The attack in Zvornik may have been a delayed revenge attack on security forces in Bosnia's Serb entity, Republika Srpska (RS), by an individual whose father was murdered in 1992. Vendettas are a long Balkan tradition. The real surprise is that despite the brutal anti-civilian war inflicted primarily by Slobodan Milosevic's proxies, misguided revenge attacks are extremely rare. Nonetheless, leaders in the RS will use the incident to push for a separate intelligence and security sector, claiming insufficient protection by Sarajevo.
Statements claiming that the Zvornik attack is a blow to the stability of the entire region are counterproductive. They play into the hands of terrorists who can claim success and encourage others to emulate them. They reinforce those in the EU who assert that the Balkans are unprepared for EU membership. And they encourage separatist forces to use religious militancy for political goals.
http://cepa.org/content/balkans-terrorist-threats
The Bosnian and Albanian terrorist bogeyman periodically resurfaces in the Western press. For some commentators with scant knowledge of the Balkans it is difficult to accept that a moderate Islamic majority population can have its own European state. Sensationalist commentaries conflate Muslim identity with political radicalism and Islamic conservatism with indiscriminate terrorism, ignoring the fact that Muslim-majority states, like their Christian counterparts, are secular and pro-Western.