SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A man armed with hand grenades and an automatic weapon opened fire Friday outside the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia in what authorities called a terrorist attack. A policeman and the gunman were wounded, but the embassy said none of its employees was hurt.
Sarajevo Mayor Alija Behmen said the gunman “got off a tram with a Kalashnikov and started shooting at the American Embassy.” Witnesses told Bosnian television that the man urged pedestrians to move away, saying he was targeting only the embassy.
He wore a beard and was dressed in an outfit with short pants that reveal his ankles, typical for followers of the conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam.
One police officer guarding the building was wounded before police surrounded the gunman. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and video showed the gunman slump to the ground.
Police arrested the wounded man, who one of Bosnia’s three presidents said is a foreigner, and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians cowered behind buildings and vehicles. Hospital spokesman Biljana Jandric said the gunman had a minor leg wound and would spend the night at the hospital before being released into police custody.
State Prosecutor Dubravko Campara identified the gunman as Mevlid Jasarevic, fromNovi Pazar, the administrative capital of the southern Serbian region of Sandzak, who was tried in Austria on robbery charges in 2005.
Campara said Jasarevic had crossed the Serbian border into Bosnia on Friday morning. He said Jasarevic had two hand grenades with him when he was arrested and is also under investigation by Serbian police but did not detail why.
Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed Jasarevic’s identity and said he is 23 years old. Bosnian TV said Jasarevic is a Wahhabi follower.
The Wahhabis are an extremely conservative branch that is rooted in Saudi Arabiaand linked to religious militants in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Western intelligence reports have alleged that the tense, impoverished area of Sandzak, along with Muslim-dominated regions in Bosnia, is rich ground for recruiting “white al-Qaida,” Muslims with Western features who could easily blend into European or U.S. cities and carry out attacks.
The Islamic extremists joined Bosnia’s 1992-95 war for independence. They were largely tolerated by the United States and the West because of their opposition to late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s quest to create “GreaterSerbia” out of the former Yugoslav republics.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said several bullets struck the outside wall of the embassy but that all embassy workers were safe. She said the wounded police officer had been assigned to protect the embassy. Ambassador Patrick Moon expressed his gratitude for the swift response by the police.
“Our thoughts and prayers at this time are with those who put their lives on the line to protect the embassy,” Nuland said.
Bakir Izetbegovic, one of Bosnia’s three presidents, issued a statement condemning “the terrorist attack on the embassy of the United States.”
“The United States is a proven friend of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its government and its people supported us in the most difficult moments in our history and nobody has the right to jeopardize our relations,” he said.
Zeljko Komsic, chairman of Bosnia’s presidency, said authorities have not yet determined whether the attack “was the act of an individual, or something organized.”
“But whatever it was, it is not just an attack on the U.S. Embassy or the U.S., it is also an attack on Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.
Bosnian Muslims are extremely protective of their relations with the United States because it was the driving force behind NATO military intervention and brokered a peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s war.
The head of Bosnia’s Islamic Community, Mustafa Ceric, condemned the attack late Friday and said “the attack on the U.S. Embassy is an attack on us.”
“We will confront every individual or group that jeopardizes the peace and security in this city and this country,” he said in a statement.
Serbian police said Jasarevic was briefly arrested a year ago for brandishing “a large knife” during a visit by the U.S. ambassador to Serbia and other Western envoys to Novi Pazar.
Information for this article was contributed by Aida Cerkez and Dusan Stojanovic of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 10/29/2011