On a graffiti-strewn side street in Sarajevo, a path leads past an overgrown garden to a white gate. Behind it lies the registered office of a company on the verge of winning contracts worth more than a billion dollars.
AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is close to securing a concession to build and operate a gas pipeline across the Balkans, which would allow fossil gas shipped from the US to replace supplies from Russia, the Guardian reports.
“This could be the most important infrastructure project ever in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says one of the country’s top officials, who, like others, requested anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.
The company has no evidence that it has ever attempted anything on this scale. What it does have are personal ties to Donald Trump.
One of the AAFS representatives is a Washington lawyer who has represented the Trumps in political cases. The other is the brother of the president's former national security adviser. Both were part of a campaign close to Trump's heart: the effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The Guardian investigation, based on interviews with current and former Bosnian and American officials, leaked documents and business records, examines an obscure company that has been thrust into a global battle for energy supremacy. It offers insight into how international relations are changing under a presidency that blurs the line between state policy and the enrichment of the ruling family and its entourage.
“There is a logic in our current world that people connected to the administration are involved in big economic projects or investments,” says a former senior U.S. official in the region. “It’s unpleasant, but a lot of my country’s politics these days is unpleasant.”
In the former Yugoslavia, the stakes are higher than who can get rich. American intervention could undermine the peace deal Washington brokered in 1995 to end a war that killed 100.000 people, many of them Bosnian Muslim civilians massacred by Serbian paramilitaries. A generation later, Bosnia's ethnic leaders are still maneuvering to gain an advantage.
US officials left Bosnian leaders in no doubt about what the Trump administration wants: a green light for the AAFS pipeline.
MAGA leads AAFS
When the Guardian knocks on the AAFS address in Sarajevo, a woman shouts from an upstairs window that their local representative will be back soon. Amer Bekan arrives a few minutes later. A burly middle-aged man says that the AAFS office will be moving to a large building with 100 employees.
Bekan's online CV describes him as an "investor and entrepreneur with extensive experience." He has also dabbled in politics. After finishing last in the 2016 mayoral election in downtown Sarajevo with 116 votes, his second campaign in 2020 led to accusations that he abused the election for personal gain, which he denied.
Bekan registered a Bosnian company called AAFS in 2021. It wasn't until he brought in American partners last year that the company got into the big game. Neither he nor they would say how they met.
Bekan's AAFS is now owned by a US company of the same name, which was incorporated in November. Located in a tourist area along the Potomac River, the address AAFS lists for its Washington office is between a Lebanese restaurant and an Irish pub. The sign shows that it is the premises of the law firm Binnall Law Group.
Jesse Binal is a prominent attorney who champions MAGA causes. He was a contributor to the 2016 campaign that brought Trump to the White House. In 2020, he was one of the leading voices challenging Joe Biden’s victory. He stated, “Donald Trump won… when you consider the fraud and irregularities that occurred.” He defended Trump and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., in a lawsuit that sought to hold them liable when rioters tried to overturn the result by storming the Capitol building.
Since Trump returned to office last year, Binal has secured a $1,25 million settlement from the Justice Department for Michael Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser in the president's first term. Although he admitted lying to the FBI about secret contacts with Russia, Flynn has argued that he was unfairly prosecuted.
Binal also met Flynn's brother, Joe, a healthcare entrepreneur. They were comrades in arms in the campaign to discredit Biden's victory. Flynn was the president of one of the movement's best-funded instruments, the America Project. He was also an advisor to Trump's 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns.
The White House referred questions to the State Department, which said: “The Southern Interconnection pipeline, a priority of the U.S. government during the last three administrations, will expand and diversify Bosnia and Herzegovina’s energy sector, giving BiH greater control over its energy supply through access to marketable natural gas and reducing dependence on a single, unreliable source.”
Flynn and Binal's qualifications for the Balkan infrastructure venture are not immediately obvious. But since they got involved, the project has enjoyed strong support from the Trump administration.
Without competitive tender
Binal, Flynn and Bekan's initial talks with Bosnian officials last fall focused on the $300 million renovation of two airports. Then, Bosnian officials proposed taking on a much more significant project: the Southern Interconnection gas pipeline.
The United States has long supported a plan to connect Bosnia to a gas terminal on the Croatian coast, which would reduce Vladimir Putin’s influence in southern Europe. Under Biden, the idea was for the project to be managed by Bosnia’s state-owned gas company. But conflicting interests among Bosnia’s ethnic factions have led to constant delays.
While some Bosnian officials were wary of handing over the project to foreign private interests, others saw the involvement of a Trump-linked company as a chance to break the impasse.
Time was running out. Bosnia is a candidate for membership in the European Union, and Brussels has set a deadline of September 2027 to stop buying gas from Russia, where all of Bosnia's supplies come from.
Some senior Bosnian officials have assessed that the involvement of an American company could help not only energy security but also security more broadly, in a region where war is still a vivid memory. As Bekan puts it: “The American government is protecting its investments.”
Still, some analysts fear that Bosnia risks replacing one bully with another. No one seems willing to risk Trump's wrath, even if it means entrusting hopes for a new key energy artery to a company that has not demonstrated the ability to deliver such a project.
When asked who the shareholders of AAFS are, Bekan says they include Binal and Flynn, as well as others he did not want to name. He says the funding could come from “investment funds in the United States,” but says he cannot provide more information.
Binal says: “We are the right team for this. No other group combines a presence on the ground in Bosnia with strong support in America. We are excited to enter this project because we believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the future.”
A confidential AAFS proposal seen by the Guardian says the pipeline will cost €300m, with an additional €900m for the three power plants, with funding not coming from the Bosnian state but through equity and debt. The document does not specify what kind of return Flynn, Binal and others involved in the project expect for themselves.
In March, new Bosnian legislation designated AAFS as the contractor for the pipeline. No competitive tendering process was conducted, which is the usual way to ensure that a competent bidder wins the contract at a fair price.
Transparency International warned:
"Establishing such a practice in a country with one of the highest levels of corruption in Europe would lead to disastrous consequences in the implementation of strategically important projects such as the Southern Interconnection gas pipeline."
A few days later, the Guardian revealed, the European Union ambassador sent Bosnian leaders a private warning that they should consult Brussels on any changes to energy policy to “avoid missing opportunities for further integration, as well as financial possibilities.”
The United States has not wavered.
“This partnership strengthens energy independence and ends dependence on Russian gas,” the US Embassy in Sarajevo announced on the X network in April. “A new era of energy security in the Western Balkans has begun.”
But that new era won't begin until the Southern Interconnector is built. For that to happen, the Trump administration will need the friendship of a man who wants to break up the country.
Dodik wants to destroy the peace agreement
Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, was until recently treated as a political pariah in Washington.
Joe Biden's administration accused Dodik of abusing public office "to amass personal wealth through corruption, bribery, and other forms of corrupt practices" and expanded sanctions against him and his family.
"His divisive ethno-nationalist rhetoric reflects efforts to divert attention from his corrupt activities," the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
Dodik called the sanctions "lies".
When Trump returned to the presidency, Dodik launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign to win support from his administration and lift sanctions. The lobbyists portrayed Dodik's Serbian nationalists as Trump's allies against Islam. One of them was Michael Flynn, who earned $100.000 for a month of work.
In October, the Trump administration, without explanation, lifted the sanctions.
On April 7, Donald Trump Jr., the head of his family's business empire, arrived in Banja Luka, the largest city in the Serbian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for an event organized in his honor.
Dodik's son Igor warmly welcomed Trump Jr.
"Your presence speaks volumes," he said.
"We depend on you and we rely on you. In return, you, America, and the Republican administration led by your father will have a reliable, honest, and Christian ally in this part of the world."
Michael Murphy, a former US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, says Dodik is trying to curry favor with Trump's circles while seeking to nullify the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement by declaring the independence of Republika Srpska.
"He wants them to embrace his broader political agenda. To achieve that, he can't make trouble over the pipeline," Murphy says.
People who accept it, he adds, are "playing with fire."
Under Bosnia and Herzegovina's power-sharing system, Serbs could block the pipeline with a veto. Dodik, who remains their leader even though he no longer holds official office, has plenty of reason to do so.
Like the recently defeated Viktor Orban in Hungary, Dodik is an ally of Vladimir Putin. Not only does the existing pipeline bring Russian gas to Bosnia, strengthening Putin's influence in the Balkans, but it also passes through Serb-controlled territory, giving them significant influence over energy supplies.
However, a senior Bosnian Serb politician says:
"I saw it myself: The Americans' number one priority here is the pipeline. They are very, very interested in it. Dodik, like everyone else, was told: don't play with the project."
Donald Trump Jr. did not mention either the pipeline or AAFS during his event.
But he praised the benefits of buying American gas.
"That's perfectly logical," he said.
"You can solve so many problems, both business and, frankly, geopolitical, through this one issue. I think it's a huge opportunity."
On April 21, shortly after Trump Jr.'s visit, Dodik indicated that he would not obstruct Binali and Flynn's plan.
This means that the takeover of a key European energy project by people connected to Trump is almost complete.
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