According to Olivier Roy and Antoine Sfeir , the " organized project undertaken by preachers and Islamic NGOs " was to " expunge indigenous Albanian ideas about Islam , before replacing it with a version of the faith more in conformity with the Wahhabi model . ... Islam in its most radical form was taught as the only true faith , while tolerance was seen as an indication of weakness . ... Hatred of the West was raised to the status of a creed . " One of the first Islamists to come to Albania was Muhammad al Zawahiri , ( the brother of Ayman al Zawahiri , the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement and Osama Bin Laden 's key lieutenant ) as an accountant for the International Islamic Relief Organization ( IIRO ) . ( Unbeknownst to Albanians , in addition to helping with relief and spreading correct Islam , IIRO was charged with the task of helping other members of Islamic Jihad find jobs within " charitable organizations building mosques , orphanages and clinics . " By the mid-1980s , the Tirana cell of Islamic Jihad numbered 16 members , including a specialist in false identity documents , a recruit wanted on suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination . This was later exposed during an investigation carried out by the American and Albanian secret services , In June 1998 three Egyptian Islamist accused of terrorist activities were arrested in Albania , with further arrests in September after the 1998 United States embassy bombings . ) How successful the proselytizing has been is unclear . Roy and Sfeir believe that with NGO work in the 1990s " Islamists gained an important foothold " , however , a 2012 Pew Research study found that only 15 % of Muslims surveyed considered religion " a very important factor " in their lives — the lowest percentage in the world amongst countries with significant Muslim populations
1998 United States embassy bombings
1998 United States embassy bombings
International propagation of Salafism and Wahhabism by region