SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A man armed with hand grenades and an automatic weapon opened fire outside the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia on Friday in what authorities called a terrorist attack. A police officer and the gunman were wounded, but the embassy said none of its employees was hurt.
Sarajevo Mayor Alija Behmen said the gunman “got off a tram with a Kalashnikov and started shooting at the American Embassy.” Witnesses told Bosnian television that the man urged pedestrians to move away, saying he was targeting only the embassy.
He had a beard and was dressed in an outfit with short pants that revealed his ankles — typical for followers of the conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam.
One police officer guarding the building was wounded before police surrounded the gunman. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and AP video showed the shooter slump to the ground.
Police arrested the wounded man — who one of Bosnia’s three presidents said is a foreigner — and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians cowered behind buildings and vehicles. Hospital spokeswoman Biljana Jandric said the gunman had a minor wound to his leg and would spend the night at the hospital before being released into police custody.
State Prosecutor Dubravko Campara identified the shooter as Mevlid Jasarevic, from Novi Pazar, the administrative capital of the southern Serbian region of Sandzak, who was tried in Austria for robbery in 2005.
Campara said Jasarevic had crossed the Serbian border into Bosnia on Friday morning. He said Jasarevic had two hand grenades with him when he was arrested and is also under investigation by Serbian police, but did not detail why.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said several bullets struck the outside wall of the embassy, but all embassy personnel were safe. She said the wounded police officer had been assigned to protect the embassy.
Zeljko Komsic, chairman of Bosnia’s presidency, told AP that authorities have not yet determined whether the attack “was the act of an individual, or something organized.”
