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Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad | 
| Author: John R. Schindler
Publisher: Zenith Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $11.75
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 404201
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0760330034
Dewey Decimal Number: 949.703
EAN: 9780760330036
ASIN: 0760330034
Publication Date: July 15, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Al-Qa’ida: in the 80s they were in Afghanistan, supported by America and fighting the Russians. In the new century they have metastasized throughout the world’s geopolitical body. Where were they in the 90s? Unholy Terror provides the answer, with all its terrifying implications for our world today.
This book provides the missing piece in the puzzle of al-Qa’ida’s transformation from an isolated fighting force into a lethal global threat: the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995. John R. Schindler reveals the unexamined role that radical Islam played in that terrible conflict--and the ill-considered contributions of American policy to al-Qa’ida’s growth. His book explores a truth long hidden from view: that, like Afghanistan in the 1980s, Bosnia in the 1990s became a training ground for the mujahidin. Unholy Terror at last exposes the shocking story of how bin Laden successfully exploited the Bosnian conflict for his own ends--and of how the U. S. Government gave substantial support to his unholy warriors, leading to blowback of epic proportions.
Book Description
This book reveals the role that radical Islam played in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s--and the ill-considered part that American policy in that war played in al-Qa’ida’s growth. Schindler explores a truth long hidden from view: that, like Afghanistan in the 1980s, Bosnia in the 1990s became a training ground for the mujahidin. Unholy Terror at last exposes the shocking story of how bin Laden successfully exploited the Bosnian conflict for his own ends--and of how the U. S. Government gave substantial support to his unholy warriors, leading to blowback of epic proportions.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 A critical and reasoned perspective supported by research August 2, 2008
John R. Schindler has a background in scholarship and has the analytical background to weigh the credibility of various sources. This is exceedingly valuable in a conflict where the sides depend on the outside intervention based on those claims. The initial Western media arrived in the conflicting polities without a historical or anthropological understanding of the situation and did not have the capacity (much less the inclination) to weigh the claims of the Croatian CIC or the Bosnian Ministry of Information.
The value of the book is more than simply tracing the ideological influences upon the Bosnian Muslims (including the Young Muslims) but also in describing the support networks set up by Jihadists and the propaganda efforts by the Muslims and Croatians. The credibility the Croatian CIC had among Western journalists and diplomats is demonstrated to have been misplaced. That has serious implications for the vast body of policy and scholarship built upon the journalism the believed the CIC.
The more obscure elements of the war (on the Muslim side) are described such as the Muslim "Larks" who sniped in Sarajevo. The organization and internal politics of the Bosnian Army is described as well. Sadly, as the book focuses on the Al-Qaida efforts in Bosnia, the actual conduct of the war (admittedly a difficult subject due to massive information) is only mentioned in passing save where the context in vital. Jihadists are demonstrated to have played a significant political role (the military value is debatable) both during and after the war.
The NATO political and military role after the war could have used more detail but that would have required even more depth and page length. The book is an excellent resource by one who has both academic and intelligence experience. Sadly, as is the habit of spooks who go into academic writing, the endnotes are only sometimes linked to publicly available sources and so need the author's commentary.
The author agrees with John E, Sray (former officer at Sarakevo G-2) regarding the lack of credibility of the Bosnian government and his claims agree with other sources. Schindler's claims gain credibility by being both logically coherent and matching up with well analyzed sources like peacekeepers on the ground instead of UN diplomats or other involved parties such as the US embassy.
The book is not a critique of the propaganda around the war but a work on the ideological shifts in the Bosnian Muslim society and government. As a research work, it is an excellent primary source. For a read on the full conduct of the war without the inadvertent bias and mistakes the creep into so much writing on the subject, it is one of the few accounts with detail on the matter but lacks a full narrative.
First Time Observation Turned Into an Expert Opinion July 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really love Amazon but one of its downfalls is the customer reviews of politically-based books. It's clear to me that a reader will give a thumbs up or down based as to whether or not they agreed with the author's partisan views. But this book is not that. In fact, I doubt if the author is even a hardline conservative or liberal himself, an irrelevant matter nevertheless.
When wanting to take a jab at understanding the former Yugoslavia, I went into it without knowing as much as the country's' names, I did not have an opinion, and only knew about the Yugoslav war from what the media had force-fed me. And while I do not believe that the media is full of only left-leaning conspirators, this book points out that during the Bosnian conflict, it was exactly that. I fear of sounding cliche, but it was unbelievable the facts brought forward in this book. The conflict in Bosnia was definitely the most unbalanced crisis ever covered in the media's modern day history. Truths are pointed out such as:
1) photos of starved Bosniaks really being Serbs, a correction for which has not been printed to this day. Schindler points out that for the media, dead and suffering Muslims make for a much better (and probably more profitable) story than dead Orthodox Christian Serbs
2) the SDA (Stranka Demokratske Akcije), Bosnia's ruling party was not nor ever cared about a multi-ethnic or multi-religous Bosnia. They openly professed a desire to have a Muslim-only state.
3) The media personnel covering the war, virtually all of whom stayed in the same hotel throughout the entire crisis, never ventured off outside of Sarajevo. It was there where just as great of atrocities towards non-Muslims took place - not 1 of which were ever covered in the western media, not 1!
4) The actual numbers of causalities, innocent civilians, rapes and other extreme hardships during the war. These numbers were all fabricated by the SDA which could not be verified until the end of the war. For example: 14,000 Muslim women raped actually turned into 26 when a post-war UN investigation was held.
And the list goes on and on. But why didn't we see this in our own media? Well Schindler points out that the "romantic view" of Sarajevo's multi-ethnic, multi-religious and "harmonious" city being destroyed by the Serb barbarians, which the western media was portraying, did not go well with the facts and what was actually happening. The romantic story of Sarajevo sold newspapers and gained coverage but had it been covered as just another war with a fair and balanced view, then that would just be boring.
I really enjoyed this book. Schindler cites all of his findings in detail and reading an eye opener such as this is rare. For anyone interested in the former Yugoslavia, this book is a must.
 Sad attempt! March 10, 2008
3 out of 13 found this review helpful
To see that this book is based on propaganda and is a sad attempt to make money based on twisting the truth, go to Bosnia to see for yourself. I was there for nine years as part of SFOR, the NATO led peacekeeping mission and it is safe to say this book is really way off.
Remarkable Book In All Aspects December 14, 2007
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Recently several books came out shedding a different light on the Bosnian War of 1992-1995. Most authors are people with mentality and the perception of reality based on the morality of the modern Western society. It looks like they don't have an axe to grind and the only reason urged them to write the books running counter to the mass media presentation, the official political course and the widespread academic interpretation of the Bosnian War was objectivity built on the whole of the facts, not just on a "convenient" part of them. As a Latin maxim says - Non Nova, Sed Nove. I chose the book "Unholy Terror" to read first because of the phrase the author mentioned in Introduction namely, "...spend time in muddy boots in war zone" - what he just did. The second reason was that he is a researcher who was trained to be a spy. This means that the author has acquired and developed the strong ability to gather, analyze, classify facts establishing logical connections between them and deduce the corresponding conclusions. The third reason was the long list of sources he used which penmen range from Bosnian Christians and Muslims to Western writers. So the thorough unbiased research was conducted. And the last reason was that it seems the author doesn't have any Bosnian family roots and thus he is a neutral observer.
To my eye the book is the very comprehensive research on the subject encompassing the period of time from the Ottoman Empire to the modern era. The material is presented in a consistent and intelligible as for experts so for laypersons way and accompanied by numerous quotations and references to the sources. The author doesn't arbitrary pick some facts from the conflict. He begins his account from the 14th century when in fact the conflict originated alternating active phases with dormant spans. (Being a teenager I visited the Tito's Yugoslavia of 1970th many times and already then I learnt that the tranquil and prosperous life is nested in a seething volcano.) As a result due to the rigorously logic chain of historical causes and consequences constructed by the author the entire picture of the clash of the civilizations and religions over centuries is more than convincing.
Why did I decide to review the book? Honestly speaking as I understand it now I have been indirectly and involuntarily involved in this matter from my birth, because my father was a Bosnian Serb. Being 16 years old he joined the Tito's army during the 2nd World War and took part in several great battles including the liberation of Belgrade. Later he went through many controversial events of that turbulent epoch.
Now I am already aware that in our hi-tech times it still matters very much who are or were your parents implying their religion, race and ethnicity. I was born and raised in Russia, received my education in Russia and France. The only one thing I have been devoted to all my life is mathematics. I hold a PhD in it. And I naively thought that in our civilized society people are, first of all, judged by their personal and professional qualities. But it was a schoolboy blunder. If in our modern world, we are so proud of, some nation is defamed and you have any relation to it be sure that in the overwhelming number of cases this will reflect on your destiny negatively disregarding your personal and professional attributes. Embrace yourself at least for discrimination or even worse for dirty tricks and hounding. Unfortunately the contemporary social and political machine of our society works just this way despite all official statements. In reality this is neither more nor less but the smoke-and-mirrors world where we try to defend the human rights of individuals and trample on the ones of the entire nation at the same time. Watching movies on TV soaked through with violence, murders and graphic scenes I often wonder whether America is still capable of having such basic feelings as compassion, pity and understanding for the tears of other peoples or just guided by mere calculation and some primordial instincts.
In a conclusion I would like to thank the author for his excellent book and audacious act.
If we knew then what we know now! November 16, 2007
18 out of 25 found this review helpful
The U.S. attacks a sovereign nation, whose leaders are not threatening them, in an effort to export democracy to yet another foreign nation and protect its people from genocide. No, we're not talking about Iraq! This time we go after the Serbs. Specifically, Serbs living in the former Yugoslavian republic of Bosnia referred to as 'Bosnian Serbs'. Surprisingly, there is no anti-war movement here in America. The 11 member NATO alliance lead by the U.S. mercilessly bombs the Bosnian Serbs into submission. Where are the war protesters that we hear so much of these days?
The time frame is the early to mid 90's. 9/11 has yet to assault our senses. Bill Clinton is president. Islamic Bosnia is hailed as a bastion of multiculturalism. Darlings of the western media mercilessly preyed upon by the evil ethnic-cleansing Serbs whose obvious motives of protecting their own in a country splintering itself from the Yugoslav Republic seems to go unnoticed. Did anyone question why the Serbs would've acted so heavy-handedly? Could there have been any provocation?
Schindler draws the picture thusly: Bosnian leader, Alija Izetbegovic, a man determined to bring an Islamic state into Balkan Bosnia, decides to secede from the Yugoslav Republic. He recruits Mujahidin fighters from Al-Qa'ida, fresh from the skirmish with the Russians in Afghanistan, and begins an ethnic cleansing of his own to drive out the infidel Serbs and create a 'pure Islamic culture'. We see the typical Muslim atrocities: executions, beheadings, munitions trafficking, corruption, using charitable organizations as fronts for financing the war. All the while, Izetbegovic maintains that he is fighting for a multi-cultural Bosnia. And just as the Serbs respond to these atrocities, here comes the western media. Just in time to get footage of the Serbs 'getting even'. The slaughter at Srebrenica, seen by many as proof of Serbia's culpability for war crimes, is presented as a 'set up'. Izetbegovic pulls his military protection from the city just as the Serbian response is anticipated. The Muslim citizens are set up for slaughter in order to justify a U.S. lead NATO response as promised by President Clinton.
Given the events that have transpired since then, Schindler's view is not hard to believe. In fact, it is difficult not to believe it these days with what we now know of Al-Qa'ida and their operations. Yes there will always be die-hard Clinton supporters who will continue to support the 'Bosnia-as-good-guys' view. But it is beginning to look more and more like we may have made a mistake in the Balkans. The Dayton accords, while partitioning Bosnia into Bosnian, Croat, and Serb zones, has given Izetbegovic what he wanted: An Islamic state. And Al-Qa'ida now has a base in the middle of Europe from which it can launch operations. I think you get the picture.
The author's material is well researched and not particularly anti-Muslim. Muslim citizens are often portrayed as much as victims as the Serbs in some cases. Islamic leaders often question and even oppose Izetbegovic's policies and his courting of Al-Qa'ida. He even occasionally debunks myth's about Muslim behavior at various points. All in all it is an interesting read though somewhat voluminous. Keeping track of the number of characters and organizations and such can be quite maddening. Still it is a worthwhile read: Four stars.
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