http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/06/2008630165413168566.html
By Alan Fisher in Tuzla, Bosnia

Drive three hours north from Sarajevo, through the sweeping hills and valleys of central Bosnia and you arrive in the city of Tuzla.

It is a pretty enough place with its elegantly dressed people and numerous cafes, but this place could be about to undergo a remarkable transformation.

The talk here is about oil. Not just the prices which are affecting everyone but supplies, deep underground. It is nothing new. They have been talking about it since the 19th century, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

On the edge of the city, where the cornfields lie, it is easy to find traces of the exploration carried out here before the second world war. Twenty bore holes were drilled into the ground to find out what lies beneath. And now the oil bubbles to the surface on its own, leaking out of the holes, scarring the surface nearby.

‘Transform our economy’

Professor Hazim Hrvatovic is Bosnia’s most senior geologist. He has looked at the results from the drilling in the thirties and at the surveys carried out by a British firm in the 1980s.

“From all we’ve read and all we’ve seen there may be around 400 million barrels of oil here. It will take money to extract and develop which is why we need a partner to help us.

“But there is enough oil here to supply our demands for the next twenty years and maybe more. This could transform our economy,” he says.

The area needs so much though - roads and other transport links to move the oil, somewhere to process it and somewhere to store it. With oil hitting $130 a barrel, it is suddenly financially viable to do all of this.

But drilling for oil is a risky business. No one wants to spend the millions of dollars it takes to drill just one hole only to come up dry. Bosnia needs outside help.

Reaping rewards

Ibrahim Bosto is a senior figure with Bosnia’s main energy company Energoinvest, which is 67 per cent owned by the government. In his office, we look over geological maps of the area. There are four places around the country which have been identified as of potential interest.

“The only solution at the moment is to find a strategic partner, who is ready to invest in this works, to co-operate with us and to reap the rewards of what may be there,” Bosto says.

In Tuzla, the idea of transforming this place into the oil capital of the Balkans excites the locals.

In an area of high unemployment, they see the benefits. Stop anyone on the street and they know about the stories of oil.

One woman tells me: “Oil could be the sign of wealth and development growth for our whole society, and maybe it’s a big chance for employment for the young people because at the moment they don’t have jobs.”

The government has watched the oil price rise steadily. And now it knows the country could be on the verge of a bonanza.

Vahid Heco, the country’s trade minister, is optimistic.

“The potential in raw oil and natural gas that exists here would transform the whole economic situation in Bosnia and I assume we would become a centre for energy development in south east Europe,” he said.

But for the moment, all there is is oil bubbling slowly to the surface. So the people must wait to see if the experts are right and deep underground, there lies enough oil to transform this country and its struggling economy.
 

27 June 2008 | 10:14 | Source: Beta
 
BELGRADE — The Kosovo economy is only sustainable as an integral part of Serbia’s economy, claims the head of the economic team for Kosovo Nenad Popović.

At a promotion of his book, “Openly on Kosovo and Metohija’s Economy”, Popović said that research showed that Kosovo’s economy had only progressed while it had been integrated with that of Serbia.

“Serbia needs to continue to invest in Serb communities in Kosovo, and thus defend its territory economically,” Popović said, adding that during the 1980s, 250,000 people had been in work, while now more than 60 percent of Kosovo’s population was unemployed.

According to him, UNMIK had made a mistake by turning Kosovo into an “independent economic island”.

The book, among other things, talks about Kosovo’s potential, including large lignite ore deposits, and the possibilities for development in the fields of agriculture and energy.

The book goes in depth to describe the key parts of the long-term economic strategy for the rejuvenation of the Serb community in Kosovo, including the possibility of turning Šar Mountain and Prokletije into huge tourist centers.

Popović wrote his book using information from 400 bibliographic sources and his experiences and meetings with businessmen in Kosovo during his numerous visits to the province. 

26 June 2008 | 12:30 | Source: Beta 

BANJA LUKA — Bosnian Deputy Anti-Terrorism Security Minister Vjekoslav Vuković says there probably are organizations operating in the country linked to Al-Qaeda.

“We have obtained certain information and indicators that some of these organizations are active in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but under different names. Individuals who worked in outlawed organizations are now running others, which suggests that they are still active in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Vuković told Banja Luka daily Nezavisne Novine.

He said that security and police agencies in Bosnia-Herzegovina had information about organizations and individuals listed by the UN as accomplices to terrorism, and certain measures were being taken accordingly.

The UN periodically publishes a list of organizations and individuals that are either members of or are linked to Al-Qaeda.

The list was revised a few months ago and now features groups such as Al-Furkhan, the Al-Harmain and the Al-Masjed Al-Aksa humanitarian foundations, Bosnian Ideal Future, the Global Relief Foundation, and Taibah International’s Bosnian office.

According to the UN’s information, all these organizations have offices in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“We know that the UN list features several humanitarian organizations that were registered in Bosnia earlier. However, they have been outlawed, and are not active under those names in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” says Dragan Lukač, assistant director of the State Agency for Investigation and Protection (SIPA).

He does not rule out the possibility, however, that these organizations have remodeled themselves, or are registered under new names.

“We cannot fully rule out the possibility that they have transformed into different organizations, or registered themselves under different names, though SIPA has no such knowledge of this,” Lukač stresses. 
 

NEW YORK TIMES (USA)

Cover-Up Is Cited on Illegal Arms

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON - A military attaché has told Congressional investigators that the American ambassador to Albania endorsed a plan by that country’s defense minister to remove evidence of illegal Chinese origins on ammunition being shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a Miami Beach arms-dealing company.

The approval came in a late-night meeting between the ambassador, John L. Withers II, the Albanian defense minister, Fatmir Mediu, and their top aides just hours before a reporter for The New York Times was scheduled to visit the American contractor’s operations in Tirana, the Albanian capital, last November. The American military bought the ammunition to supply Afghan security forces, but American law prohibits trading in Chinese arms.

The attaché, Maj. Larry D. Harrison II of the Army, attended the meeting and told investigators for a House committee that Mr. Mediu voiced concerns thatthe reporter would reveal accusations of corruption against him. The minister said that because he had gone out of the his way to help the United States, “the U.S. owed him something,” according to Major Harrison.

When Mr. Mediu ordered the commanding general of Albania’s armed forces to remove all boxes of Chinese ammunition from a site the reporter was to visit, Major Harrison said “the Ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing,” according to excerpts of a transcript of the interview investigators conducted with the attaché on June 9, and made public Monday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

At the time of the meeting, the company, AEY Inc., was under investigation for illegal arms trafficking involving Chinese ammunition. On Friday, the 22-year-old president of the company, Efraim E. Diveroli, and three other
people were charged with selling prohibited Chinese ammunition to the Pentagon.

Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting. Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping train and equip Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat, said on Monday that there also appeared to be evidence that embassy officials in
Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into AEY.

A spokesman at the United States Embassy in Tirana referred all questions to Washington. A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, told reporters Monday that the department was reviewing Mr. Waxman’s letter, including Major Harrison’s statements.

“We have no information that would support the idea that U.S. officials were involved in some kind of illicit activity,” Mr. Casey said. “But obviously, again, any allegations made, certainly any questions raised by the chairman,
of a major committee in Congress, is something that we will be happy to look into.” Mr. Casey said.

According to e-mails obtained by congressional investigators, Major Harrison urged embassy officials to inform the committee of the November 19 meeting between the ambassador and minister, but the embassy omitted any reference to the meeting in its official response to the committee’s questions.

Embassy personnel seemed sensitive to the Albanians’ alarm. The day afterthe November meeting, the embassy’s regional security officer, Patrick Leonard, wrote an assistant an e-mail obtained by the committee: “NY Times
just arrived today and might be doing a story on this and it might get ugly. Ambassador is very concerned about the case.”

When The Times published its article on March 27, 2008, it was quickly forwarded to embassy officials. In an e-mail to several embassy officials, Mr. Leonard said that the article focused on the dealings of AEY. “No
mention of Embassy involvement - thank God!” In his letter to Secretary Rice, Mr. Waxman said Major Harrison’s statements combined with the e-mail correspondence among embassy officials “raises questions about both the State Department’s role in the shipment of illegal Chinese ammunition and the candor or the Department’s response to the Committee.”
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/washington/24arms-subtk.html?hp

———————————————————————-
Dealer Accused of Selling Banned Munitions to Army
By ERIC SCHMITT NY Times

The 22-year-old president of a Miami Beach arms-dealing company and three other people were charged Friday with selling prohibited Chinese ammunition to the Pentagon to supply Afghan security forces, federal officials said.

A federal grand jury in Miami indicted the munitions dealer, Efraim E. Diveroli, president of AEY Inc., as well as two former employees and a business associate, on charges of fraud and conspiring to misrepresent the
types of ammunition they sold to the Defense Department as part of a $298 million Army contract.

According to the indictment, Mr. Diveroli, his colleagues and the company sought “to unjustly enrich themselves” by shipping aged Chinese rifle cartridges to Afghanistan after claiming they were made in Albania. The Army contract and American law prohibit trading in Chinese arms.

A lawyer for Mr. Diveroli in Miami, Howard Srebnick, disputed the accusations in an e-mail message, saying that the American ban applies only to Chinese arms bought after 1989, in response to the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, and that AEY bought ammunition from Albania that was manufactured in China in the 1960s and 1970s.

The charges cap a federal criminal investigation that began last year into the dealings of the fledgling company and its group of 20-something executives. The American military relied on them to be a principal supplier of ammunition to the Afghan security forces.

In March, the Army suspended Mr. Diveroli and the company from future federal contracts, contending that he sent a different shipment of Chinese cartridges to Afghanistan after certifying that they were made in Hungary. A month later, the State Department suspended the company’s international export activities, blocking its other business.
More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/washington/21arms.html?ref=asia

http://www.isaintel.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=162&Itemid=1

ISA Consulting    

Four terror suspects are released due to lack of evidence, but police and intelligence sources tell ISN Security Watch that the case is by no means closed, ISA Executive Director Anes Alic and 60 Minutes’ Damir Kaletovic write for ISN Security Watch.

Four Bosnian Muslims arrested in Sarajevo in March have been released from custody after prosecutors failed to win a terrorism indictment against them due to lack of evidence, despite the fact that explosives and other military equipment were found the possession of the suspects.

While Federation police and Bosnian State Intelligence Agency (OSA) sources warn of the public security danger in releasing the suspects, the Prosecutor’s Office has offered little in the way of explanation, saying only that aside from the explosives and military equipment found in their possession, there was no evidence that they were planning a terrorist attack.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Federation Anti-Terror Unit on 20 March arrested five men: Rijad Rustempasic, Muhamed Meco, Abdulah Handzic and Edis Velic, all in their early thirties and from Sarajevo. (The fifth, Muhamed Ficer, Rustempasic’s brother-in-law, was released a couple of days later.

The four arrested were members of the local Wahhabi movement - a Saudi-based and financed order following a strict interpretation of Islam. Some of the suspects were already well known to the police for their radical activities. The group had been under surveillance for several months by the Federation Anti-Terror Unit.

In a house rented by Rustempasic, police seized anti-tank mines, laser sights, electronic equipment, topographic maps and bomb-making manuals. Several days later, police arrested another suspect with connections to the group. After cooperating with police, that suspect was released. Shortly afterward, Federation police raided two abandoned summer cottages in Barice, just outside Sarajevo, finding more explosives and munitions.

The group came under closer scrutiny by Federation police and the OSA after an intercepted telephone conversation between Rustempasic and another arrested member of the group. “Christmas passed and we didn’t do anything,” one of the group’s members was heard telling Rustempasic late on 25 December 2007, alerting the authorities.

Federation police had reason to believe that the next opportunity to attack would be the next Catholic holiday, Easter. Analyzing intercepted communiqués, police concluded that the potential targets were Sarajevo’s central cathedral and the Franciscan monastery in the central Bosnian city of Fojnica.

Aside from Catholic institutions, police also have reason to believe that the group was planning to sabotage power stations and launch attacks against the European Forces’ (EUFOR) Liaison and Observation Team (LOT). EUFOR has 45 LOTs stationed across the country.

According to a source from Federation police, which is running the investigation, the alleged leader of the group is Rustempasic, who was born and raised in Bugojno but moved to Sarajevo four years ago, and has a thick police file. In the past decade, his name has appeared in connection with several investigations related to terrorism and radical Islam, the source told ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity.

The police source also said that Rustempasic was one of the most notorious and violent Bosnian radical Muslims they had investigated so far, and that he had managed to evade prison thanks to the tolerance of the local authorities in Bugojno.

Federation police suspect that Rustempasic was responsible for mining the tower of the Catholic church in the village of Humci, near Bugojno, in July 1996. No suspects were ever arrested in connection with the attack. Police also believe that Rustempasic was behind numerous threats against Bosnian Croat returnees to Bugojno and other central Bosnian cities where there is a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) majority.

In 2004, Rustempasic was arrested by NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) troops in Bosnia for illegal possession of weapons and suspicion of terrorist-related activities. The international forces had found nearly five kilograms of explosives in his possession. For that crime, the court in Bugojno sentenced him to five months parole, during which time he relocated to Sarajevo.

During the 1992-1995 war, Rustempasic was a member of the El-Mujahid unit, headquartered in central Bosnia, where he developed his bomb-making skills, the source said. The unit was under the official jurisdiction of the Bosnian army during the war, though it operated autonomously and was comprised of foreign fighters from Islamic countries.

“Since 1997 we could see that Rustempasic was potentially dangerous, given his history, membership in the El-Mujahid unit and open expression of radicalism, and that we could expect problems from him,” a retired Federation police investigator told ISN Security Watch. The source asked that his name not be used due to the risk of revenge by radicals he had been investigating. He said that the arrest of Rustempasic should have come even sooner, but he had enjoyed some form of immunity in his hometown of Bugojno.

After relocating to Sarajevo, Rustempasic made contact with other members of the Wahhabi movement, most notably with another arrestee Edis Velic who, according to the police source, spent some time fighting in Chechnya several years ago.

ISN Security Watch’s source in the OSA said that the agency had information that in 2001 Rustempasic spent time in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but the reasons for his travel are not known. Also, the OSA registered that in 2000 he attempted to go to Chechnya as a volunteer, but failed. There is also evidence that since 2004, Rustempasic has been in frequent telephone contact with Bosnians living in Germany and Austria, mostly radical Muslims, according to police sources.

In addition, the OSA said that late 2007 and early 2008, Rustempasic contacted acquaintances in Germany and Austria, requesting that they secure for him night vision optics and scopes, which he said was for a hunting trip.

“But what gained our attention was that person he spoke with said he could find those ’silent’ ones. We realized that they were talking about gun silencers. The information we have is that part of the ordered military equipment came to Bosnia and Herzegovina from Austria. We don’t know how much of it came to the destination except that the stuff was shipped by buses in ordinary duffle bags,” an OSA source told ISN Security Watch.

ISN Security Watch’s Federation police source confirmed that during the raid on Rustempasic’s house they confiscated a sniper shotgun equipped with night vision optics and other technology that made investigators doubt that it would be used for hunting. The OSA source said that Rustempasic ordered from Germany and Austria another 11 sniper shotguns, but it remains unclear whether those were ever delivered, and if they were, where the equipment is now.

Sources from the OSA and Federation police said that even though prosecutors released the suspects, they will continue the investigation, focusing particularly on the group’s contacts in Germany and Austria, in an attempt to nail down the supply and financing chain.

European tentacles

Both sources confirmed that the center of the investigation is cleric Muhamed Porca, who runs the Islamic community’s administrative unit in the Austrian capital, Vienna. After several investigations in the last few years related to the radical Muslims in Bosnia, Porca appeared to be a key financial and ideological supporter of radical forces in Bosnia.

Though Austrian authorities earlier ignored warnings from Federation police and the OSA about radical forces in Austria - forces who roots date back to the early 1990s - after the recent developments, including the arrest of a Bosnian refugee for allegedly attempting to bomb the US Embassy in the Vienna, cooperation between the two countries’ security forces has improved.

General Franz Lang, Austria’s director of operational functions, told ISN Security Watch that Austrian and Bosnian police recently had created joint mechanisms and methods for fighting potential terror threats.

“Southeast Europe is a very important area for us related to the security and safety of Austrian citizens. Therefore we created the cooperation on an operative level, which has already given us certain results,” Lang said. He did not provide any further details on these results.

The arrest of the Rustempasic’s group is the second major anti-terrorism operation in Bosnia in three years. The ongoing investigation shows so far that Rustempasic’s group and the alleged terror plots are connected to earlier terrorism-related arrests in the country, and that the network extends to western European capitals, namely Vienna.

In October 2005, in operation called “Maximus,” Federation police arrested five men, three of whom were indicted and later convicted on a string of terror charges.

Mirsad Bektasevic, a Swedish national from Serbia; Danish-born Turkish citizen Abdulkadir Cesur; and Bosnian national Bajro Ikanovic were arrested in late 2005 in two Sarajevo suburbs. The three were found guilty of “intending to carry out a terrorist act” in Bosnia or another European country with the aim of forcing the withdrawal of troops from Iraq or Afghanistan. During the raid on the home of Bektasevic and Abdulkadir, police found a suicide bomb belt, nearly 20 kilograms of explosives, guns and a bomb-making video.

Prior to his arrival to Sarajevo, Bektasevic was active in trying to recruit jihadists through internet sites, using the codename “Maximus.” Correspondence between Bektasevic and some Islamists in Denmark led to further arrests and prosecutions. Bektasevic was in contact with Abdul Basit, also known as Abu-Lifa, sentenced by a Danish court in February last year to seven years in prison. He was believed to be a financier of Bektasevic’s group.

Having previously been marked as potential militant by Federation and international authorities, Rustempasic appeared even in this case. According to the police source, Bektasevic was also in contact with Rustempasic in the two-month period between his arrival in Bosnia and his arrest.

The source also said that at the time, Rustempasic was questioned by police and prosecutors and gave very valuable information regarding Bektasevic’s case. Investigators had no evidence against Rustempasic in that case.

The police source said that a couple of years ago, Rustempasic was often seen accompanied by Ikanovic and Amir Bajric (the fifth arrested from Bektasevic’s group, charged with supplying of explosives). The three were suspected of conducting “paramilitary activities,” including practice shooting in Bajric’s cottage on the Treskavica mountain above Sarajevo.

The Federation Interior Ministry recent launched an internal investigation into local police and prison guards at the city of Zenica, due to an incident involving Bektasevic. During a routine inspection of the prison cells, police authorities were shocked to see Bektasevic using a telephone.

“At the moment we entered his cell, Bektasevic, clearly surprised, jumped from his bed and smashed the phone against the wall,” the police officer who supervised the inspection told ISN Security Watch.

The Federation police source also said that investigation showed that his phone was using a Austrian mobile network card and that Bektasevic had been sending messages to someone in Austria. But due the damage of the phone and the card it was impossible to extract further details of those messages. The investigation on how he managed to get access to a mobile phone is ongoing.

Anes Alic, based in Sarajevo, is ISN Security Watch’s senior correspondent in Southeastern Europe and the Executive Director of ISA Consulting.

Damir Kaletovic is Sarajevo-based investigative reporter for Federal Television’s (FTV) “60 Minutes” news program.

This article was originally published on ISN Security Watch.