Bosnia Arrests Alleged ISIS Activist

The prosecutor’s office on Wednesday said that the arrested man, Kenan Krso, was believed to have broken the law by going to fight in Syria and breaching the peace by publicly agitating for ISIS in Sarajevo.

“The prosecutor’s office and police and security agencies learned that this suspect stayed for a short period on the territory of Syria, and that he is in contact with people from the so-called ‘Wahhabi movement’ from Bosnia and Herzegovina who, as members of ISIS and paramilitary units, fight on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, which is forbidden by law for citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the prosecutor said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency said that Krso could face terrorism charges.

“This person is suspected of participating in certain activities that could be connected with terrorism,” it said in a statement.

“During the raid, a firearm without proper documentation was found and temporarily confiscated, as well as other items,” it added.

In January this year, Krso was among a group of men who insulted an imam and promoted radical Islamism at Friday prayers in one of Sarajevo’s mosques.

In February, Krso again caused a public disturbance by wearing a T-shirt with Islamic State symbols in downtown Sarajevo.  

Security experts and intelligence officials say that over the past year or so, some 160 Bosnians have joined Islamic State or al-Qaeda forces fighting in Syria and Iraq.

A number have been reportedly killed in fighting or during suicide-bombing missions. Several people who fought in the Middle East have now returned to Bosnia, increasing security concerns. 

Bosnia last year passed a law that bans citizens from fighting in foreign countries, which enabled police and intelligence agencies over the past two months to arrest more than a dozen alleged radical Islamists believed to have fought abroad, or to be recruiting others. 

The Bosnian Islamic Community has criticized those who go to fight overseas and distanced itself from Islamic radicalism, which emerged in the country for the first time at the beginning of the 1990s during the Bosnian war.