Sarajevo
WHILE FRENCH AND DUTCH VOTERS are only now venting their discontent with the European Union, the Bosnians have held Brussels in contempt since the onset of their civil war, some 13 years ago. Back then, Europe actively obstructed Bosnian self-defense. The British and French instigated a U.N. weapons embargo that prevented the Bosnians from legally importing arms. A staggering 250,000 people were killed in the ensuing war (out of a population now around 4.5 million). In the decade since the massacre at Srebrenica, where Serbs slaughtered 8,000 Muslim men and boys, Brussels has ruled Bosnia, as provided for under the U.S.-orchestrated Dayton Accords.

This has been a disaster for Bosnians, whether Muslim, Serb, or Croat. European humanitarian colonialism has burdened the country with staggering unemployment (at least the official rate, 44 percent), severely retarded privatization and reconstruction, and perpetuated the partition between a Serbian-occupied zone and a shaky Muslim-Croat federation.

Muslim Bosnia and neighboring territories also face growing Islamist extremism. Wahhabi missionaries, promoting the ultraradical cult financed by Saudi Arabia, have come back to the Balkans after their expulsion from Sarajevo in the aftermath of September 11. Bosnian authorities acted then with admirable speed in cracking down on the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a center of al Qaeda activity.

The Saudis have not attempted to reestablish that official presence in Sarajevo, but Wahhabi terror scouts continue to patrol its streets seeking new converts. An educated guess is that at least 200 such meddlers are now at work. Traditional Bosnian Muslim clerics are moderate; they never use the vocabulary of jihad, even in the wake of their bloody war, and they do not refer to Jews and Christians as "unbelievers," even though they fought and were victimized by Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Enes Karic, a leading professor at the Bosnian Institute of Islamic Studies, told me, "In this country Muslims and Jews always formed a single umma," or religious community. The sentiment is novel to hear but deeply felt by local Islamic intellectuals.

Still, Wahhabis persist in hawking their beheading videos in the streets of Sarajevo, to the alarm of Muslim clergy and theology professors. A report published in the sometimes useful National Enquirer-style weekly Dani (Days) on January 14 included an interview with one of these men. A Bosnian referred to in the article as "A.S.," he is a fixture outside the Governor's Mosque in downtown Sarajevo. The interview contains this chilling exchange:

"When you cut a man's throat, you cut the main blood vessels with the knife and death comes almost instantly. Cutting a man's throat is therefore the most humane thing we can do."

A.S. advertised his displayed merchandise that way, staring absentmindedly into the distance. The conversation took place recently in Sarajevo, in front of the Ottoman Governor's Mosque. There A.S. has a makeshift stand offering books, brochures, multimedia CDs for religious Muslims, and various religious items. . . . He offers the biggest hits and compilations from recent battlefields worldwide. Compilations of horror. Afghanistan, "Palestine: The Slaughter of Children," Chechnya (only parts five and six, actually, as the first four sold long ago).