A Banja Luka (Republika Srpska), based weekly today writes that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, shot dead on Monday, visited Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-95 war there.

He was in the Balkans "at least on two occasions", Nezavisne Novine are reporting.

The weekly writes that both visits took place in 1994, and that "both are documented".

The article says that Bin Laden was in Sarajevo to meet Bosnian President and leader of the Muslims (Bosniaks) Alija Izetbegović, and that Spiegel magazine reporter Renata Flottau "stumbled across him" while she was waiting to interview Izetbegović.

Bin Laden provided her with a business card and said he intended to bring Muslim volunteers to Bosnia, at the same time confirming he had been issued a passport of Bosnia-Herzegovina, according to this.

There is also allegedly a photograph, taken during the meeting between Izetbegović and Bin Laden.

Novine also writes that it was the Bosnian embassy in Vienna that issued the passport. The decision turned into a "scandal" after al Qaeda attacked targets in America in September 2001, and it was then that "complete documentation" related to this was destroyed.