Bosnian Police Arrests Six Alleged Islamist Militants

Bosnian police arrested two Islamic militants, suspected to be travelling to Syria, at Sarajevo airport on Tuesday evening as they were boarding the flight to Istanbul.

Four other alleged Islamists were detained overnight and on Wednesday in a coordinated operation carried out in several locations across the country, authorities reported.
 
Bosnia's State Protection and Investigation Agency, SIPA, said on Wednesday that three persons were arrested in Sarajevo and three others in Maglaj, Buzim and Velika Kladusa, in northern and northwestern Bosnia.
 
These arrests were part of the ongoing operation code-named "Damascus," aimed at severing the radical Islamic networks that are organizing the transport of Islamic fighters from Bosnia to battlefields in Iraq and Syria, SIPA said.

It added that the operation is being carried out in cooperation with other police agencies, including the Intelligence and Security Agency, OSA, and the State Border Police.  
 
Operation "Damascus" started in Bosnia in September, when 16 Bosnian Islamists were arrested at several locations, including one of the leaders of the local Wahhabi community, Husein Bosnic, aka Bilal. Eleven more alleged Islamists were arrested in November.

The operation is based on a law that the state parliament adopted last year, which bans Bosnian citizens from fighting abroad.
 
With its highly devolved governments, police agencies and judiciary, Bosnia is struggling to control local Islamic radicals.  
 
Security experts recently told Balkan Insight that some 160 Bosnian citizens have been fighting alongside different Islamic groups in Syria and Iraq over the past year and about 25 of them have been killed in the fighting or in suicide missions.