Man Shot, Held after Firing at U.S. Mission in Sarajevo
A suspected radical Islamist gunman who opened fire Friday near the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo was wounded and arrested, a police spokesman told Bosnian television.
"The person who fired an automatic weapon was wounded and arrested during the police operation. After receiving medical treatment on the scene the person was hospitalized," police spokesman Irfan Nefic told national BHT television.
Earlier media reports said the man, identified as a member of the Wahhabi branch of Islam, was killed by a sniper after firing a Kalashnikov rifle at the U.S. mission.
Embassy spokeswoman Sanja Pejcinovic would not go into details of the apparent attack.
"We can confirm there has been an incident in front of the embassy. The building is closed and we are waiting for the police to seal off the area," she told Agence France Presse.
Bosnian national radio said police were searching the vicinity of the embassy for possible accomplices.
"Several police patrols were sent to the scene. Two police men were wounded, one in the leg and one in the head," the radio reported.
Jasminka Fisic, who was close to the embassy -- located in the center of Sarajevo near the iconic Holiday Inn hotel -- told AFP by telephone that the entire area was sealed off with police cars speeding towards the embassy.
Bosnia is home to a small minority of followers of Wahhabism, a strict and ultra-conservative brand of Islam which is dominant in Saudi Arabia.
During Bosnia's 1992-95 war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs, a large number of volunteers from Muslim nations flocked to the Balkan country to take up arms.
Many of these Muslim fighters stayed on after the conflict and obtained Bosnian citizenship. Some in the mostly moderate Bosnian Muslim community have converted to the more radical Islam preached by several ex-mujahedeen.
Source: Agence France Presse
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