The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 240 pages
• Published by: Praeger Security International General Interest-Cloth June 30, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0275995259
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0275995256
• Book Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Review
“[T]ells the most terrifying story never told in the War on Terror.And yet anyone reading this book--indeed anyone who has been following the region and its increasingly far reach since our interventions there--will have a hard time taking the War on Terror seriously, and will be left with a sense that with their investigations of this cell or that, our intelligence agents and police are busily plugging holes in a boat that is already submerged.[T]he book makes for a damning read and a troubled sleep.”–Islam Watch

“An American journalist and travel writing based in the Balkans, Deliso does not contend that Muslims in the Balkans are about to cast off their centuries of liberal thought and behavior. Rather he argues that small groups of local but globally connected fundamentalists could gravitate toward existing terrorist organizations, and introduce a new dimension to political issues and social policy that will impact the Christian as well as Muslim populations of the peninsula.”–Reference & Research Book News

“Anyone imagining that Moslem extremists must be seen as a threat only east of Suez should read Chris Deliso's alarming accounts of their activities in parts of the Balkans made vulnerable by wars and poverty.”–David Binder, New York Times Central and Eastern European correspondent, 1961-2004.

“Chris Deliso is a veteran field reporter and one of the foremost experts on the Balkans. Unlike many of the mainstream 'parachute' journalists who drop in every time a new violent crisis erupts, Deliso lives in the region and therefore better understands the dynamics and political intrigues. This book presents a compelling glimpse into the much overlooked spread of radical Islam throughout the former Yugoslavia. A must-read for those who have prematurely declared the international intervention in the Balkans a "success story".”–Scott Taylor, award-winning Canadian war reporter and publisher, Esprit de Corps Magazine

“Christopher Deliso provides critical insight into the hypocrisy of Western policy towards the Balkans, now an epicenter for European heroin distribution and processing and a conduit for illegal arms sales, both of which provide financing that sustains global terrorism. This book should be required reading for all members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.”–Sibel Edmonds, Former FBI translator and founder, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition

“Incisive, well-researched and thought-provoking, Christopher Deliso presents a must-read account of how Islamic fundamentalism arrived in the Balkans, and the threat it portends for the future.”–Nebojsa Malic, Balkan Affairs columnist, Antiwar.com

Product Description
With all eyes currently focused on the widening conflict in the Middle East and the terrorist threat coming from the region, the West is in danger of overlooking a potent new battleground in the greater "war on terror"--the Balkans. This historically volatile region saw some of the worst violence of the late 20th century in the Yugoslav Wars of Secession. During these conflicts, stunningly shortsighted and politically motivated policies of the United States and its allies directly allowed Islamic mujahedin and terrorist-related entities to establish a foothold in the region--just as with the progenitors of the Taliban a decade earlier in Afghanistan. Although the 9/11 attacks caused a partial reassessment of Western policy, it may already be too late for a region still largely ignored. The proliferation of foreign fundamentalist groups has had a cancerous effect on traditional Balkan Islamic communities, challenging their legitimacy in unprecedented and often violent ways. Well-funded groups like the Saudi-backed Wahabbis continue to exploit internal schisms within local communities, while the international administrations in Bosnia and Kosovo have actually strengthened the grip of local mafia groups--business partners of terrorists. Worst of all, the Western peacekeepers' chronic "don't rock the boat" mentality has allowed extremist groups to operate unchallenged. Nevertheless, regional demographic and cultural trends, coinciding with an increasingly hostile attitude in the greater Muslim world over Western military actions and perceived symbolic provocations, indicate that the lawless Balkans will become increasingly valuable as a strategic base for Islamic radicals over the next two decades. Utilizing the post-al-Qaeda tactics of a decentralized jihad carried out through small, independent cells ("leaderless resistance") while seeking to fundamentally and violently remold Muslim societies, such Balkan-based extremists pose a unique and tangible threat to Western security.

Reader Reviews
Caliphate tells the most terrifying story never told in the War on Terror, detailing the bizarre arrangement by which we've allied ourselves with "nominally Muslim" Albanian mafiosos to feed us information about the Islamists they do heroin and weapons business with, while Albanians, some at the highest levels of Kosovo's U.S.-supported officialdom, moonlight as terrorists themselves. We also learn of a murky incident in which six Albanian-American fundamentalists arrived in the village of Skenderaj in the weeks before 9/11, saying that the U.S. would be attacked soon--and yet it sparked no interest or follow-up from UN or U.S. authorities in Kosovo. From Caliphate, a reader begins to understand that in Kosovo everyone alternates roles between gangster and hostage: Albanian leaders/gangsters threaten the Islamists should they target the internationals; al Qaeda threatens Albanians with cutting off their heroin supply if they touch the Islamists; and the internationals are threatened with the understanding that the well-armed Albanians have a virtual gun pointed at our NATO troops should we embark on any unwelcome law enforcement. As the Islamist cancer is allowed to quietly spread in the Balkans, a reader will be left with a sense that with their investigations of this cell or that, our agents and police are busily plugging holes in a boat that is already submerged. Demonstrating an understanding of the complexity of the Albanian community, whose nationalism got them more than they'd bargained for, Deliso points to the Big Duh of the Bosnian and Kosovo civil wars: they were "just the prelude" to a longer battle, one that would be conducted against the region's Muslims themselves. Without armed conflict or revolution "a silent transition" is taking place in the Balkans, a.k.a. "the new Middle East." The book makes for a damning read and a troubled sleep.