Bosnian Police: 250 Arab Muslims Being MonitoredSARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)--Bosnian authorities have placed up to 250 Arab Muslims who fought in Bosnia's 1992-95 war under surveillance on suspicion that they may have terrorist links, a top police official said Thursday.
Zlatko Miletic, director of police for the Muslim-Croat part of Bosnia, told reporters the suspects all lived in or around the northeastern village of Gornja Maoca, where they settled after the war. Miletic said the Muslims were among 740 who obtained Bosnian passports during or just after the war, and that the names of nine men appeared on Egypt's list of most-wanted terrorist suspects.
He declined to identify the nine, and said Bosnian authorities couldn't be certain they were still in the country.
Police are keeping close tabs on Gornja Maoca's Muslims, and believe some have direct or indirect links to international terrorism, Miletic said. Some of the 250 under surveillance were suspected of involvement in the illegal smuggling of explosives, he said, but would not elaborate.
Several thousand mujahedeen, or Islamic fighters, came to Bosnia to fight on the Muslim side against Serbs and Croats after Bosnia dissolved into ethnic conflict in the early 1990s.
Bosnian authorities have stepped up their monitoring of fundamentalist Islamic groups and individuals since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.
In October, police in Sarajevo raided an apartment and arrested two men after seizing plastic explosives, a suicide belt and a videotape in which a masked man begged Allah's forgiveness for the sacrifice the group was about to commit. More suspects were arrested in Bosnia, the U.K. and Denmark in what authorities said was a terrorist cell plotting an attack on a European embassy.
February 16, 2006 08:14 ET (13:14 GMT)