Fort Dix terror suspects could be tied to Bosnian and Albanian radicals, says an

Fort Dix terror suspects could be tied to Bosnian and Albanian radicals, says analyst

Defense analyst Greg Copley says he's convinced there's a link between the six Islamic terrorists arrested and charged with planning an attack at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and international terrorism.

Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association based in Washington, DC, says he warned U.S. officials about terrorist operations by Bosnian and Albanian radicals in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He says four of the six men arrested on suspicion of plotting the attack at Fort Dix were ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia.

"These people are Albanians related to the Albanian illegal immigrants who basically have flooded into the Serbian province of Kosovo and into Bosnia," the defense analyst notes. "They are linked with people involved with al Qaeda and with Albanian organized crime, which is absolutely tied in with al Qaeda and the Jihadist movement," he says.

The terrorism charges against the six suspects in the New Jersey case relate to a pattern of Islamic terrorist support operations by Bosnian and Albanian radicals in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Copley asserts. Therefore, he is convinced the Fort Dix plotters had overseas sponsors.

"These Albanians are basically hostile to the U.S.," Copley says. "They're trying to get the independence of Kosovo as a jihadist, terrorist state, and in fact we have repeatedly warned about the links of these people to jihadist terrorism," he contends.

Copley says while there is rarely a neatly documented linkage between terrorist actors and their sponsors, he is convinced there is an overseas terrorist link in this case. And, he adds, there is increasing evidence of the involvement of Bosnian and Kosovo Islamists in terrorist activities across Europe and the United States.