Albanian officials expressed mounting fears that the Islamic State is emerging in the nation.
Albania, a NATO member that borders Greece, has seen hardline Islamist mosques spring up across the during the past few years despite a long-held tradition of religious tolerance among the majority-Muslim population, the Washington Post reported Monday.
ISIS has successfully recruited more than 100 Albanians to join the terrorist group in the Middle East while the Albanian government pursues measures to halt the group’s reach from spreading domestically.
Officials sentenced nine individuals to prison last month for up to nearly two decades after they were accused of attempting to incite violent jihad among young Albanians. Parliament also passed laws barring involvement in ISIS.
But slow economic development and failures to expand trade and investment has left the nation trapped in poverty.
"Religion has never been the problem here; it’s education. It’s the lack of a developed civil society. And it’s poverty, especially in the remote areas," Ylli Manjani, Albania’s justice minister, told the Washington Post. "When you have a situation where people feel hopeless, extremists can fish in that pool."
The Washington Post reported:
Fears about radicalization began building two years ago when the first waves of Islamic State volunteers began leaving for Syria, urged onward in some cases by local clerics. In some remote villages in southeastern Albania, young Muslims in their teens and 20s left home in clusters, sending word later that they had arrived in Iraq or Syria. … Despite assurances of help from U.S. and European officials, Albanians still are having to confront such challenges without significant assistance.
"We have to give these people jobs, because if we fail to fight poverty and ignorance, things will only get worse," Manjani said. "Meanwhile, what we get from the [West] is the same promises for more training and more ‘capacity-building.’ What does that even mean?"
ISIS has already expanded its reach beyond Iraq and Syria.
The jihadist group doubled its number of militants in Libya during the past year with between 4,000 to 6,000 fighters present in the nation, the top U.S. military commander in Africa said in April. ISIS has also significantly expanded its presence in Afghanistan.