Croatian president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic stated that there are several thousand radicalized people in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Austria’ first diplomat stated that women are being paid to cover their hair in Sarajevo, and the Czech president stated that BiH could become a new base for the Islamic State.
Today – a sharp and unanimous reply by the chairman of the Council of Ministers, the minister of security and the heads of the security and intelligence agencies. The message – BiH isn’t a base for terrorist grups.
The last time the flag of the Islamic State flew in Maoca was in 2015. But it was already taken down before SIPA came. After that, there was a news report in 2016 saying that the ISIL flag was hung up again, but that was never confirmed. Analyzing the past two years, the conclusion of the authorities is:
“ISIS flags do not fly over Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
That was the response to news reports and statements made by some European officials regarding the existence of five to ten thousand radicals and alleged training camps for terrorists. Sarajevo decided to defeat and discredit these false claims at a meeting between Zvizdic with the minister of security and the heads of the security and intelligence agencies.
“We don’t have such information at our disposal, we deny that information. If someone has that information, especially our neighbors, we call on them to deliver them to us,” Zvizdic said.
Even though, among others, the head of the OSA Osman Mehmedagic and the director of SIPA Perica Stanic were at the meeting, only Zvizdic and Mektic answered reporters’ questions.
The joint conclusion was that the authorities are cooperating well, which the reason that there have been no terrorist acts in the past two years in BiH. BiH citizens participated in 0 of the 143 terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIS. However, the minister admits that there were instances where the intelligence agencies did uncover terrorist attacks.
“We do remember certain events which can have a connection with terrorism. Our agencies are identifying individuals and plots,” Mektic said.
(Source: N1.ba)
