Al Qaida planned attack on Sarajevo US embassy

Al Qaida terrorists planned to kill Americans in Sarajevo, in a major attack worked out at a meeting in Bulgaria to identify European targets, a high-ranking Bosnian official said today.

The official told Associated Press that the planned attack was to be devastating on a scale ‘‘similar to New York last September.’’

He declined to divulge details on the plan, when the alleged meeting was held in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, or who attended.

In Sofia, Bulgaria’s foreign ministry said it had received no information on such a meeting, either ‘‘from Bosnian authorities or from any other official sources,’’ but promised an investigation if ‘‘this information proves to be serious.’’ It ordered the Bulgarian Embassy in Sarajevo to investigate. The Bulgarian interior ministry refused to comment.

Another Bosnian official, Rasim Kadic, member of a high-level Bosnian government anti-terrorism team, said that his panel convened an emergency meeting last week on the threat of large-scale anti-US attacks.

Bosnian authorities and ‘‘representatives of the United States exchanged information that identified the threats as credible and serious,’’ Kadic told AP.

Prime Minister Alija Behmen of the Croat-Muslim federation that makes up half of Bosnia subsequently met with U.S. Ambassador Clifford Bond, and the federation government then held a special session Thursday to discuss countermeasures.