Is Islamist radicalization returning to the Western Balkans?

The Islam practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Sandzak region in southwestern Serbia is considered open-minded and tolerant. For centuries, Sunni Muslims have lived their own form of a European Islam here alongside Christians and Jews.

Since the 1990s, however, this Islam has come under repeated pressure from external influences.

A crossbow attack on a Serbian police officer guarding the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade on June 29 is now raising fears that a new wave of radicalization could be on the horizon.

How the Bosnian War changed Islam in the region

Before the Bosnian War (1992–1995), there were no Salafis or Wahhabis in the Balkans, says Vedran Dzihic of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs in Vienna. "Their roots are not in the Balkans," he said.

To this day, says Dzihic, the radical groups in the region are a small minority within the Muslim community.

During the Bosnian War, the Muslim Bosniaks received considerable military support from Islamic countries in particular.

About 4,000 mujahedeen from Arab countries fought on the Bosnian side. Many of them remained in the country after the signing of the Dayton accords in 1995. With the foreign fighters came radical forms of Islam that did not disappear when hostilities ceased.

These imported radical forms of Islam were the "foundation of political Islam" in Bosnia-Herzegovina, wrote Karsten Dümmel in an analysis for Germany's Christian Democrat-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS). Dümmel was head of the KAS office in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, from 2014 to 2018.

Saudi influence in the Western Balkans

Since the late 1990s, radical groups have emerged in some parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Sandzak region, some of which received open support from Saudi Arabia. Saudi money was used to build Salafi mosques and cultural centers.

During the wars in Syria and Iraq, the "Islamic State" group became a focus for young people who were frustrated with their social situation. Some of them then traveled to these countries to join the jihad, says Dzihic.

For a time, Bosnia-Herzegovina had one of the highest numbers of IS fighters per capita in Europe. Most of these IS sympathizers came from what became known as "Salafi villages" in Bosnia, which are now well monitored by the security forces.

After the collapse of IS in Syria and Iraq in 2019, this form of radicalization went into decline. There have been no Islamist attacks in the Western Balkans since.

Saudi Arabia cut back financial support

Even though Saudi Arabia has scaled back its financial support, radical organizations still exist. According to media reports, the assailant who attacked the officer guarding the Israeli Embassy was a Serb convert who was radicalized in one of these very organizations.

He recently lived in the predominantly Muslim city of Novi Pazar in the southern Serbian region of Sandzak.

In January 2020, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler of the kingdom, announced that the country would no longer support mosques abroad. A year later, he told the country during a television address that the "ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam was out of date."

Impact of the Israel-Hamas war

Although one pillar of extremism was thus removed, new factors now play a role. The ongoing war in the Middle East could become a new motor of radicalization.

"So far, the Gaza War has had little impact on the Balkans," says Giorgio Cafiero, Balkans expert at the US think tank Gulf State Analytics. "But the longer the situation in Gaza continues, the more this risk grows."

According to Cafiero, the war in Gaza is contributing more to the radicalization of young Muslims than any other conflict worldwide.

"In the Arab and Islamic world, there is a strong emotionalization in view of the many deaths every day in Gaza," said Cafiero, adding that this could drive young men into the arms of radical forces.

Bitterness, anti-Western sentiment and antisemitism

Political scientist Vedran Dzihic also thinks that current events in the Middle East are contributing to a new wave of radicalization, even if it is impossible to say exactly how many have been radicalized recently.

He says that people in the Western Balkans see the war in Gaza as a global campaign against Muslims. "The West laments the dead children in Ukraine but remains silent on Gaza." This, he says, leads to bitterness, anti-Western sentiment and antisemitism.

Serbia's foreign policy is also seen as ambivalent. On the one hand, the country has supported Palestinian causes at international level; on the other, it has been delivering weapons to Israel since October 7, 2023.

Social injustice and discontent

The majority of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Sandzak region reject extremist tendencies as an abuse of their religion. The Islamic community has distanced itself categorically from the terrorist attack in Belgrade.

But other factors such as social inequality and the broken promise of a better future after the end of the Bosnian War act like a breeding ground for radicalization.

"The entire region suffered a massive social and economic decline in the 1990s," says Vedran Dzihic. "Hopes of a 'catch-up process' were not fulfilled."

Dzihic goes on to say that only a small, new elite that is close to the regimes has benefited. The majority of Bosnians, he adds, struggle with marginalization, impoverishment and a standard of living that hovers just above the poverty line.

Dzihic says that young people are hugely unhappy about their situation, and that tens of thousands are leaving the region every year. "This situation leads to frustration and is a breeding ground for extreme ideologies, not only Islamic extremism, but also Serbian nationalism."

The situation of Muslims in Sandzak is exacerbated by the fact that they feel disadvantaged and discriminated against by Serbs, says Dzihic, adding that the threat of anti-Muslim sentiment in Serbia is rising in the wake of the attack in Belgrade, which in turn is leading to a spiral of frustration and radicalization.

This article was originally published in German.