Police in North Macedonia raided several locations last Friday to prevent a potential attack organised by the supporters of the Islamic State, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Items and devices linked to a possible attack were seized, the ministry said, without giving further details.
The U.S. Embassy in Skopje also issued a security alert to its citizens travelling to North Macedonia on Friday warning of “a heightened risk of terrorist attacks inspired by extremist ideology in North Macedonia”.
The majority of North Macedonia’s 2 million population is Orthodox Christian, with Muslims accounting for around 35 percent of the total population.
Authorities in the former Yugoslav republic estimate as many as 130 of its citizens have fought or are currently fighting alongside Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq.
In 2016 a court sentenced six people, including an imam, to up to seven years in prison each for joining the fight or recruiting others.
The core of the growing problem with Islamist terror in the Balkans is of course the concentration of Wahhabi international volunteers in Kosovo. With Macedonia’s upcoming affiliation with NATO, it is well worth noting that the narco-Islamist mini-state in Kosovo is there solely due to the NATO war crimes against Serbia on 1999.
