Drecun: Network of radical Islamism exists in region

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian parliamentary committee on defence and interior affairs Milovan Drecun said a terrorist who had wounded a gendarme in an attack outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade on Saturday had not been acting alone as he had later been found to have had ties with other religious converts who were members of the same Islamist organisation of Wahhabists.

"He was an active member of the organisation and, as I have been able to find out, he was not really accepted among the majority Wahhabists, especially in Novi Pazar and its surroundings, but established good connections with Wahhabists in Kosovo, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina," Drecun told Pink TV.

He said Wahhabis gathered in camps in the Kosovo-Metohija village of Cabra.

He noted that Wahhabists recruited underprivileged people, offering them shelter and "some kind of a new family."

"That is how they win people over. They are targeting the Romani population, especially in Kosovo-Metohija," Drecun said.

He said a very widespread network of radical Islamism and extremism had been established in the region based on the ideology of jihad against the so-called infidels.

He said the religious extremists gathered in mosques funded by Saudi Arabia and some other Arab states.

"Preachers educated at centres in some Arab countries go there. In places where they have no mosques, they gather in private homes. In Belgrade, they used to gather in Dorcol, Zemun Polje and Borca," Drecun said.