Prime Minister Calls Charges 'Ridiculous'ZAGREB, Croatia, April 26 (AP) — Authorities are holding a group of Bosnians with ties to police and security services on suspicion of plotting to kill a rebel Muslim leader living in exile in Croatia. But Bosnia’s prime minister denied today that Iranian agents are training Bosnian commando units to kill or capture enemies of his government. “All speculation that Iranians are present in Bosnia-Herzegovina ... either in police or military forces, are ridiculous” and are aimed at undermining peace, said Hasan Muratovic.
Muratovic was in Bonn, Germany, attending a meeting of leaders of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat federation. Croatian security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said they had no evidence to confirm published reports that Iranian-trained groups were being sent to kill foes of the Bosnian government. The New York Times, quoting unidentified sources in Zagreb, reported today that the Bosnian government had dispatched Iranian-trained commando units to kill or capture enemies. It said the existence of the groups came to light after five Bosnians were arrested in the Adriatic town of Senj on April 4.
Weapons and explosives found with the group showed “without doubt that the group was preparing a terrorist attack,” Croatian TV said at the time. Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic said today the target was Fikret Abdic, a Muslim from the northwest Bosnian region of Bihac. But Granic also said he had been assured by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic that “there are no people in the Bosnian government who are in connection with these people.”
Croatian security sources said earlier this month that the four Muslim men arrested in Croatia all carried documents from the Bosnian Interior Ministry in Bihac, where Abdic is bitterly hated. Abdic broke with the Muslim-led Bosnian government during the long war and reached an accommodation with Serbs who surrounded the Bihac area.
The Croatian security sources said one of the arrested men was with the Bosnian government’s Agency for Investigation and Documentation, which answers to Izetbegovic. Three were employees of the Bosnian Interior Ministry, the Croatian sources said. A woman who was traveling with the group has been identified as the girlfriend of one of the would-be assassins, and is likely to be a witness for the prosecution, the sources said.
Croatian security sources said they had no information linking the group to Iran. In a visit to Sarajevo today, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, said that not all foreign forces had yet withdrawn from Bosnia as they must under the Dayton peace agreement. But he said they did not currently pose a direct threat to the NATO-led peace force. He did not directly address allegations of Iranian-trained hit squads.
Muratovic challenged anyone to find Iranian agents in Bosnia. “We have offered many times to any international commission to search every square inch of our country” for armed Iranians or other foreign soldiers forbidden by the Dayton peace accord, he said. If any are found, he said, the Bosnian government will work with NATO-led peace-enforcers to throw them out of the country.
Iranian Operatives Said Still in Bosnia
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