NATO Reportedly Foils Plot by Foreign Fighters in Bosnia, Including Iranians

French soldiers raided a house in the suburbs of Sarajevo on Thursday and broke up a plot by foreign fighters, some of them Iranian, to attack NATO installations in Bosnia, a senior State Department official said.

Found in the home occupied by 11 fighters, at least five of them Iranians who were believed to have left the former Yugoslav republic, were ammunition, weapons and explosives, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials refused to say if the house was located in territory controlled by the Muslim-Croat federation or on Serb-held land. NATO spokesman Maj. Peter Bulloch said the 11 people were being held for investigation.

“The facts, so far, strongly suggest a serious violation [of the peace agreement] . . . that prohibits the presence of foreign forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” NATO said in a brief statement.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the United States will raise the incident at a conference on enforcing peace in Bosnia that is due to open in Rome on Saturday.

The Bosnian government was supposed to expel foreign fighters, including Iranians, who were brought into the country to help beat back advances by rebel Serbs. The fighters’ expulsion is required under the Dayton peace accords negotiated in November with Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia.

The two-day conference is designed to shore up the settlement. Disputes over remaining foreign fighters, exchanges of prisoners and war crime suspects avoiding arrest have threatened the future of the accord designed to end 3 1/2 years of war in Bosnia.

Burns said the foreign fighters were required to leave Bosnia by Jan. 19. He said U.S. diplomats attending the Rome conference will make a point of the need to scrupulously enforce the accords.