Serbia to Aid Bosnia's Fight Against Terrorism

Tomislav Nikolic, the Serbian President, said that Bosnia's mainly Serbian entity, Republika Srpska, was unable to fight terrorism on its own, which is why Serbia felt obliged to give it aid.

Speaking after the terror attack in eastern Bosnia, he said that "citizens of Serbia and Republika Srpska can be completely calm. The authorities will do everything in their power to ensure the peace, security and safety of citizens.

"It is obvious that all the states in the Balkans must establish stronger and more concrete cooperation, that services must cooperate and exchange information," Nikolic said on April 29, after meeting Milorad Dodik, the Republika Srpska President.

Following the fatal attack by an Islamist gunman in Zvornik, eastern Bosnia, Dodik said he had discussed possible exchanges of information on terrorist threats in the region with Serbia's leaders.

"We know this terrorist was a member of one nation but we also know that all Bosniak people do not cherish those values and that we have to cooperate in order to fight extremism," Dodik said on Wednesday in Belgrade.

But he also complained of a lack of political will among Bosnia's Bosniak [Muslim] politicians to confront religious extremism, saying the fact that Republika Srpska had lost its jurisdiction over the security sector had been damaging.

"Our authorities were decreased at the behest of the international community. We plan to develop a new strategy for a security structure andare going to develop what we are entitled to have under the constitution," Dodik said.

On Monday, a 24-year-old Bosniak, Nerdin Ibric, from the village of Kucic Kula near Zvornik, drove his car in front of the police station armed with two rifles and a pistol. He shot one policeman at...