The Father of All Bosnian Mujahideen – El Fatih Ali Hassanein Mohamed Sherif – passed away in Istanbul, the city of refuge where, after the end of the war conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, he transferred his million-dollar savings. Beyond the fact that he was the personal banker of Alija Izetbegović and a trusted figure and gray eminence of the SDA party, the Sarajevo bazaar laments – his wartime role and love for Bosnia. Whether El Fatih held the beliefs posthumously attributed to him by mourning Muslims is unknown, but the fact remains that the first among equals in Alija Izetbegović’s circle built his position through the theft of humanitarian aid and donations, arms trade, financial speculations, and money laundering via the Vienna-based agency TWRA. El Fatih Ali Hassanein’s funeral was held on August 20 at the Eyüp Sultan Mosque in Istanbul during the noon prayer. A political funeral prayer in his absence was also held at the Bor and Stambol Mosque in Novi Pazar. How did this native Sudanese, who came to Belgrade for medical studies and ended up in Bosnia during the war, become so indebted to radical Muslims in Bosnia and Serbia?
THE FOUNDATION OF GLOBAL TERRORISM
The arms trade network of radical Islamists in the capital of Austria during the 1990s war, according to the records of German and Austrian security services, earned over 350 million dollars. The heads of the organization were El Fatih Ali Hassanein, his brother Sukarno, and Shefik Ayada, as well as Yasin Al-Qadi, Alija Izetbegović, Bakir Izetbegović, and close associates Hasan Čengić, Haris Silajdžić, Senad Šahinpašić Šajo, Šeta Šu’aib, Husein Živalj, and others.
This unique group of arms dealers acted as a catalyst for the creation of a large and militant network of radical Islamists and their organizations. They justified their actions with the need to help the war victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina and used the legal framework of the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA). These so-called humanitarians, through criminal actions (arms, human, and drug trafficking), laid the foundation for the infrastructure of a future organization capable of acting against society and the state, under whose umbrella global terrorists would operate.
THE MONEY WITHDRAWN, MILITANTS REMAIN
Austrian and regional security services failed to properly assess the consequences of these structures’ operations (even some Austrian companies were involved). They believed that the form of Islam acting in the name of “the statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina” was an isolated case, that there was no coordination with “global Islam,” and that the arms trade would stop with the end of the war in BiH. Under pressure from poorly formulated political interests, Austrian security services turned a blind eye for five years to the construction of the radical Islamist network, allowing the transfer of money, people, weapons, and explosives. The money from the trade was later withdrawn from Austrian banks, and the participants vanished. Nevertheless, they managed to leave behind an army of militants, people recruited from all over the world.
As part of the investigation, over 60 people were arrested for participating in the arms trade network over a twenty-year period. One branch of the investigation led to former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša.
AUSTRIAN VAULT – FOR THE ARMY OF BIH
The “humanitarian” organization TWRA was founded in 1987 by El Fatih Ali Hassanein Mohamed Sherif with his brother Sukarno Hassanein, with the idea of reviving Islam in Eastern Europe and the then-Soviet Union. It has not been proven that Sudan was behind this organization, but Western intelligence assumed, based on available information, that this organization operated under the instructions of the Sudanese National Islamic Front, to carry out its policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. U.S. intelligence services believed that El Fatih Hassanein worked to bring Bosnian Muslims closer to radical Islamic currents in the Middle East.
El Fatih Hassanein met Alija Izetbegović in Belgrade in 1970. During the 1983 trial of the Young Muslims, Izetbegović admitted that Hassanein was a good friend, a statement he confirmed in August 1996 when he awarded him a humanitarian medal for his work in BiH. TWRA officially began cooperating with Izetbegović’s government in Sarajevo in mid-1992. Through this organization, the acquisition of weapons for the BiH Army was financed and organized, and the money went through the First Austrian Bank in Vienna (Die Erste Österreich Bank). TWRA at that time established connections with radical Islamic organizations.
In September 1995, the Austrian anti-terrorist police unit seized all documentation found in TWRA’s offices. Austrian investigative authorities established that Islamic countries donated 350 million dollars to the Islamic movement in BiH. The largest donor was Saudi Arabia, and funds also came from Pakistan, Turkey, Brunei, and Malaysia. There were suspicions that terrorists were involved in financing TWRA, helping the Sarajevo government through the organization. Among the alleged covert donors was Osama bin Laden, and the seized documents indicated a connection between TWRA and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the radical Egyptian imam sentenced to life imprisonment for planning several terrorist bombings in New York.
STRONGER THAN ALIJA
In 1993, Alija Izetbegović wrote a letter to Die Erste Österreich Bank, confirming that El Fatih Hassanein enjoyed the full trust of the Bosnian authorities. Irfan Ljubijankić, believed to have helped bring over 500 Islamic mercenaries to BiH through TWRA, and Husein Živalj, Faris Nanić, and Hasan Čengić, all members of the organization’s board, were also involved in this terrorist operation.
In a 1994 interview, El Fatih Hassanein stated: “Bosnia in the end must be Muslim because if it doesn’t happen, the entire war will have no meaning. In BiH, we need to help those Bosniaks who are not religious or are not religious enough to wake up. In general, the situation is still not good, and I think we need to find appropriate methods to spread the correct teaching of Islam among Bosnian Muslims.”
The discretionary right to sign foreign currency accounts, into which aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina was deposited, was held by Čengić, Alija Izetbegović, his son Bakir Izetbegović, later Reis Mustafa-effendi Cerić, and for a time, at the very beginning of the war, Haris Silajdžić. After the intervention of the Vienna police in TWRA, it was decided to establish the Foundation for Aid to the Muslims of Bosnia. The Foundation was registered in Visoko, at Hadži Hasanova Street number 23.
El Fatih Hassanein’s name is associated with the idea of creating the Muslim Intelligence Service, backed by the Young Muslims. He was also linked to Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, which testifies to the role of this Sudanese man and his mentors in the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Upon his death, Sarajevo’s “Slobodna Bosna” called him the true founder and president of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), stronger than Alija.
A BANK NETWORK FOR ISLAMIC COURSES
At the Foundation’s inaugural meeting, held on August 1, 1998, Hasan Čengić officially spoke for the first and last time about the Foundation’s work. He explained that the Foundation for Helping Bosnian Muslims was a humanitarian organization that founded the Bosnian Investment Organization (BIO), from which BIO Tours and BIO Air emerged. These companies were claimed to be 100% owned by the Foundation and BIO. The Foundation was also the majority owner of BP Trade, the Bosnian Transport Service, and the Public Enterprise Visoko Airport.
“In humanitarian terms, the Foundation will focus on three humanitarian projects: scholarships for gifted students and high school students from BiH, supporting 100 orphans in families, and an Islamic course for high schools.”
Under the Sarajevo government’s cover, the Foundation, together with El Fatih Hassanein and ABS Bank from Tešanj, founded the well-known BBI (Bosnia Bank International). The capital of BBI amounted to 47.52 million convertible marks, making it the largest paid-in capital compared to other banks, and it nominally belonged to the Islamic Development Bank from Jeddah (Saudi Arabia – with a capital share of 45.46%), Dubai Islamic Bank (27.27%), and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (27.27%). This was money derived from the misuse of donations from Islamic and Western countries intended for arms trading.
In banking circles, it is well known that El Fatih Hassanein is also behind the International Commercial Bank p.l.c. Sarajevo, although he is not mentioned in the official report. Instead, Abdul Dam Bin Haji Zainuddin is listed as the largest shareholder with 62% of the capital.
AT DR TURABI´S PLACE
CIA analysis suggested that TWRA collected funds from Islamic countries to finance the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Sudan, with the idea of pushing Sudan into a religious-political war and splitting the country into two states.
El Fatih Hassanein was a collaborator and friend of Dr. Hassan Abdullah Turabi. In the 1970s, Turabi was the general secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood and the dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Khartoum. A staunch opponent of secularist ideas, Turabi used his legal expertise to introduce Sharia law in Sudan and other Islamic countries. In the late 1980s, Turabi founded the National Islamic Front (the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood).
When Saudi Arabia revoked Osama bin Laden’s citizenship and passport in 1994, Turabi offered him refuge in Sudan. At that time, under a false name, bin Laden opened a trading export company involved in the export of rubber, corn, and sunflower seeds. During this period, Osama bin Laden became the largest donor for the construction of the highway from Khartoum to the airport in Port Sudan, investing fifty million dollars. As the entire project cost 300 million U.S. dollars, Western media speculated that bin Laden’s wealth reached hundreds of millions of dollars. Under the threat of economic sanctions, Sudan expelled bin Laden and 200 of his followers to Afghanistan in late 1995, where they were welcomed by the Taliban.
“BETTER NOT TO SAY MUCH”
Given that Europe was in the focus of radical Islamists, in 1994, again in Vienna, the International Association for Aid to Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina (International Association for the Aid to Muslims of BiH) was founded. The director of the Zagreb branch was Salim Shabić, with his assistants Hasan Čengić and El Fatih Hassanein. This organization operated on the same principle as TWRA. According to sources from the former Presidency of BiH, Fatih Al Hassanein allegedly facilitated two meetings between Dr. Turabi and Alija Izetbegović during the war.
At the Third Assembly of the Young Muslims Association in 1999, El Fatih Ali Hassanein took the stage briefly and addressed his friends: “It is an honor for me to stand before you. It is better for both you and me that I don’t say much.”
Investigating the arms trade and financial transactions of El Fatih in Vienna, Bavarian criminal police, with the help of the Austrian government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Anti-Terrorist Unit, searched the premises of TWRA. Alongside other valuable documents, they seized records indicating encrypted communication.
In El Fatih’s apartment, in addition to money and weapons, they found numerous safe deposit keys, nearly three million dollars in various currencies, and about 300 videotapes of war and Islamic content—a detail characteristic of radical Islamists, who never forget the obligation to spread their faith. This was a fact that the Austrian intelligence service had neglected.
THE “SUDANESE FLIGHT” VIA MARIBOR
The name Ayadi Shafiq, a Tunisian who used several aliases, most often Bin Muhammad, also appeared on the list of arms suppliers and on the UN’s consolidated list of terrorists. With Bosnian passports and other documents, he traveled through Europe and the Middle East. Despite the “arms embargo” imposed by the UN Security Council regarding the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, in September 1992, significant quantities of weapons ordered from Sudan were flown to the battlefield via Maribor airport in a unique operation codenamed “Sudanese Flight.”
It is significant that the Islamic Community in Croatia and Slovenia was directly involved in the arms trade, confirmed by numerous orders. Although they had knowledge of the embargo violations and were aware of the scale of this international arms trade, Austrian security services did not understand that international terrorists and radical Islamists had found their interest in the local Balkan conflict. Evidence of this comes from the fact that in the second year of the war, all organizers of criminal activities met in Switzerland to discuss the formation of their own bank, according to reports from an insider (a translator) for the German security services.
THE REPORT OF AN IMAM
To understand the entire story and the role of Saudi Arabia in the logistical support of the arms trade, it is essential to consider a handwritten letter from El Fatih. In encrypted communication, he mentions the wishes of an authorized banker from Saudi Arabia, Abdellatif Abdullah, to meet with Alija (Izetbegović), Mustafa (Cerić, then Reis), or Hasan (Čengić).
It is important to note that the top of Saudi Arabia entered the conflict in the Balkans motivated solely by religious obligations and (Islamic) interests, as became evident during the International Conference in Zagreb, organized by Mustafa Cerić, who was then the chief imam of the Zagreb mosque and later served for 20 years as Reis-ul-Ulema, the religious leader of Bosnian Muslims.
Interestingly, this religious leader reported to Alija Izetbegović the results of the conference, the outcome of his trips to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and the details of the funds raised during these travels. Just from King Fahd alone, the aid amounted to 400 million dollars. This document is included in the analysis.
The documented truth about El Fatih’s role in creating the global terrorist network also serves as a handbook for understanding how Islamists, in both real and ideological wars, operate—both then and now. The pattern has not changed.
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