DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - BALKANS: DEPORTATION OF THE MUJAHADEEN FROM BOSNIA

Muslim ex-fighters in Bosnia protest deportations
By Danilo Krstanovic

ZENICA, Bosnia, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Several thousand Muslim ex-fighters and their supporters protested on Saturday against a Bosnian government plan to start deporting foreign volunteers who stayed in the country after the 1992-95 war.

Thousands of fighters from the Middle East and Africa arrived in Bosnia to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats. Most left after the war but hundreds stayed on after marrying local women.

The protest was organised under the slogan "Forgive Us, Hamza" in the central town of Zenica, where most of the ex-mujahideen live, ahead of the expected deportation next week of their informal leader Imad Al Husayn, known as Abu Hamza.

"We organised this meeting as a protest against his deportation and the only support we can extend to Hamza," said Aiman Awad, one of the organisers.

Former fighters and their Bosnian wartime comrades spoke of courage on the battlefields and the hypocrisy of authorities who now wanted to get rid of them under pressure from the West.

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1) Muslim ex-fighters in Bosnia protest deportations