Terror threat

The Black Flag in the Balkans: The Islamic State Has Spread to Bosnia

The Islamic State (IS) has settled into a small, unstable European country that has long played host to jihadists: Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The German magazine Der Spiegel recently reported that residents of some tiny, remote villages in the country's mountainous north obey Sharia law and fly the militant group's black flag. The villages serve as "safe houses" for radicals who have helped as many as 300 Bosnians join IS in Iraq and Syria — accounting for one of the highest proportions of jihadists from Europe, the magazine wrote.

Additionally, the Bosnian government discovered that Bosnian weapons were used in the IS-inspired attack on the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo attacks, and ex-Yugoslav-manufactured weapons were used in the Bataclan music hall massacre in Paris,Der Spiegel reported.