In the month following al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on major American cities of New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, American intelligence analysts became concerned that Arab immigrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina planned to attack the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo.

[4][5] In early October 2001, under pressure from the United States, six men of Algerian descent were arrested by the police of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[citation needed] From October 2001 to January 2002, the six men went through the Bosnian equivalent of habeas corpus.

[6] On 28 October 2011, Mevlid Jašarević, a Wahhabi Islamist, fired on the embassy, and wounded a policeman.

He was eventually shot and wounded by a Ministry of Interior sniper, was given medical treatment and taken into custody afterwards.