The dispute comes as Muslim-majority Bosnia has accused Croatia for about a year of interfering in its internal affairs. It has said that Croatia is trying to wrest increased political influence for the Croatian ethnic group in Bosnia. Croatia’s ultimate hope, some in Bosnia have alleged, is the formation of a separate Croatian entity within Bosnia.



Bosnia’s accusations of a plot to tarnish its reputation were first reported on Wednesday by a Bosnian investigative outlet, Zurnal. The publication said that a Bosnian man who lives in the European Union was intercepted when crossing the Croatian border by the country’s Security and Intelligence Agency.

Over time, the agency used the man’s support of groups associated with Salafism, a puritanical strain of Islam, to pressure him to take the weapons and explosives to a mosque in the vicinity of Zenica, a town northwest of Sarajevo. His support of Salifist causes, if known in the European Union country where he lives, would raise alarms.

It is not known when the man was intercepted by the Croats or how far the plot progressed.

The motivation of the Croatian security service, Mr. Mektic said in the interview with The Times, was to present Bosnia as a “country of terrorists and terrorist camps, and a threat to regional security.”

“They dug into his past and blackmailed him into doing this,” Mr. Mektic said. “This citizen was employed in a European Union country, and they threatened to cause problems for him there.”