Bosnia puts jihadist arrested with weapons in detention

SARAJEVO: Bosnian authorities have ordered the detention of a jihadist who was arrested last week in Sarajevo in possession of a large quantity of weapons, prosecutors said Monday.
Emin Hodzic, 25, had already been sentenced last year to a year in prison for having joined the ranks of the Islamic State group in Syria in 2013 for three months.
Last week, he was arrested at Sarajevo's bus station, not far from the US embassy. In the boot of his car, police found a rocket-launcher, two automatic rifles, a large amount of ammunition, an anti-personnel mine, four grenades and two assault vests, according to the prosecution.
"Sarajevo's municipal tribunal ordered the detention of Emin Hodzic for one month," said the spokesman for the regional prosecutor's office, Azra Bavcic.
Hodzic has been charged with illegal possession of weapons and explosives.
The US embassy in Bosnia has been the target of a terrorist attack before.
In Oct 2011, Mevlid Jasarevic, an Islamic extremist, opened fire on the building with an automatic weapon for nearly an hour.
He wounded a police officer before being wounded himself by a sniper and arrested. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Around 1,000 citizens of Western Balkan countries have joined the ranks of jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq since 2012, according to figures announced last week at a conference on the topic in Slovenia.
But the flow has dried up, with more than 200 killed on the frontline. Another 300 or so have returned to the Balkan region. — AFP