Bosnian Serb Police Foil 'Terrorist Attack' on Hotel

Police in Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated entity of Bosnia, on Friday seized a huge quantity of flammable liquids, explosives and fireworks that were going to be used "in a possible terrorist attack".

The action took place at the Hotel Dallas in Janja, a village in northeast Bosnia.

Police had "information that somebody was planning a terrorist attack or some other serious crime, with the goal of damaging the security of our citizens and inciting religious, ethnic and racial hatred", Aleskandra Simojlovic, spokesperson of the police, told BIRN.

"Police raided the hotel and found a big quantity of flammable liquids and explosives, which were connected to each other and had been prepared to destroy the building", she added.

Asked if this potential attack had any connection with organized crime, Simojlovic said that the investigation was "still ongoing", and declined to further comment.

Janja is located near the town of Bijeljina, which is mainly inhabited by Muslim returnees who suffered ethnic cleansing during the Nineties.

It is only a few kilometers north of Zvornik, where last April Nerdin Ibric, a Bosniak born in 1991, attacked a police station in what the authorities in Banja Luka called a terrorist attack, murdering one policemen and injuring other two before being killed.