Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegovic was sending warmongering messages when he spoke of the country’s arms industry producing its own weapons for “just in case,” Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik said Friday.

The Bosniak member of the country’s tripartite Presidency was attending a ceremony marking the 26th anniversary of the establishment of the Bosnian Army which fought against the country’s Serb and Croat forces during the 1992-95 war and no longer exists.  

A few years after the war, all three were dismantled and melted into one, joint Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

Izetbegovic said Bosnia won’t waste its money on buying rocket systems and fighter planes but rather rely on its own armed industry which will produce for export but also for “just in case, God forbid.”

He added that he does not believe anyone would dare to start a conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina as this would be too dangerous and produce a maelstrom that would “swallow the one who started it.”  

“He doesn’t have an army, he doesn’t have a police force,” Dodik said, explaining that utilizing the country’s army requires approval from all three members of the Presidency, where a Serb also sits.  

Bosnia and Herzegovina is since the war divided into two semi-autonomous sub-states – one dominated by the Serbs, Republika Srpska, the other shared by Bosniaks and Croats, referred to as ‘the Federation.’  

Each sub-state has its own president, parliament and government. The two are linked by similar institutions into a state. Republika Srpska has its own police force while in the other sub-state, the Bosniaks have to share one with the Croats who would not support additional arming of that force, Dodik claimed.  

“Let him wait for that ‘God forbid’,” Dodik said.  

He then complained about the international community’s involvement in Bosnia after the war. He said they destroyed the arms industry Republika Srpska had while at the same time leaving six weapon and ammunition factories in the Federation operating.  

But “not even 16 factories could help him, not to mention six,” Dodik said of Izetbegovic.