(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) >Montenegrin Muslims were dismayed when a video featuring an armed man calling for Montenegro’s Muslim population to join him in Syria or “kill the infidels in their homes” was shared on social networks last July.
“If you want honour come here brothers… fear Allah the call for the caliphate is something you must answer” said an ISIS member who was presented as Abu Mariam Al-Albani. The man was later identified as Mirza Haklaj a Montenegrin from the capital Podgorica. He was killed during a bomb blast last year in Syria. His wife and children were with him but their fate is unknown.
The video was all the more shocking as violent Islamic extremism in Montenegro is rarely covered by the media or discussed by politicians. Not least because the number of Montenegrins known to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight with jihadi groups is relatively small. An estimated 13 Montenegrins have fought with Islamic State ISIS and Al Qaeda-affiliate Al Nusra in Syria and Iraq according to a report presented to parliament in October last year by the National Security Agency. Six are believed to be still fighting there and four are known to have been killed. About 20 per cent of Montenegro’s roughly 620000 population are Muslim most are Sunni followers of the Hanafi tradition widely regarded as highly tolerant with a long and deep-rooted history of co-existence with other faiths including Orthodox and Catholic Christianity.