Bosnia Denies Ex-Aide’s Intelligence Role

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic has strenuously denied that a former Bosnian government official with close ties to Iran has taken on an unofficial intelligence role for Bosnia.

In response to an article last Thursday in The Times, a spokesman for Izetbegovic issued a statement denying that Hasan Cengic, Bosnia’s former deputy defense minister, is setting up an underground intelligence network heavily influenced by Iran.

The statement came as State Department officials on Wednesday again confirmed the existence of a U.S. intelligence report that alleges Cengic has been working unofficially to set up an underground intelligence network for Izetbegovic.

The Times article said that the classified report had raised new questions about the level of continuing Iranian influence in Bosnia, while setting off a debate within the Clinton administration about the validity of the classified information.

Some senior administration officials said that they did not consider the report to be accurate and stressed that they believed the Izetbegovic government had severed its military and intelligence ties to Iran.

“The cabinet of President Izetbegovic is authorized to announce that this information is untrue and that it is fabricated from the first to the last word,” the statement said.

Last week, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said that the Bosnian government “is not conducting, we believe, an operational intelligence program with the Iranian government, or a military assistance program with the Iranian government.”

However, Burns said at the time that he would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the intelligence report on the matter.

Cengic was an international arms dealer for the Bosnian Muslims during the bloody Bosnian war, and played a central role in Bosnia’s secret arms pipeline from Iran, which was shut down in January 1996.