The interior ministers of BiH, Serbia, and Montenegro met in the Montenegrin capital on Tuesday to discuss “the threat from radical Islamist movements in the region and ways to prevent it through joint efforts.” Despite recent reports to the contrary, BiH Interior Minister Dragan Mektic denied that BiH is a “centre for militant training and recruitment,” and that there are 4,000 BiH citizens affiliated with ISIS.
He said however that some 300 people from his country are currently fighting in Syria and Iraq. Fifty Bosnian citizens have returned from the Middle East battlefields, while 30 were killed there, he added.
Mektic said that members of the hardline Wahhabi movement were also a real threat to regional security and that some of them could be recruited for foreign war zones.
Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic told a joint press conference that radical Islamism was a new phenomenon in the region and that police and governments “must ensure … that citizens feel stability and security”.
