BALKANS FAST BECOMING A EUROPEAN BASE FOR JIHADISM

NYTIMES:

An online music video praising Osama bin Laden has driven home a troubling new reality: A radical brand of Islam embraced by al-Qaida and the Taliban is gaining a foothold in the Balkans.

''Oh Osama, annihilate the American army. Oh Osama, raise the Muslims' honor,'' a group of Macedonian men sing in Albanian, in video posted on YouTube last year and picked up by Macedonian media this August. ''In September 2001 you conquered a power. We all pray for you.''

Although most of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority are Muslims, they have generally been secular. But experts are now seeing an increasing radicalization in pockets of the country's Islamic community, particularly after armed groups from the ethnic Albanian minority, which forms a quarter of the population of 2.1 million, fought a brief war against Macedonian government forces in 2001.

It's a trend seen across the Balkans and has raised concerns that the region, which includes new European Union member Bulgaria, could become a breeding ground for terrorists with easy access to Western Europe.

I WONDER WHO IS FINANCING THIS? PROBABLY IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA. WE'VE GOT TO CLAMP DOWN ON THE INFLOWS OF CAPITAL TO THESE GROUPS.

MORE IMPORTANTLY: EUROPE NEEDS TO CRACK DOWN ON EVERYWHERE ELSE ISLAM HAS A TOEHOLD --- OR EUROPE WILL GO THE WAY OF KOSOVO AND BEFORE THAT BYZANTIUM.