In the early hours of Sunday, U.S. Secret Service agents shot an armed man outside the White House, according to an official statement.
President Donald Trump, of course, wasn’t there. His weekends are sacred, reserved for Mar-a-Lago and Florida, far from Washington, where the occasional new Mevlid Jašarević might show up—except Jašarević, back in the day, fired his Kalashnikov at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo for much, much longer, and no one shot him.
The White House incident began Saturday when local authorities alerted Secret Service agents that a suicidal man from Indiana was en route to Washington. His car was found just one block away, and when approached by police, he brandished a firearm. Shots were fired shortly after midnight.
The man was taken to a nearby hospital, but his current condition remains unknown.
Jašarević, on the other hand, had a much better outcome. While he was unloading rounds at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, he was meticulously filmed, observed, and analyzed through sniper scopes—but no trigger was pulled.
When the long-awaited order finally came from the embassy—“Take that piece of trash down.”—panic broke out among the staff.
“Don’t shoot him, ambassador, please.”
“Excuse me?” the ambassador asked.
“Bolan, he’s one of ours.”
“Ours?”
“Ours, bolan.”
And so our Mevlid, after running out of ammunition, was neatly arrested, processed, and sentenced. Lucky for him, he didn’t show up in front of the White House—because there, apparently, they don’t ask whether you’re “ours” or “theirs” before pulling the trigger.
Will Mevlid Get a Job at the U.S. Embassy After Prison?
Once he’s out, will Mevlid Jašarević, as “ours,” be welcomed with open arms at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo? Will he greet visitors with a beaming “Selam Alejkum, brothers!” instead of today’s Iranian and Bosnian administrative security specialists with questionable clearance?
Allah knows best.
Because if past practices are anything to go by, anything is possible. After all, hasn’t the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo already proven itself to be a warm and inclusive workplace for individuals with strong credentials? Say, experience in shooting at the building itself?
Perhaps it’s all just a matter of ticking the right procedural boxes. If he manages to pass the interview without an assault rifle in hand, he’ll clear the self-control test. If he makes it through his first probationary week without opening fire, he could get a permanent contract. And if, during the official swearing-in, he solemnly declares, “So help me Allah and Osama bin Laden,” then all that’s left is a final certification in Saudi Arabia, and he’s officially part of the embassy’s vibrant, multicultural team.
And why not? If the ambassador can personally spare someone from sniper fire because he’s “ours,” surely there’s room for a man who just got a little too enthusiastic in his anti-imperialist sentiments.
As an old Sarajevo cynic might say—
“What terrorism, bolan? That was just a little misunderstanding in foreign policy interpretation.”
Who is Mevlid Jašarević?
Mevlid Jašarević is a Serbian citizen who carried out a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo on October 28, 2011. Armed with an AK-47, he fired at the embassy for almost an hour, injuring a policeman, Mirsad Velić, before finally being disabled by a sniper and arrested.
What makes this case a shocking precedent is the fact that he was not killed on the spot—a rarity when attacking a U.S. diplomatic mission, as most countries’ security forces immediately neutralize such threats. Instead, Jašarević was allowed to surrender alive, later receiving a 15-year prison sentence after his original 18-year term was reduced due to his “expression of remorse.”
Jašarević is currently serving his sentence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is seeking a transfer to Serbia, citing family reasons.
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