Bosnia, Kosovo tighten noose on radical Islamists

Bosnian police have arrested 11 people on suspicion of plotting "militant acts", a week after a deadly Islamist attack on a police station, officials said Thursday.

The arrests were part of an operation to root out radical Islamists in the semi-autonomous Serb-run Republika Srpska (RS).

Those detained were suspected of having stockpiled weapons and explosives "aimed at committing militant acts against the institutions of the Republika Srpska and their representatives", prosecutors said in a statement.

Muslim politicians denounced the arrests as an attempt to "intimidate" the Muslim community.

The operation followed an attack last week by an Islamist radical in the eastern town of Zvornik.

Shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), a gunman opened fire on a police station, killing one officer and wounding two others before himself being shot dead by police.

"All those who have the ambition to realise their extremist and radical plans, regardless of their ethnic origin, should know that the police will do its best to stop them," Republika Srpska's Interior Minister Dragan Lukac told reporters.

Bosnia's devastating 1992-1995 war among Muslims, Croats and Serbs drew hundreds of fighters from across the Arab world in support of Muslim forces.

The foreign combattants' strict brand of Islam has been adopted by some Bosnian Muslims, dozens of whom are now fighting alongside Daesh and other jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, according to the intelligence services.

Neighbouring Kosovo is also battling an outflow of would-be jihadists.

Prosecutors there on Thursday indicted 32 people on terrorism charges over their links to insurgent groups in the Middle East.

"For some of the accused there is a suspicion that they have joined the militant group in Syria called Daesh. Others have invited citizens to join the terrorist group Daesh, while others have recruited and sent people to the Syrian war," the public prosecutor's office said.

The suspects, whose identity was not revealed, have been in detention since August 2014.
Source: AFP