Filed at 10:47 a.m. ET
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Al-Qaida terrorists planned a
devastating attack on Americans in Sarajevo after meeting in Bulgaria to
identify European targets, a high-ranking Bosnian official said
Saturday.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated
Press that intelligence reports on the meeting in Sofia, the Bulgarian
capital, prompted a special government session Thursday night to discuss
threats against the U.S. Embassy and embassies of European countries. He
did not name the countries.
At the Sofia meeting, members of al-Qaida decided that ``in Sarajevo
something will happen to Americans similar to New York last September,''
said the official. He did not say when the al-Qaida meeting was held or
who attended.
The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia shut down to the public on Wednesday after
receiving word of a possible terrorist threat. The embassy closed entirely
on Friday.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Karen Williams declined to comment on the
situation Saturday. Bosnian special police forces were seen around the
compound along with normal U.S. security units.
In Sofia, Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry said it had received no
information on such a meeting, either ``from Bosnian authorities or from
any other official sources.'' It promised an investigation if ``this
information proves to be serious.''
On Tuesday, just a day before the U.S. Embassy received the threats,
Bosnian police raided an Islamic charity, Bosnian Ideal Future, also known
as Benevolentia International Foundation, seizing weapons, plans for
making bombs, booby-traps and bogus passports.
On Friday, police announced they had arrested Munib Zahiragic, a
Bosnian citizen and the head of the Bosnian chapter of the charity.
Zahiragic is also a former member of the Bosnian Muslim secret police,
AID.
Zahiragic was arrested on charges of espionage, which carries a maximum
10 years in prison. No details on whom he was supposed to be spying for
were released.
As a part of the war on terrorism, Bosnia's government in January
ordered an investigation into the work of foreign humanitarian agencies.
Two weeks ago, investigators reported funds were missing from three
Islamic charities, among them Benevolentia.
The United States recently froze the assets of Benevolentia, with head
offices in Illinois and New Jersey.
The U.S. and British embassies were closed for several days in October
because of terrorist threats. They reopened after local police arrested
six naturalized Bosnians, all of them Algerian natives, suspected of
plotting post-Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. interests in Bosnia and
elsewhere.
The suspects were handed over to U.S. authorities in January, and now
are being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Five of
the six were employed as humanitarian aid workers; one was suspected of
being Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant for Europe.
More than 1 million Muslims live in Bosnia, most of them native to the
country but also including dozens of former Islamic fighters, or
mujahedeen, who came mostly from the Middle East to fight on the Muslim
side in the 1992-1995 war against the country's Serbs and
Croats.
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