Abdullah Ramo Pazara was a Bosnian-American who was suspected of an association with the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

(ISIL). He was born a member of Bosnia's Muslim majority, near

Teslić Teslić ( sr-cyrl, Теслић) is a town and municipality located in Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in the central part of the Republika Srpska, on the banks of Usora River. As of 2013, the town has a popul ...

an area of Bosnia largely populated by

Bosnian Serbs The Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sr-Cyrl, Срби у Босни и Херцеговини, Srbi u Bosni i Hercegovini) are one of the three constitutive nations (state-forming nations) of the country, predominantly residing in the politi ...

. He was a youth during the brutal civil war that lead to Bosnia's independence from

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

. ''

Atlantic magazine ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' described how the

Vojska Republike Srpske The Army of Republika Srpska ( sr, Војска Републике Српске/Vojska Republike Srpske; ВРС/VRS), commonly referred to in English as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of Republika Srpska (RS), the self-proclaimed Serb ...

, a Serbian militia, called upon non-Serbs to swear a loyalty oath to it. They reported some Bosnian sources claimed Pazara was enlisted, as a child soldier, and fought with the Serbian VRS, against his own people. They described his upbringing as ''"shattering"'', and that he seemed to have failed to adapt to peacetime civilian life. Pazara was born in

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

, and became an American citizen. US intelligence officials describe him becoming radicalized, after he became an American citizen, and then traveled to

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

in July 2013, and volunteered to fight for ISIS. However, according to the ''

St Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the ''Belleville News-Dem ...

'', Pazara was not naturalized until 2013. They described how he may have died there, but not before rising to a command position, and leading six other American ISIS followers to transfer funds to ISIS. Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, Sedina Unkic Hodzic, Medy Salkicevic, Jasminka Ramic, Armin Harcevic, and Nihad Rosic, the six individuals described as his conspirators, all faced terrorism charges on February 7, 2015. They too were all immigrants from Bosnia. In 2017 the six alleged co-conspirators who faced charges for helping to fund Pazara's activities in Syria filed a motion have their charges dropped, arguing he was a

lawful combatant Combatant is the legal status of an individual who has the right to engage in hostilities during an armed conflict. The legal definition of "combatant" is found at article 43(2) of Additional Protocol I (AP1) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It ...

, fighting against Syria's

Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...

government, while enlisted with militia groups that operated with the support of the US.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pazara, Abdullah Ramo Year of birth missing 2014 deaths Bosnia and Herzegovina emigrants to the United States Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant members