Bosnia Police Station Attack Raises Ethnic Tensions

Police and security agencies increased security levels after the attack on a police station in the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik on Monday evening which left one policeman dead and two injured.

The attacker, who was identified as Nerdin Ibric, a Bosniak born in 1991, was also killed in the shootout with police officers.

"For all those who believed that something like this could not happen in Republika Srpska, here, it happened now," the Interior Minister in the Serb-dominated entity, Dragan Lukac, told media.

"I am afraid this could be a start of much worse events in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We should undertake all measures to protect our citizens and institutions," he added.

Lukac and other Republika Srpska officials told media that the attacker, a local man from Sapna near Zvornik, parked his car in front of the police station and got out of the vehicle armed with a rifle and other weapons. He immediately started shooting at policemen while shouting "Allahu Akbar [God is the greatest]".

After policeman Dragan Djeric was shot, other officers killed the attacker. The two policemen who were wounded were treated in Zvornik hospital where their condition was said to be stable.

Another suspect, identified only by the initials A.F.H., was arrested on Tuesday and two locations in the Zvornik area were raided as police tried to find evidence connected to the case.

The incident was among the most serious in Bosnia in many years and raised tensions further amid an already fraught political situation in the ethnically-divided country.

It came after main Serb and Croat parties held congresses to elect new party leaderships over the weekend and reiterated that their respective strategic goals over the next four years will be...