2 Mosques Blown Up in Bosnia

Two 16th-Century mosques were blown up in the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Banja Luka on Friday in an attack condemned by the United Nations as an attempt by extremists to terrorize Muslims into flight.

Sources in the northern Bosnian town, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, said police sealed the area around the Ferhad-Pasha and Arnaudija mosques following two powerful blasts.

The lavishly decorated Ferhad-Pasha Mosque, renowned as one of the most beautiful in the former Yugoslav federation, was built in 1583 and the Arnaudija Mosque in 1587.

A spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said both mosques apparently had been flattened.

“Our sources said the mosques had been completely leveled aside from the minarets, but these won’t be able to stand for long without their supporting structure,” refugee agency spokesman Peter Kessler said in Zagreb.

He said a third Banja Luka mosque used to house displaced Muslims may also have been damaged by explosions.

The destruction of mosques has been a feature of Bosnia’s civil war and has usually been blamed on followers of Serbian radical leader Vojeslav Seselj.

Five mosques were blown up in a single night in March in the northern Bosnian town of Bijeljina, apparently by Serbian soldiers angered by the killing of comrades in a Muslim ambush.

Banja Luka, controlled by hard-line radicals, commands the corridor that Serbian forces control across northern Bosnia.