Bilal Bosnić

Husein Bilal Bosnić (1972) is one of the leaders of the Salafi movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a prominent member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He is known for recruiting jihadists from Europe.

Biography
He was born in Bužim in northwest Bosnia in 1972. His birth name is Husein Bosnić, but he adopted Bilal as his nickname. As a youngster he moved with his parents to Germany, where he met with the Salafist movement and eventually adopted it. He returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war in 1992, and joined the jihadist El-Mudžahid detachment of the Bosnian Muslim Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After the war, he was a prominent member of the Salafist group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Jusuf Barčić who died in car accident in 2011. After Barčić's death he was de facto a leader of the Bosnian salafists.

He got the attention from the media for making controversisal statements at public appearances. In one of his songs made in July 2011, he wrote "with explosives on our chests we pave the way to paradise" and praised "beautiful Jihad that has risen over Bosnia", while wishing that "God willing, America will be destroyed to its foundations".

He was known to the media for his controversial statements at khutbahs (Friday prayers). In one of them, made in May 2011, he supported Osama bin Laden, calling him a "shahid" (martyr), adding that "he will always remain alive as he died on the Allah's path". In another khutbah made in February 2013, he called for Croats and Serbs to pay a religious tax. In his various khutbas, he also advocated the "victory of Islam", promoting war and bloodshed. Moreover, in 2012 he called for other Muslims to join the Jihad and to defend Islam, for which he was briefly arrested and soon released.

In April 2013, he came under the investigation from the police under the suspicion that he lives in a poligamy. Bosnić lived for years with his four wives in one house. Bosnić came under critics from the NGO organisations specialised in protecting women's rights. However, he wasn't prosecuted because he is in a marriage with only one of them.

Bosnić is known for recruiting European Muslims for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). In one of his khutbas in August 2014, he called young men to join Jihad and to defend the ISIS. Even though his khutba was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, Bosnić denied he ever said that.

Bosnić was involved in recruiting some 50 Italians, most of whom were young men from the northern Italy, to join the ISIL. For the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, he told that the American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by the ISIL Islamists in August 2014, "was a spy" and called killing "justified". He also added that "[We] Muslims believe that one day the whole world will be an Islamic state. Our goal is to make sure that even the Vatican will be Muslim. Maybe I will not be able to see it, but that time will come". He was investigated in 2013 by the Italian police for involvement in the recruitments. The ISIS official magazine, the Dabiq, also quoted Bosnić's words.

For his calling of men to jihad and promoting terrorism, he was arrested by the Bosnian-Herzegovinian State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) on 3 September 2014, along with his 15 associates in an action codnamed "Damask". Bosnić was ordered a one-month custody, which was prolonged for another two months on 3 October. Prior to his arrest, Bosnić was on a tour across Scandinavia and received $100,000 from a certain Kuwaiti.