The terrorist bombing took place in West Mostar, in Splitska Street, in front of the Mostar Police Department building, on September 18, 1997, at 11:40 PM, and the culprit was the terrorist with BH passport, Ahmed Zuhair Handal, from Sudan.
The attack seriously and lightly injured 29 people, including three police officers. A crater 240 cm wide and 85 cm deep was formed at the site of the explosion. The explosion destroyed 120 apartments, of which 56 were completely destroyed, and 120 cars, of which 46 completely.
SFOR was the first to arrive at the scene. The investigation began the day after and was led by the Herzegovina-Neretva County criminal police with the help of experts from Zagreb and Split. The next day in the morning, the investigation was completed.
Immediately after the attack, domestic and foreign security services became involved in investigating the perpetrators. Bosniak politicians and the media blamed Croats for the attack. As the attack took place shortly after the unification of the police in Mostar and the victory of the HDZ BiH in the municipal elections, peacekeepers offered three possible motives for planting the bomb. They explained the political motive by attacking the “newly established police force stationed in the Mostar Police Department”; they cited the criminal motive as the possibility that the “mafia” wanted to show the police that it was stronger after the last arrests; and a terrorist motive, which was aimed at as many victims as possible and as much material damage as possible. The third reason was the least considered because they considered it common for terrorists to take responsibility shortly after the attack. The suspicions of the Stabilization Forces later proved to be wrong.
The culprit for the terrorist attack was Ahmed Zuhair Handal, who was from Sudan. His name was made public by the spokesman of the Wahhabi community in BiH, Alu Husin Imad, nicknamed Abu Hamza, who said that the Wahhabi community “does not justify, but understands the crime.”
Handala and his associates carried out the terrorist attack in revenge toward the Croatian Defense Council.
The trial against Ahmed Zuhair Handala and his five aides began in May 1998.
Handala received a sentence of 10 years in prison but He was on the run. The participants in the terrorist attack, Ali Ahmed Ali Hamad (from Bahrain) and Nebil Ali Hill, aka Abu Yemen, were given eight and five years in prison, respectively.
SDA portal “Stav,” of course, reduces everything to the story “Well, they came through Croatia, so Tudjman planted it.”
If so – then why did Bakir Izetbegović go to Sudan, Palestine, Egypt and Iran to give thanks to their governments, why didn’t he “go to thank Croatia” too?
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