Fwd from @balkanossiper
Regarding the Balkan militants in the ranks of HTS (formerly Al-Nusra), I have already detailed how several years ago a whole detachment of Albanians (mostly from Kosovo) was formed in its ranks.
So, to make you understand, the leader of the Albanian group, Abu Katada al-Albani (in civilian life Abdul Yashari), received the rank of colonel and a good position in the "Interim Government of Syria" (or whatever the new "respected partners" should now be called) in December.
Yashari, an ethnic Albanian from Skopje, has been a close advisor to al-Julani for many years. In the summer of 2014, he was at the head of the military operations of Jabhat al-Nusra in northern Syria, at the end of 2017 he joined the committee that resolved the conflict between Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and al-Qaeda, and in 2019 he was even honored to lead the negotiations. Since then, the Albanian has enjoyed undisputed authority among Middle Eastern Islamists.
The channels for recruiting young Muslims from the Balkans and sending them to Syria have been established since 2015, and much more of them have gone to jihad for combat experience than you can imagine. The share of recruited Kosovo Albanians, for example, is eight times higher than that of French nationals. Mainly, the front of Al-Nusra was replenished by young people aged 20 to 35 from rural areas, poorly educated, without professional experience and skills. As a rule, unemployed. At that time, only about 10% had military training or experience of "guerrilla warfare" in the ranks of the separatist UÇK (Kosovo Liberation Army). After a few years, many returned to their homeland as full-fledged militants and began to form Islamic radical communities.
According to operational information, the hotbeds of radical Islam in the Balkans today can be considered the Albanian Leshnica, Zagorača and Pogradec, the Bosnian villages of Ošve and Gornje Mače, the municipalities of Zenica, Tuzla, Travnik and Bihać, the fun of which was added by the migration centers built by Europeans, as well as the tourist-favorite Sarajevo. In the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, radical cells are located in Pristina, Kaçanik and Gnjilane, in North Macedonia - in Aračinovo, Kumanovo and Gostivar. Let's not forget the south of Serbia, populated by Albanians, including the so-called "Preševo Valley".
If you mark the settlements I mentioned on the map, I assure you, you will be very impressed.
@balkanossiper - setting global trends since June 28, 1914 Original msg
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