By: Julia Gorin
Republican Riot

A translation of a Serbian TV report from yesterday (original here), thanks to Nebojsa Malic, president of the Reiss Institute:

First Balkans Suicide Bomber (Radio Television Serbia, April 2)

Blerim Heta of Urosevac is the first Balkans suicide bomber. Heta blew himself up in Baghdad a week ago, killing 52. Before going to Iraq, Heta worked at Camp Bondsteel.

The investigation into the March 25 suicide bombing in Baghdad revealed that the perpetrator was Kosovo Albanian Blerim Heta of Urosevac, who called his family a day earlier and told them he would “meet Allah” soon.

Heta’s death was confirmed by his family. Kosovo authorities have not commented on the case.

The news of Heta’s suicide attack was confirmed by the website of “Islamic State of Iraq and Shem” (ISIS), an organization tied to Al-Qaeda. ISIS refers to Heta as “Abu Habbab al-Kosowi”.

This is the first documented case of someone from the Balkans engaging in a suicide bombing attack. There were several unconfirmed reports of suicide bombers of Bosnian origin during the Iraq War.

Heta’s family believed Blerim was fighting somewhere in Syria.

“After everything that happened, I don’t want to hear about faith.” said Heta’s father, Remzi. “My son was seduced. We are a family that shares European values, not extremists.”

The family claims that, prior to going to Iraq, Blerim attended sermons by Shefqet Krasniqi in Kosovo, as well as Bekir Halimi eid-Omar in Macedonia.

Yes, of course, like most Albanians — as we keep hearing ad nauseum — this one too was of a secular, “Europe-facing” orientation. So were the Albanian Fort Dix plotters, so was Arid Uka, who in 2011 shot five American servicemen in Frankfurt, and so were the other Albanians getting in on the jihad action. It’s interesting that Heta’s family thought their secular son was off fighting in Syria. (Though to be fair, they may have already been shaking their head on that count.)

So, we’ve got another one who was seduced — as The Weakly Standard’s long-resident Balkans shill, Stephen Suleyman Ahmad Schwartz, protests is the case for Albanians joining the jihad. “Nothing exceptional to see here,” we’re constantly told, “Albanians and Bosnians are like everyone else — susceptible to indoctrination.”

I believe it. But the point is, you know who wasn’t susceptible to Islamic indoctrination? The Orthodox Christians we bombed on the susceptibles’ behalf. Giving exactly this trend a leg up.

Now, on to the most interesting detail of all. The bomber worked at (drum roll) our Camp Bondsteel, which if I recall my previous research correctly, is the second-largest from-scratch U.S. military base since Vietnam, and the largest in Europe. Still nothing to see here, Folks? Kosovo — still obscure and insignificant? Even as its logical conclusion comes crashing down around us as we mark the 15th anniversary of that “successful” “humanitarian” war? (The crashing is a reference not only to Crimea and this bomber, but Georgia 2008 as well as all the secession movements on the table, not to mention a host of other complications, repercussions and reverberations discussed at length.)

What timing. March 25th. Fifteen years almost to the date (March 24th) of our coming to his rescue from those uncivilized Serbs. Maybe he too was marking our ’success.’

As Nebojsa Malic points out, Bondsteel is situated just outside Urosevac (or, as we call it by its Albanian-usurpation name, Ferizaj), where the bomber is from. The TV report didn’t tell us whom he killed, or in what capacity Heta worked at Bondsteel. Maybe as one of those helpful Albanian translators? The RTS broadcast also didn’t tell us when he worked there, Malic continues, and whether he was fired and then turned to jihad, or whether he was already a jihadist when hired.

“Or was he recruited there to go to Syria?” Malic asks. After all, fighting alongside the rebels would mean he’s fighting on “our” side, wouldn’t it, as in Kosovo and Bosnia.

Again, that’s Camp Bondsteel, where few Serbs are hired, it’s been explained to us, for fear of infiltration. The Serbs were the designated enemy, after all, as opposed to a potentially real enemy, whom we welcomed with open arms.

Once again, that’s Camp Bondsteel, named for Vietnam soldier and Medal of Honor recipient James Bondsteel. Which, in another cosmic twist of Balkans irony, sounds a lot like James Bond, a character based on the Serb who infiltrated the Germans and tried to warn us about Pearl Harbor.

(It would be more appropriate if the camp were named after the mugger/rapist James Bondsteel who once killed his roommate, given that the leader we installed in Kosovo reputedly did the same.)

Now, although this is the first confirmed successful suicide bomber from the Balkans, it’s not the first would-be Balkans suicide bomber, as an Albanian in an explosive vest had been arrested in Kosovo in 2009, on the one-year anniversary of U.S.-bestowed independence from Serbia. And who can forget Mirsad Bektasevic, whom police subdued “as he assembled a suicide vest attached to a detonator” the same year. That’s after the previous time he was arrested and a raid on his Sarajevo apartment “turned up suicide vests, exploding bullets, rifles and a machine gun, to be used on the British embassy,” to quote myself from November 2009.

Heta’s anti-Christian imam Shefqet Krasniqi, meanwhile, has been mentioned here previously, and the Macedonian one here, here, and here.

To close, this may be a good time to check in on Sami Osmakac, or more accurately Osmankaj, the would-be Tampa Bay bomber of 2012 and fellow “Kosovar”:

New details emerge in case of alleged plot to destroy Tampa Bay bridges, attack sheriff’s facility (Tampa Bay Times, March 13, By Keeley Sheehan)

Sami Osmakac thought four or five people in a fishing boat would be enough to take down several Tampa Bay bridges, according to federal court documents filed Wednesday.

An attack on the bridges would leave people terrified and bring the area to a halt for at least a month, he told an undercover agent.
…
The August 2013 report from Evan Kohlmann, a private international terrorism consultant, is based on evidence provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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He thought he could take down at least five bridges with help from five people in a fishing boat, though he said “nobody wants to do it” and considered using a cell phone to detonate explosives, the report said.

Osmakac also wanted to assault a sheriff’s operations center in Ybor City and kidnap people from the building, the report said. He had a desire to attack “army people” but said “their bases are so locked up, I have to, I have to do something else.”

He talked about plans to bomb a South Tampa bar and shoot first responders, the report said. He showed the agent some planned targets, saying he had seen videos of preachers who “insulted God and the Prophet” while working near nightclubs on busy nights.

Osmakac planned to take hostages to exchange for imprisoned jihadist leaders, the report said. He vowed to shoot a hostage every 30 minutes unless the jihadists were released.
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Osmakac, 27, a Kosovo native and naturalized U.S. citizen from Pinellas Park, was charged in January 2012 with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The investigation began in 2011 when an informer told the FBI that Osmakac had been shopping for flags representing al-Qaida. The informer introduced Osmakac to an undercover FBI agent posing as someone who could provide weapons.