RADICAL ISLAM IN MONTENEGRO

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PODGORICA 000171

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TAGS: PGOV PREL KISL MW
SUBJECT: RADICAL ISLAM IN MONTENEGRO

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1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Over the last decade, fundamentalist Islam,
known here as Wahhabism, has established a small foothold among
Montenegro's 110,000 Muslims. There are probably a few hundred
adherents in country, concentrated in majority-Muslim towns of
Plav and Rozaje, close to Kosovo and Albania. The so-called
Wahhabis, who have links with Bosnia and Serbia (and similar
groups in some Western European cities),initially challenged
mainstream Muslim authorities in several towns and villages.
After a perceived crackdown on extremists in Serbia's Sandzak in
2007, however, they appear to have adopted a lower profile.
While continued economic deprivation in northern Montenegro,
where most Muslims live, could radicalize some young Muslims in
the longer term, Montenegro's centuries-old tradition of
moderate Islam and healthy inter-ethnic relations provide a
bulwark against the spread of Wahhabism. In fact, Embassy
personnel have repeatedly experienced abundant outpourings of
warmth toward the United States among the local Muslim (Slav and
Albanian) population. END SUMMARY.



Muslims in Montenegro

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2. (U) Montenegro's 110,000 Muslims (almost 18 percent of the
total population, according to the 2003 census) are divided into
three groups: Bosniaks (8 percent of Montenegro's population),
"Muslims" (5 percent),and Albanians (5 percent; note that some
Albanian-Montenegrins are Catholics). Bosniaks and "Muslims"
are Slavs whose ancestors converted to Islam under Ottoman
Turkish rule. Yugoslavia used the term "Muslim" after 1971 to
describe the ethnicity of its Slavic Muslim population.
Following Bosnia's lead in the 1990s, some Montenegrin Muslims
have advocated that Slavic Muslims call themselves "Bosniaks."
Both "Bosniak" and "Muslim" ethnicities are recognized in
Montenegro's Constitution.




3. (U) Almost three-quarters of Montenegro's Bosniaks/Muslims
live in the country's northern municipalities, where they
constitute majorities in Rozaje and Plav (the latter also has a
large Albanian Muslim population) and significant minorities in
Bijelo Polje, Berane, and Pljevlja. Albanian Muslims also are
concentrated in Ulcinj, the Tuzi district of Podgorica, and in
Bar (which also has a sizeable Bosniak/Muslim population).
Virtually all Montenegrin Muslims are Sunnis. Forty years of
Yugoslav socialist rule secularized many Muslims, and the
Ottoman-Turkish religious legacy and Balkan intermingling has
meant that the vast majority of observant Muslims (Slavic and
Albanian) practice a moderate, tolerant version of Islam.



The Arrival of "Wahhabism" in Montenegro

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4. (SBU) Fundamentalist Islam, commonly called "Wahhabism" in
the Balkans, spread in the 1990s from Bosnia to the Muslim
Sandzak area, which straddles the Serbia-Montenegro border. It
also appeared in Kosovo and Albania. Reis Rifat Fejzic, head of
Montenegro's Islamic Community, told us he first noticed the
phenomenon in Montenegro in 1999-2000, when a few Montenegrins
who had visited and/or studied in Sarajevo and in Arab states
began practicing and promulgating an austere, "Arab" brand of
Islam.




5. (SBU) Tufik Softic, a Berane journalist, told us he
interviewed several of the first Montenegrin Islamic
fundamentalists in Plav in 2003. While they did not call
themselves Wahhabis (they said they practiced "original Islam"),
their dress, behavior, and interpretation of the Koran were
consistent with the strict Islam practiced in some Arab
countries. Their leader was Sead Jasavic, a local student of
Islamic law in Saudi Arabia who frequently visited Plav, where
he recruited followers. Softic said Jasavic and other Wahhabis
quickly gained adherents, in part because Montenegro's "poorly
educated" mainstream imams were at a disadvantage against
aggressive and self-assured newcomers claiming to practice "true
Islam."

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6. (SBU) Between 2003 and 2007, there were several incidents in
northern municipalities in which Wahhabis accosted imams for
what they deemed to be incorrect interpretations of the Koran,
and even tried to take over mosques. Softic said that Jasavic
and his followers attempted to take control of the Islamic
Community branch in Plav in 2003, but were outvoted. For a
time, Softic said, the Plav Islamic Community physically guarded
the town's mosques to prevent their occupation. Softic also
told us that an imam in Lozna, a village outside of Bijelo
Polje, was attacked by Wahhabis in 2005. In an interview with
another journalist, the imam said a group of 20 Wahhabis began
to frequent his mosque and harass him and other worshipers.
(Note: We understand that the imam retained control of the
Lozna mosque.)



The Wahhabis: Who and How Many?

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7. (SBU) In mid-2007, the Montenegrin Agency for National
Security (ANB) stated there were more than 100 "registered
Islamic extremists" in country. Our Muslim contacts usually
cite numbers ranging from 100 - 200 - the Reis Fejzic told us
150-200, for example - and occasionally more. Zeljko Madzgalj,
a Bijelo Polje journalist, estimated that there were
approximately 300 Wahhabis in Plav, 200 in Rozaje, 50 in Bijelo
Polje, and smaller numbers in Berane, Ulcinj, and other
municipalities, including Podgorica. (Note: All interlocutors
agreed that the number of Montenegrin Albanian Wahhabis is very
small.)




8. (SBU) Several contacts personally knew Wahhabis. Avdul
Kurpejovic, head of the Matica Muslimaska NGO, said his nephew,
who lived in Rozaje, became a Wahhabi in 2003 or 2004. His
conversion mystified the family, since he had not studied abroad
and had not previously been religious. Kurpejovic said the
young man kept to himself, worshipping regularly with fellow
believers in a section of a mosque in Rozaje. Rifat Veskovic,
head of the Democratic Union of Muslims and Bosniaks in
Montenegro, also told us that "about 30" acquaintances from
Bijelo Polje had become Wahhabis. Virtually all now lived in
other places, such as Rozaje, Novi Pazar, and Switzerland.




9. (SBU) Several interlocutors claimed that Wahhabis tended to
recruit poorly educated, previously non-religious villagers from
Muslim-majority areas. However, others said they knew
Montenegrins who had become Wahhabis while studying or working
in Western Europe. Very few contacts knew of Muslims who had
studied in Middle Eastern countries (with the exception of
Turkey). Sead Sadikovic, a Bijelo Polje journalist, told us
"not more than 30-50" Montenegrins had studied in Arab countries
such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.



Networks and Funding

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10. (SBU) The Wahhabis do not appear to be centrally organized,
although our interlocutors agree that the communities are in
regular contact. Several sources noted the Wahhabis seemed well
funded (one rumor is that they are paid for recruiting new
adherents),and speculated that the money came from Islamic
humanitarian organizations (the ANB also has said publicly that
it believes some funding comes from such organizations). The
Reis, Softic, and others mentioned connections with Muslim
communities in Luxembourg and Vienna. A number of sources have
alleged a link between Montenegro and a radical Vienna-based
imam named "Ebu Muhammed" (aka Nedzad Balkan); other press
accounts have mentioned links to the "Active Islamic Youth
Organization" in Sarajevo and Vienna.




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11. (SBU) Ties to Bosnia and Serbia are better documented.
Softic said between from 2003-2006, Jasavic held annual Islamic
youth camps and at least one paramilitary exercise in the Plav
area for Wahhabis from Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia.
According to Softic, a Serbian Muslim killed by Serbian
authorities during the 2007 round-up of radical Islamists in
Novi Pazar had attended one of Jasavic's camps. Madzgalj also
told us that there were rumors that several Serbian Wahhabis had
found refuge in Plav and Rozaje after the crackdown.




12. (SBU) Veskovic mentioned that a group of Montenegrin
Wahhabis had moved to a Slavic Muslim village near Pec in Kosovo
(likely Vitomirica),but after conflicts with the Kosovar
authorities had either returned to Montenegro or gone to Bosnia
or Western Europe. An April article in a Belgrade newspaper
speculated that Semir Kojic, the leader of the Wahhabi community
in Vitomirica, had moved to Montenegro. In August 2008, "Dan"
reported that ten Wahhabis from Plav and Rozaje attended a
regional Wahhabi meeting in a village near Bosanska Krupa in
Bosnia.



Islamic Community and Wahhabis: An Uneasy Truce?

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13. (SBU) Despite clashes between Islamic Community members and
Wahhabis before 2007, several contacts charged that mainstream
Muslim authorities had been reluctant to confront the
fundamentalists. Softic said he came under pressure from the
Islamic Community not to publish his original articles, for
example. Another source suggested that the arrival of younger
imams trained in Arab countries (or in Sarajevo by teachers from
Arab countries) had made Montenegrin Muslims more receptive to
fundamentalist views.




14. (SBU) The Reis, however, said he publicly called on the
Islamic Community to distance itself from the radicals (after
the 2007 Novi Pazar incident, the Reis was quoted as saying that
those involved were "people who do not understand Islam as a
religion"). The Reis conceded that "some imams might sympathize
with Wahhabis," but said he had no proof of this. He also said
about 20 of the Community's imams had studied abroad, primarily
in Bosnia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. The Reis also noted that
the Community had recently opened a religious school (madrasa)
in Tuzi in part to counter the teachings of Islamic
fundamentalists.




15. (SBU) Developments in Plav may be illustrative of the
complicated relationship between the Community and the Wahhabis.
According to Softic, after failing to take over the Plav
Islamic Community and following completion of his Saudi studies,
Jesavic actually preached for about a year at Plav's
reconstructed Sultanija Mosque (rebuilt with funds from unnamed
donors). However, in mid-2007, the Plav Islamic Community
declined to renew his contract, reportedly because of his
Wahhabi beliefs. In 2008, Jasavic and his followers built their
own mosque in the village of Krusevo (near Gusinje),which has
become the main Wahhabi center in the Plav area. (Softic also
mentioned that another group of Wahhabis had recently settled in
the village of Petnjica, near Berane.)




16. (SBU) We also note the case of Ferid Orahovic, formerly imam
of the Osmanagica Mosque in Podgorica. The press has reported
that Orahovic, who graduated from Al-Azhar University in Cairo,
has "Wahhabi sympathies." In January 2008, Orahovic joined
several other imams in accusing Reis Fejzic of illegally
extending his mandate (the Reis's term now expires this year,
and elections will be held this summer). In April 2009,
Montenegrin police filed charges against Orahovic for allegedly
threatening to "kill and burn" the Reis, whom he accused of
"being elected in violation of the religious rules" (Orahovic
denied making the threat).




17. (SBU) Earlier this month, the Reis closed the Osmanagica

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Mosque, leading to protests by 40-50 believers. The mosque was
subsequently reopened, but with a new imam, and the press
reported that the Reis had offered Orahovic a position teaching
at the madrasa. On June 14, the daily paper "Vijesti" quoted a
member of the mosque saying that Fejzic "managed to make our
former imam (Orahovic),who taught us the true religion rather
than innovation, bow to his will." (Note: A high-ranking
Islamic Community official told us recently that Orahovic
"almost became a Wahhabi but is now back on the path to becoming
a good Muslim.")



Wahhabism's Limited Appeal

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18. (SBU) Most of our contacts at present are not overly alarmed
by phenomenon of radical Islam. For one thing, despite earlier
clashes (and possible links to overseas radicals in Vienna and
other places),few could cite specific threats from Wahhabis
toward other Montenegrins (including Muslims),the Montenegrin
authorities, or Americans/Europeans in country. In addition,
most of our contacts professed to be unfamiliar with both the
word and the practice of "takfir."




19. (SBU) Our interlocutors also believe that the rate of
Wahhabi expansion and influence has slowed over the past two
years. In particular, the 2007 Novi Pazar incident appears to
have been a watershed, whether because the Montenegrin (and
other regional) authorities cracked down, because the Islamic
Community began to more openly confront the Wahhabis, or because
the Wahhabis themselves began to take a less confrontational
tact. (To illustrate his assertion that the Wahhabis have
retrenched, Softic noted that Jasavic has not held his annual
youth camps since the Novi Pazar arrests in 2007. He also
related how he had been surprised to see Jasavic taunted by a
group of young spectators at a football match in Plav in early
June - "this would never have happened a few years ago," he
said.)




20. (SBU) Furthermore, Montenegro's centuries-old tradition of
moderate Islam tends to make most of its Muslims wary of radical
beliefs. Montenegrins of all faiths also are intermingled in a
way that is not the case in Serbian Sandzak (the exceptions
being majority Muslim areas of Rozaje and Plav, of course). In
addition, Montenegro has not hosted significant numbers of Arab
nationals or organizations, and Montenegrin Muslims have by and
large not been radicalized by the conflicts experienced by
fellow believers in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia. In fact,
relations between the Muslim community and the Montenegrin
authorities have, since the mid-1990s split from Milosevic, been
quite good, with Muslims (Slavs and Albanians) being a key
pillar of support for the GoM. These factors act as significant
bulwarks against the spread of fundamentalist Islam here.




21. A good example occurred in late June in Bar at the
re-opening of a mosque attended by the Ambassador. Virtually
all of the speakers praised the United States (the benefactor of
the mosque restoration was a naturalized American from Bar) and
harmonious interethnic relations in Bar. In fact, the
organizers had invited representatives of the Orthodox and
Catholic churches, as well as the (ethnically Montenegrin) Mayor
to play leading roles in the celebration. After the ceremony,
participants - including representatives of the Montenegrin
Muslim diaspora living in the U.S. -- showered the Ambassador
with outpourings of good will and friendship. "America is great
again," a prominent community leader wrote us afterwards.
MOORE