Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a breeding ground for terrorism and cannot be considered a training ground for terrorism and terrorist threats as it is being portrayed, security expert from the Faculty of Criminology, Criminology and Security Studies of the University of Sarajevo prof. Armin Kržalić.
Namely, the representatives of Republika Srpska in the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH sent a letter to the US Senate and Congress in which they stated “that BiH has long been a refuge for radical Islamists and that the nationalist policies of the largest Bosniak parties confirm the intention to rule BiH without Serbs and Croats”. In the letter, they stated that there are villages in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina where residents implement Sharia law, as well as that parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina inhabited by Bosniaks are still home to numerous Al Qaeda and ISIL sleeper cells that could potentially be activated if and when the order arrives.
Prof. Kržalić says that BiH, like other countries, is vulnerable to terrorism and extremism, and this is recognized in the strategies of other countries, which is why we say that BiH is no more or less vulnerable to terrorism than neighboring countries.
”By disseminating information about Islamic terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the aforementioned political actors are trying to increase political polarization within the country and create an environment in which it is more likely that terrorism will appear here. With this, they believe that the public will be more interested in such topics, and that they will be able to devote themselves to their retrograde activities in silence. That is what is dangerous,” he said.
Also, he emphasizes, in the depth of such ideas hides the intention to somehow convince foreign politicians that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a threat to the security of Europe and that it is not sustainable as such.
”We should not forget that access to the so-called “Islamic extremism” in BiH and “protecting Europe” from such a threat was in the narrative of convicted war criminals Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. And that narrative is trying to be revived with this irresponsible approach – said Kržalić.
However, he says, the fact that Bosnia and Herzegovina is encouraging. security institutions on this issue use a very wide range of prevention and deracalization measures.
”And the politicians from the smaller BiH entity diminish the importance of those facts because even after the war they failed to face the past. It would be good if they were at least objective and showed the real threats that the citizens recognize, which appear in the Ravnogorsk Chetnik Movement,” concluded Prof. Kržalić in an interview for Fena.
