play a role in this. The ongoing war in the Middle East could become a new driver of radicalization. “So far there has been little impact of the Gaza war in the Balkans,” says Giorgio Chafiero, a Balkan expert at US think tank Gulf State Analytics. “But the longer the situation in Gaza goes on, the more the risk of this increases.” The Gaza war contributes more to the radicalization of young Muslims than any other conflict worldwide. “In the Arab and Islamic world there is intense emotion in view of the many deaths in Gaza that must be mourned every day.” This could also lead young men into the arms of radical forces.

Radicalization through the Gaza war?

Political scientist Vedran Žižić also believes that current events in the Middle East are contributing to a new wave of radicalization, even if the number of these new radicals cannot be precisely determined. In the Western Balkans, the Gaza war is seen as a global campaign against Muslims. “The West mourns the dead children in Ukraine, but there is silence on Gaza”. This leads to bitterness, anti-Western resentment and also anti-Semitism.

Serbia’s policy is also seen as ambivalent. On the one hand, the country supports the concerns of the Palestinians internationally, but on the other, it supplies weapons to Israel from October 7, 2023.

Social injustice and discontent

The majority of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sandzak reject extremism as an abuse of their religion. The Islamic community has clearly distanced itself from the terrorist attack in Belgrade. But in addition to the Gaza war, social inequality and the unfulfilled promise of a better future after the end of the Bosnian war are also fertile ground for radicalization.

“The whole region experienced a huge social and economic decline in the 1990s,” says Vedran Žižić. “Hopes for a ‘catch-up process’ have not been fulfilled.” Only a small, new elite with proximity to the regimes benefited. The broad mass of Bosnians, on the other hand, struggle with marginalization, impoverishment and low living standards, close to the poverty line. There is a lot of dissatisfaction among young people about their situation. Tens of thousands leave the region every year.

“This situation leads to frustration and is fertile ground for extreme ideologies, not only Islamic, but also Serbian nationalism.” Muslims in Sanjak also see themselves as disadvantaged and discriminated against by Serbs. After the Belgrade attack, the risk of anti-Muslim sentiment in Serbia is growing. These, in turn, would further fuel the spiral of disillusionment and radicalization.