The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Hardcover)

by Christopher Deliso (Author)
Key Phrases: former mujahedin, The Coming Balkan Caliphate, United States, Saudi Arabia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“[T]ells the most terrifying story never told in the War on Terror....And yet anyone reading this book--indeed anyone who has been following the region and its increasingly far reach since our interventions there--will have a hard time taking the War on Terror seriously, and will be left with a sense that with their investigations of this cell or that, our intelligence agents and police are busily plugging holes in a boat that is already submerged....[T]he book makes for a damning read and a troubled sleep.”–Islam Watch

“An American journalist and travel writing based in the Balkans, Deliso does not contend that Muslims in the Balkans are about to cast off their centuries of liberal thought and behavior. Rather he argues that small groups of local but globally connected fundamentalists could gravitate toward existing terrorist organizations, and introduce a new dimension to political issues and social policy that will impact the Christian as well as Muslim populations of the peninsula.”–Reference & Research Book News

“Anyone imagining that Moslem extremists must be seen as a threat only east of Suez should read Chris Deliso's alarming accounts of their activities in parts of the Balkans made vulnerable by wars and poverty.”–David Binder, New York Times Central and Eastern European correspondent, 1961-2004.

“Chris Deliso is a veteran field reporter and one of the foremost experts on the Balkans. Unlike many of the mainstream 'parachute' journalists who drop in every time a new violent crisis erupts, Deliso lives in the region and therefore better understands the dynamics and political intrigues. This book presents a compelling glimpse into the much overlooked spread of radical Islam throughout the former Yugoslavia. A must-read for those who have prematurely declared the international intervention in the Balkans a "success story".”–Scott Taylor, award-winning Canadian war reporter and publisher, Esprit de Corps Magazine

“Christopher Deliso provides critical insight into the hypocrisy of Western policy towards the Balkans, now an epicenter for European heroin distribution and processing and a conduit for illegal arms sales, both of which provide financing that sustains global terrorism. This book should be required reading for all members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.”–Sibel Edmonds, Former FBI translator and founder, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition

“Incisive, well-researched and thought-provoking, Christopher Deliso presents a must-read account of how Islamic fundamentalism arrived in the Balkans, and the threat it portends for the future.”–Nebojsa Malic, Balkan Affairs columnist, Antiwar.com

Book Description

This eye-opening new book details how 15 years of misguided Western interventions, political scheming, and local mafia appeasement, compounded by a massive infusion of Arab cash, fundamentalist Islamic preaching and mosque-building have allowed radical Islamic groups to fill in the cracks between internal ethnic and religious schisms and take root in key areas of the Balkans.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Praeger (June 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275995259
• ISBN-13: 978-0275995256
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #662,991 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Happens when America is "With the Terrorists"?, October 2, 2007

By	Julia Gorin - See all my reviews

Caliphate tells the most terrifying story never told in the War on Terror, detailing the bizarre arrangement by which we've allied ourselves with "nominally Muslim" Albanian mafiosos to feed us information about the Islamists they do heroin and weapons business with, while Albanians, some at the highest levels of Kosovo's U.S.-supported officialdom, moonlight as terrorists themselves.

We also learn of a murky incident in which six Albanian-American fundamentalists arrived in the village of Skenderaj in the weeks before 9/11, saying that the U.S. would be attacked soon--and yet it sparked no interest or follow-up from UN or U.S. authorities in Kosovo.

From Caliphate, a reader begins to understand that in Kosovo everyone alternates roles between gangster and hostage: Albanian leaders/gangsters threaten the Islamists should they target the internationals; al Qaeda threatens Albanians with cutting off their heroin supply if they touch the Islamists; and the internationals are threatened with the understanding that the well-armed Albanians have a virtual gun pointed at our NATO troops should we embark on any unwelcome law enforcement.

As the Islamist cancer is allowed to quietly spread in the Balkans, a reader will be left with a sense that with their investigations of this cell or that, our agents and police are busily plugging holes in a boat that is already submerged.

Demonstrating an understanding of the complexity of the Albanian community, whose nationalism got them more than they'd bargained for, Deliso points to the Big Duh of the Bosnian and Kosovo civil wars: they were "just the prelude" to a longer battle, one that would be conducted against the region's Muslims themselves.

Without armed conflict or revolution "a silent transition" is taking place in the Balkans, a.k.a. "the new Middle East." The book makes for a damning read and a troubled sleep.

33 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Balkans Are Back, August 13, 2007

By	Jason B. Miko (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In a clear and well thought-out style, Christopher Deliso warns readers in The Coming Balkan Caliphate about the growing threat of radical Islam in the Balkans today, how it has come to be, and what we can expect in the future if we do nothing.

With years of experience in the Balkans and a journalist's eye for detail, Deliso takes readers through Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro and Sandzak and explains who the radicals are, how they got there, what they are currently doing and what they intend to do. Tying it all together with history, failed and failing interventions and the growth of organized crime, Deliso warns us that "...it is, of course, the case that foreign Islamic groups, terrorists included, look first to partially or fully Muslim-dominated areas of the Balkans for their radical operations and social colonization projects." He makes a clear distinction between the moderate Islam that has been practiced for centuries in the Balkans and the encroaching danger of the imported Saudi-style Wahhabi-sect reminding us that "Fundamentalist Islam, unlike Western society, is not predicated on the ideals of progress and an ever-brighter future."

Expertly researched and written, this is a clear warning to ignoring the threat of radical and extreme Islam in the Balkans today. While the world focuses on Iraq and Afghanistan, as we should, we ignore the Balkans and the threat emanating from it at our own peril.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth as it has happened and is happening, November 20, 2007

By	Thomas L. Gambill "tgambill" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was in Kosovo working as a security chief for OSCE in the Eastern Region of Kosovo. As an eyewitness and being a position to see the inner workings of how the UN, KFOR and NATO covertly aided the Albanian extremist groups that murdered Serbs from 1999 to 2004 while I was there and of course even after. The book is an accurate description of the truth of what is going on. I can say without a doubt the negative comments made by the authors, are completely inaccurate and biased. The international community on a high level is trying to cover and lie about the real agenda in Kosovo as they support Mafia influence and extremist activity without a doubt. The Islamic Fundamentalist find the Balkans a suitable area for training, rest, and planning phases for further action in Europe and the U.S. without the hammer from the International community. This is the truth as I was an eyewitness.