An Evaluation of the Intensity of Radical Islam in the Balkans and the Assessment of Its Level of Threat for European Security

Abstract

Abstract : In the past two decades, Radical Islam rooted in Europe has become an obvious security threat. While Islam arrived in Western Europe with the wave of immigration from African and Asian Muslim countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Islam in the Balkans has existed for centuries. The purpose of this monograph is to evaluate the intensity of radical Islam in the Balkans compared with that in Western Europe by explaining the cultural and other differences between Balkan Islam and Western European Islam. The patterns show that radical Islamists' strategic objective is Western Europe, and not the Balkans itself. Balkan countries are merely a safe haven for radical Islamists and a base for further operations into Western Europe. Furthermore, while the Balkan Muslims who have lived on European soil for centuries are among the most secular in the world, Western European Muslims who are recent immigrants show a high level of intolerance and radicalism and oppose the democratic values embedded in Western European culture. The Western European states have failed to integrate Muslims into their societies and have declared the idea of multiculturalism a failed project. At the same time, they are asking the Balkan governments to accommodate Muslims, which has indirectly facilitated the infiltration of radical Islam into the Balkans. The moderate Muslim population in several Balkan states is vulnerable to the emergence of radical Islam. For the past two decades, radical Islamists in the Balkans have been targeting moderate Muslims using the social-economic instability of the region and support from the global jihadist network. This monograph suggests that Western European countries establish a joint and decisive strategy for preventing the radicalization of its Muslim population, and that they take into account the Balkan countries as a significant factor in overall European security.