(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Bosnian security forces have made an arrest in connection with a fatal gun attack on a police station on Monday, branded a "terrorist" incident by one of the country's leaders.
Officers from Bosnia's State Investigation and Protection Agency detained one male on Tuesday, at an undisclosed location.
He is suspected of involvement in the attack on a police building in the eastern city of Zvornik, a town in Republika Srpska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia-Herzegovina.
A gunman stormed the building on Monday evening, killing one police officer and wounding two others before being shot dead. RTRS TV news channel reported the assailant had been armed with a shotgun.
Bosnian officials have identified the killer as 24-year-old Nerdin Ibric from a village near Zvornik.
Republika Srpska Interior Minister Dragan Lukac told local media Ibric also had a pistol and extra ammunition with him, while another shotgun was found in his car.
A police source speaking on Tuesday said SIPA had launched operations on two different addresses and that the detained suspect is being questioned in the northeastern city of Tuzla.
The incident has rocked the country, with the presidency, central government and the ethnic-Serb regional entity calling emergency meetings on Tuesday.
A special team of prosecutors from the Office of Terrorism has been set up to investigate the attack.
Meanwhile, relatives of the gunman gathered in Kucic Kula village near Zvornik on Tuesday.
Rajfa Tserkic, Nerdin Ibric's cousin, told an Anadolu Agency reporter that she was sorry both for what happened in the police station and how she lost her relative.
"I wish none of this ever happened. He was the only child of his mother. He lost his father when he was a baby. Everyone knows what a good person he was. Nobody knows how he did such a thing," Tserkic added.
Condemnation
The Bosnia-Herzegovina Presidency has strongly condemned the attack, saying:
"BiH Presidency expresses deep condolences to the family of Mr. Dragan Djuric, who was killed while performing his duties and expresses the hope for a speedy recovery for Zelko Gajic and Steve Milovanovic who were wounded during the attack."
Mladen Ivanic, chairman of three-member Bosnian presidency, earlier described the incident as "a classic terrorist attack."
House of Representatives Chairman Sefik Dzaferovic said that an "attack on a police station is an attack on the state."
Meanwhile, some media outlets in the country are reporting that Nerdin Ibric's father was one of many Bosnian Muslims who were murdered in Zvornik during the 1992-1995 war by ethnic-Serb paramilitaries.
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