Bosnia police arrest five, seize arms intended for Islamists in Sweden

Police in Bosnia have arrested five people suspected of trafficking arms to Islamists in Sweden and seized large amounts of weapons and military equipment, officials said on Friday, after a sixth person was held earlier in Sweden.

The arrests were made on Thursday during raids on seven locations in northwestern Bosnia by a police counter-terrorism unit in Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, said Mirna Miljanovic, head spokeswoman at the region's interior ministry.

Miljanovic said the action was in cooperation with Swedish police as part of an international operation codenamed "Wolf RS". All five arrested on Thursday were Bosnian Serbs, and the person detained last week in Sweden was of Bosnian origin, she said. Two others were on the run.

Miljanovic declined to give more details of those arrested, but a police source told Reuters the weapons were attended for the Swedish branch of Egypt's Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Swedish police and security officials declined to comment.

The Balkan region has been notorious as a route for smuggling arms into Western Europe.