Bosnian officials and experts reacted in various ways to the information that arms Bosnia sent to Saudi Arabia had ended up in Syria, which was published within an investigation by The Independent last week. Some said it was a serious concern that needs to be looked into, while others said it was "propaganda".

“Five-hundred mortars is a massive shipment of weapons – most European armies don’t have that many in their individual inventories – and some of them at least appear to have ended up in the hands of Bashar al-Assad’s Islamist Nusrah Front/al-Qaeda enemies in northern Syria within six months of their dispatch from Bosnia 1,200 miles away,” The Independent’s Robert Fisk wrote.  

In his article Fisk also said that he found documents in Syria which contain signatures of a Bosnian who signed of on the shipment. He wrote that he interviewed the person, who confirmed it was his signature.  

“If it is found that this is true, then an investigation must be initiated, as procedures are clear here. There is documentation and the tracking of every piece of weaponry, if it was exported legally, and it can be determined how it got there. If what we saw in the media is true, an investigation must be initiated,” said Bosnia’s Foreign Minister, Igor Crnadak.  

But the entire story is completely “displaced”, according to the former Minister of Energy in the Government of the Federation (FBiH), one of Bosnia’s two semi-autonomous entities.  

“I think that these articles were written in very bad faith. I think that this is coming from propagandists of Assad’s (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) regime,” he said, accusing the journalist behind the story of being “part of the machinery of Bashar al-Assad”.

“As you know, Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the establishment of ISIS and this is actually an attempt to steer the story about arming ISIS in the direction of other countries,” he said.  

But the investigation does carry some weight, according to security expert Jasmin Ahic.  

“It is another segment that shows that in this region, apart from declarative political and security threats, there is a good basis for an eventually problematic situation if some unwanted incidents in Bosnia and Herzegovina would occur before or after the election,” he said.  

Both Bajrovic and Ahic believe that this issue is part of continuous geopolitical games which are played not only in regard to Bosnia, but also to the entire Western Balkan region and that these games will continue in the future.