ZAGREB, March 14, 2019 - Bosnian Security Minister Dragan Mektić said on Wednesday that "Croatian intelligence agents" had been involved in a secret operation designed to show that armed groups of Islamic extremists were active in Bosnia and Herzegovina and thus justify earlier statements by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović that there were thousands of Islamic extremists in Bosnia and Herzegovina who posed a threat to regional security.
Mektić said the persons directly involved in those activities were Croatia's consul-general in Tuzla, Ivan Bandić, and Republika Srpska Radio-Television reporter Mato Đaković, who is known as a person close to Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency chair Milorad Dodik.
"Over the past few years we have obtained information that the Croatian intelligence service has been working on recruiting our citizens... Croatia's consul in Tuzla, Ivan Bandić, and a number of other people were recruited for an intelligence operation regarding the armament of the local Salafis," Mektić was quoted by the Sarajevo-based news website Faktor as saying.
The minister gave the statement after another news website, Žurnal, earlier in the day ran an intricate story describing how Croatian intelligence agents threatened some Bosnia and Herzegovina nationals into taking weapons to Muslim places of worship in the country, which was then to be reported to police and the reports would have served as proof for claims about the danger of Islamic extremism.
Žurnal said that along with consul Bandić, also involved in the alleged operation was Deputy Security Minister Mijo Krešić of the Croat HDZ BiH party, recalling Krešić's repeated statements about numerous groups of Islamic extremists in Bosnia and Herzegovina numbering thousands of members.
The news website says reporter Mato Đaković acted as a linkman with the Bosnian Serb entity authorities which are also interested in exploiting theories about the danger of Islamic radicals in Bosnia and Herzegovina, offering as proof of Đaković's connection with consul Bandić his having used the consul's official car in Tuzla under suspicious circumstances.
Đaković allegedly saw to it that persons recruited by Croatian intelligence agents in the Serb entity took over the weapons.
Security Minister Mektić said that those allegations were true. "We followed the activities for a while... and foiled them. The person involved was reporter Mato Đaković, who even used Ivan Bandić's diplomatic vehicle for that purpose," Mektić said, adding that the entire intelligence operation was aimed at "brutally discrediting Bosnia and Herzegovina" and proving claims by the Croatian president that Bosnia and Herzegovina was a country where terrorist camps exist.
More news about relations between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina can be found in the Politics section.
