Eight arrested in Bosnia after policeman's murder by teen
Weapons and munitions were confiscated, police said, in the raids in Bosanska Krupa, the north-western town where the teenager Thursday evening mortally stabbed an officer and wounded another in a police station before being arrested, and nearby Bihac.
SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (AFP) - Eight people were arrested in Bosnia overnight in connection with the murder of a policeman by a 14-year-old, police said Saturday, amid reports the attacker may have been radicalised.
Weapons and munitions were confiscated, police said, in the raids in Bosanska Krupa, the north-western town where the teenager Thursday evening mortally stabbed an officer and wounded another in a police station before being arrested, and nearby Bihac.
Bosanska Krupa lies 300 kilometres (186 miles) northwest of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo.
"The police discovered and seized in their homes a certain quantity of weapons, ammunition, telephones, computers, external disks, money, as well as papers with texts written in Arabic," said Adnan Beganovic, a spokesman for the police in the Bihac region.
He said all leads were being explored when asked if the police were focussing on the alleged radicalisation of the boy.
Local prosecutors had said it was a "terrorist" attack.
"This act was classed as a terrorist one because its motive was to attack a police station with the aim of intimidating the population," prosecutor Merima Mesanovic told a press conference on Friday.
She said they would be looking into whether "extremist groups" were behind the attack.
According to press reports and some experts, social media content posted by the teenager suggest he could have been radicalised.
About half of Bosnia's 3.5 million inhabitants are Muslim, with the rest Eastern Orthodox or Catholic.
Only a tiny minority of the Muslim population are linked to radical movements, though some 250 to 300 Bosnians joined the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq between 2012 and 2016, according to local authorities.