Islam Playing Bigger Role in Bosnian Army

In his jet-black uniform, Hase Tiric, the 30-year-old brigadier of the Black Swans, the Bosnian army’s elite commando unit, cuts an imposing figure. His shaved head marbled with scars, the barrel-chested commander exudes the ruthless professionalism that is his unit’s trademark.

In contrast to the often ragtag regular army troops, the Black Swans are the beleaguered Bosnian army’s most disciplined and effective fighting force. In recent government offensives, the unit has been at the front of almost every battle, going head-on against Serb forces that have dominated in the war.

The key to the Black Swans’ success, says Tiric, is Islam. The 800-man Muslim brigade lives according to Islamic law--daily prayer, no alcohol or women, exemplary personal hygiene.

Like most of his soldiers, Tiric is a newcomer to religion. “We’re not fundamentalists,” he says. “These rules simply ensure the highest military standards.”

The Black Swans are one of many units in the Bosnian armed forces that have taken Islam to heart. Since the war began three years ago, the once-multinational Bosnian military has become an almost exclusively Muslim force. For a growing number of units, Muslim nationalism and Islam, rather than multicultural coexistence, has become a rallying cry.

In part, the upsurge of religion in the military reflects a new interest in Islam among Bosnian Muslims, brought about by the hardship of the war and the pressures of the rampant nationalism around them.

Before the war, Bosnian Muslims were overwhelmingly secular, their fondness for drink and earthly pleasures legendary across the former Yugoslavia. Today, mosque attendance is up and religious education classes are full.

In the armed forces, young soldiers are eager to learn about Islam. At their base camp high in the mountains of northeastern Bosnia, the Black Swans have two hours of religious training every day.

“I am here to tell these boys what they’re fighting for,” says the unit’s hodja, or religious leader, whom the troops call by his first name, Hamza. “First they learn the rules of Islam and follow them, then comes faith.”

Until recently, the Bosnian government has either denied or played down the existence of the Islamic units, carefully concealing them from the international media.

Even many Bosnians reacted with shock to the third anniversary celebration of the Seventh Muslim Brigade, televised across the country earlier this year. The packed sports hall in Zenica shook with cries of “Allahu Akbar!”--”God is great”--delivered from columns of soldiers clad in olive-green uniforms and bright green headbands with Islamic insignia.

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic appeared to inspect the 3,000 troops, the army’s first and largest religious outfit.

“That’s not my army,” says Mevlid Vladic, a Muslim chemist from Tuzla who is married to a Serb--not uncommon in ethnically mixed Tuzla. “My army is the Bosnian army and they speak Bosnian, not Arabic.”

The taboo issue only recently entered the public spotlight, when five members of the multinational, seven-person Bosnian presidency--including the four Croat and Serb representatives--sent an open letter to Izetbegovic protesting his tacit approval of the Islamic brigades.

The Islamic units, with a Muslim nationalist ideology, implicitly contradict the government’s multicultural philosophy. Until now, the Bosnian government has insisted that the Muslim majority, together with many Serbs and Croats, is fighting for a secular, multinational state.

But Izetbegovic testily defended the Muslim units. “Those who want to talk about the ideology of the Bosnian army,” he said, “should first count the graves.”

The reply underscored the fact that numerically, the Bosnian Muslims are by far the war’s greatest victims and that it is Muslim soldiers who are defending the country. According to military sources, the Bosnian army today is more than 90% Muslim, with a combined total of about 5% Serbs and Croats.