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| Serbian media reports London explosives are from the Balkans |
| 2005-07-14 |
| As British police investigating last week's London bombings search for the one man who is believed to have assembled all four devices, Serb media are speculating that the type of explosive used in the attacks may have originated in the Balkans. According to Belgrade daily, Blic, only four countries in the world produce or have produced the type of high-grade military plastic explosives believed to have been used in the Thursday, 7 July, attacks, and that the type produced in the fomer Yugoslavia was of the "best quality." The Yugoslav explosive was even better than another type also mentioned in connection with the attacks, the American-made C4, the former head of Belgrade's Military-Technical Institute, Milovan Azbejkovic told Blic. Azbejkovic said that while Yugoslav explosive may have been used in the London bombings, he excluded the possibility that it came from the military supplies of Serbia and Montenegro. Azbejkovic said that large quantity of plastic explosives had been left in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, and might be easily accessible on the black market. A French explosives expert assisting London police with their investigation, Christian Chaboud, said he thought the ordnances were probably of "miltary origin" and may have come from the Balkans, or have been obtained from a military establishment by an insider, the Times of London reported. Blic also reported that Moroccan-born Mohamed al-Guerbouzi, whose name was mentioned in the early stages of the investigation into the London bombings,lived in the Bosnian village of Gornji Rasljani, near northeast town of Brcko, in the 1990s. Bosnian Serb daily, Nezavisne novine, also said al-Guerbouzi lived in the town and published a list of 31 Moroccans and one Turk who lived in Gornji Rasljani during the 1992-1995 civil war in Bosnia. The paper said that the list was compiled by Brcko police at the request of Interpol, but didnât specify to which period the list referred. Police in Brcko, which is under international protectorate, said they had no knowledge of the list. Several hundreds of former mujahedin, Muslim volunteers who fought on the side of Bosnian Muslims in the civil war remained in the country and acquired Bosnian nationality. According to intelligence reports, they operated training camps and recruited local Muslims in what is called âwhite Al-Qaedaâ for the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks in Europe. Several Greek newspapers this week reported that a team of British experts had arrived to Belgrade to check the origin of the explosive used in London, but a high placed police source, which asked not to be named, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that it was âabsolutely not true.â |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |