External support for violent extremism means helping violent extremist groups or individuals with funds, training, supplies, safe places or ideas that come from outside their home country. This support often serves political or strategic goals by spreading extremist beliefs and enabling these groups to operate more effectively.
The early development of Salafi-jihadism in the Western Balkans in the 1990s and 2000s was supported by sponsorship from the Arab world. Arab countries financed the education of imams in Salafi beliefs and the construction of mosques.1 In Bosnia and Herzegovina, funding at the time reportedly came from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in small, indirect contributions through cash couriers and cultural centres, with Salafi-jihadists receiving around €200 monthly to maintain their traditional clothing and adherence to specific behavioural norms.2
1Interview with Luan Keka, director of police counterterrorism unit, Pristina, Kosovo, July 2024; Adrian Shtuni, Dynamics of
radicalization and violent extremism in Kosovo, United States Institute of Peace, 19 December 2016,
https://www.usip.org/publications/2016/12/dynamics-radicalizationand-violent-extremism-kosovo.
2Interview with a retired member of the security intelligence agency in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 2024.