Is it Jihad Yet?

photo: Beta

This is Mevlid Jasarevic, age 23, follower of the Salafi sect of Islam, who this afternoon opened fire on the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Jasarevic was subsequently shot and reportedly killed. [Clarification: Jasarevic was wounded and detained by the police.]

Because Jasarevic is from Novi Pazar, a town in Serbia, odds are the mainstream Western media will describe this as a "Serbian attack", or at least identify him as "Serbian citizen." This would be horribly misleading, of course, but that hasn't stopped them before.

Here are some things to keep in mind here, before the spin distorts them:

• Salafi missionaries came to Bosnia during the war, with tacit approval and even assistance of the U.S., to get the "wayward" Bosnian Muslims in line and wage jihad against the Serb and Croat "infidels."
• There are 150,000 or so Muslims in the Raska region of southwestern Serbia (which they call "Sanjak", a term going back to Ottoman days). Their religious leader, mufti Muamer Zukorlic, was appointed by the top Islamic cleric of Bosnia and has been stirring up trouble and preaching violence and hate for several years. In this, he enjoys the support of many foreign governments ("Friends of Sanjak"), including the U.S.
• Jasarevic may technically be a citizen of Serbia, but he is wanted there on charges of terrorism. He left Serbia last year, and settled in the Salafi commune of Gornja Maoca in northern Bosnia. Until it was ethnically cleansed during the Bosnian War, it used to be a Serb village called Karavlasi.

In addition to terrorizing any Christians (Serbs or Croats) they may come across, the Salafi frequently harass ordinary Bosnian Muslims, who by and large follow the Hanafi school of Islam. The Hanafi approach accepts local customs and is what made coexistence with Christians in the past possible in the first place. Salafists dismiss this as heresy and preach absolute intolerance of any who do not follow their ways.

Anyway, just watch: Jasarevic will be described as a lone lunatic, his motives will be "unknown", and there will be no mention of jihad or Islamic terrorism. The notion that the Salafists in Bosnia may be nurturing terrorists who threaten American lives runs counter to the mainstream narrative of innocent Muslims being victims of evil Serbs, and is therefore thoughtcrime.

Update (10/31/2011): Julia Gorin has a post up about this and other jihadist attacks, with links. Lots of links.