Portal:Bosnian War
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Introduction
The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following a number of violent incidents in early 1992, the war is commonly viewed as having started on 6 April 1992. The war ended on 14 December 1995. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and those of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska and Herzeg-Bosnia, which were led and supplied by Serbia and Croatia, respectively.
The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina – which was inhabited by mainly Muslim Bosniaks (44 percent), as well as Orthodox Serbs (32.5 percent) and Catholic Croats (17 percent) – passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992.
Selected general articles
Manjača camp (pronounced:Mañacha) was a prison camp which was located on mount Manjača near the city of Banja Luka in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War and the Croatian War of Independence from 1991 to 1995. The camp was founded by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) and authorities of the Republika Srpska (RS) and was used to collect and confine thousands of male prisoners of Bosniak and Croat nationalities.
The camp was shut down under international pressure in late 1993 but was reopened in October 1995. At that time it was estimated that a total of between 4,500 and 6,000 non-Serbs primarily from the Sanski Most and Banja Luka areas passed through the camp. When the camp was captured in 1995 by Bosnian authorities, some 85 corpses were found associated with killings at the camp. Some 1,000 people from the Sanski Most area who were deported to the Manjača camp are still missing. Read more...
The Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing, also known as the Lašva Valley case, refers to numerous war crimes committed during the Bosnian war by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership on Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) civilians in the Lašva Valley region of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The campaign, planned from May 1992 to March 1993 and erupting the following April, was meant to implement objectives set forth by Croat nationalists in November 1991. The Lašva Valley's Bosniaks were subjected to persecution on political, and religious grounds, deliberately discriminated against in the context of a widespread attack on the region's civilian population and suffered mass murder, rape, imprisonment in camps, as well as the destruction of cultural sites and private property. This was often followed by anti-Bosniak propaganda, particularly in the municipalities of Vitez, Busovača, Novi Travnik and Kiseljak.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has ruled that these crimes amounted to crimes against humanity in numerous verdicts against Croat political and military leaders and soldiers, most notably Dario Kordić. Based on the evidence of numerous HVO attacks at that time, the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded in the Kordić and Čerkez case that by April 1993 Croat leadership had a common design or plan conceived and executed to ethnically cleanse Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley. Dario Kordić, as the local political leader, was found to be the planner and instigator of this plan. Further concluding that the Croatian Army was involved in the campaign, the ICTY defined the events as an international conflict between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Read more...- The 7th Corps was one of seven corps of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its headquarters were in Travnik. It was reorganized in January 1995. Read more...
- The Bijeli Potok massacre refers to the mass killing of 750 Bosnian Muslim civilians by Serbs on 1 June 1992 in the settlement Bijeli Potok within the village Đulići, located in the municipality of Zvornik, Bosnia and Herzegovina. About 750 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, from the multiple villages around Zvornik, were separated from their families by Serb forces, and slaughtered within a week at Bijeli Potok and their bodies hidden in mass graves throughout the Drina Valley.
As of May 2014, the remains of about 280 of the victims have yet to be found. Read more...
The Siege of Doboj (Serbo-Croatian: Opsada Doboja) was a military engagement fought between the Yugoslav People's Army and Bosnian Serb civilians and Bosniak forces defending the city of Doboj and its surroundings during the War in Bosnia. The Bosniak forces started its advance on 31 May 1992. The Muslims attacks and bombardment of Doboj culminated on 10 June 1992. The siege and a naval blockade by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina caused the deaths of 105 civilians and 103 Serbian military personnel. Among the victims were 55 women and 6 children. The Bosniaks suffered 142 military fatalities. Read more...- The Siege of Goražde (Bosnian: opsada Goražda) refers to engagements during the Bosnian War (1992–95) in and around the town of Goražde in eastern Bosnia.
On 4 May 1992, Goražde was besieged by the VRS. Goražde was one of six Bosniak enclaves, along with Srebrenica and Žepa, surrounded and besieged by the Bosnian Serb Army. VRS began a campaign of indiscriminate shelling, often hitting civilian buildings and inflicting mass casualties. In return, the local units of the Bosnian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) began a campaign of retribution against the Bosnian Serb civilians who were still living in the city. Dozens of local Serbs were arrested and executed in the local school; a hundred more, including women and children, were forcibly held as human shield to protect the police station from shelling. In August 1992, 1st and 31st Drina Strike Brigades of the ARBiH successfully accomplished the Operation Circle, thereby pushing the VRS forces out of the eastern suburbs. However, the siege continued. In April 1993 it was made into a United Nations Safe Area in which the United Nations was supposed to deter attacks on the civilian population. Between March 30 and April 23, 1994, the Serbs launched a major offensive against the town. After air strikes against Serb tanks and outposts and a NATO ultimatum, Serb forces agreed to withdraw their artillery and armored vehicles 20 km (12 mi) from the town. In 1995 it was again targeted by the VRS, who ignored the ultimatum and launched an attack on UN guard posts. Around 350 UN servicemen were taken hostage but the remaining men from the Royal Welch Fusiliers who were already stationed there and reinforcement Bosniak troops prevented the VRS from taking over the town. It avoided the fate of Srebrenica, where the Bosnian Serbs continued on to after the failed attempt. Read more...
Battle for Vozuća (Bosnian: Bitka za Vozuću) was an attack by the 3rd Corps of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the foreign troops of the Bosnian mujahideen on 10 September 1995 against the strategically important Army of Republika Srpska-held village of Vozuća, in the municipality of Zavidovići during the Bosnian War. Read more...- The Zaklopača massacre occurred three years before the Srebrenica Genocide, at the time when Serb forces were committing a campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Bosniak civilians in the Srebrenica region. According to Helsinki Watch at least 83 Bosniaks were killed including 11 children and 16 elderly persons. According to the Institute for the Research of Genocide, Canada:
Read more...On 16 May 1992, Serb forces approached the village and demanded Bosniak residents to hand over their weapons. Except few hunting rifles, Bosniak residents did not have any combat weapons to defend themselves. When the Serbs learned that the residents were effectively unarmed, they blocked all exists of the village and massacred at least 63 Bosniak men, women and children.
- The Trusina killings occurred on 16 April 1993 in the village of Trusina, located in the municipality of Konjic in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 22 people, four Croat soldiers and 18 Croat civilians, were killed by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) during the Croat–Bosniak War. Read more...
- From August 1990 to November 1991, during the breakup of Yugoslavia, several Serb Autonomous Regions, or Districts (sing. Serbian: Српска аутономна област (САО) / Srpska autonomna oblast (SAO)) were proclaimed in the Yugoslav republics of SR Croatia and SR Bosnia and Herzegovina in light of the possible secession of the republics from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These were autonomous Serb-inhabited entities that subsequently united in their respective republic to form the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia and the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Read more...
- The Sijekovac killings, also called the Sijekovac massacre, refers to the killing of Serbs civilians, in Sijekovac near Bosanski Brod, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 26 March 1992. The assailants were members of Croat and Bosniak army units. The exact number of casualties is unknown. The initial reported number was eleven, while the Republika Srpska authorities listed 47, however, exhumations in Sijekovac carried out for two weeks in 2004 unearthed 58 bodies of victims, out of whom 18 were children. Read more...
Operation Storm (Serbo-Croatian: Operacija Oluja / Операција Олуја) was the last major battle of the Croatian War of Independence and a major factor in the outcome of the Bosnian War. It was a decisive victory for the Croatian Army (HV), which attacked across a 630-kilometre (390 mi) front against the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), and a strategic victory for the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).
The HV was supported by the Croatian special police advancing from the Velebit Mountain, and the ARBiH located in the Bihać pocket, in the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina's (ARSK) rear. The battle, launched to restore Croatian control of 10,400 square kilometres (4,000 square miles) of territory, representing 18.4% of the territory it claimed, and Bosnian control of Western Bosnia, was the largest European land battle since the Second World War. Operation Storm commenced at dawn on 4 August 1995 and was declared complete on the evening of 7 August, despite significant mopping-up operations against pockets of resistance lasting until 14 August. Read more...- The First Corps was one of seven units of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina established in 1992, in the early part of the Bosnian War. Read more...
The SAO of Romanija (Serbian: САО Романија/SAO Romanija) was a self-proclaimed ethnic Serb autonomous region within SR Bosnia and Herzegovina in the prelude to the Bosnian War. It was named after the Romanija mountain. It included parts of three municipalities with a population of 37,000. Read more...- The 4th Corps of the Bosnian army was one of five later seven corps formed in 1992. Read more...
- The Patriotic League was the first paramilitary unit of Territorial Defence Force of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (TORBIH). Read more...
- The Bosanska Jagodina Massacre refers to the execution of 17 Bosniak civilians from Višegrad on 26 May 1992, all of which were men. This war crime was most probably carried out by paramilitary forces "Avengers" led by Milan Lukić, under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska. In 2006 the remains of the murdered men were found in a mass grave in Crncicima near Bosanska Jagodina. According to the Commission for missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina the following were executed that day : Bajro Murtić, Ismail Račić, Hidajet Račić, Mirsad Veletovac, Kemal Maluhić, Sead Šuško, Midhat Kasapović, Abdulah Veletovac, Ahmet Kadrić, Esad Tabaković, Bajro Beširević, Mehmed Džagadurov, Hamed Zukić, and one person with the surname Kasapović from the village Žagre near Višegrad. Read more...
- Vojno camp was a detention camp set up by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) from June 1993 to March 1994, to detain tens of thousands of Bosniaks in the Mostar municipality. Bosniaks in the camp were subject to killings, mistreatment, rapes, detention and murders. Read more...
The White Eagles (Serbian: Бели орлови / Beli orlovi), also known as the Avengers (Осветници / Osvetnici), were a Serbian paramilitary group associated with the Serbian National Renewal (SNO) and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS). The White Eagles fought in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav Wars.
In the 2003 ICTY Vojislav Šešelj indictment, the group is included as an alleged party in the joint criminal enterprise, in which Vojislav Šešelj allegedly took part. In the indictment the group is identified as "volunteer units including 'Chetnik', or Šešeljevci (Serbian Cyrillic: Шешељевци, translated into English as 'Šešelj's men')". This association has been denied by SRS leader Vojislav Šešelj. Read more...- Operation Vrbas '92 (Serbian: Операција Врбас '92) was a military offensive undertaken by the Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpske – VRS) in June–October 1992, during the Bosnian War. The goal of the operation was the destruction of a salient around the central Bosnian town of Jajce, which was held by the Croatian Defence Council (Hrvatsko vijeće obrane – HVO) and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armija Republike Bosne i Hercegovine – ARBiH). The intensity of fighting varied considerably and involved several major VRS offensive efforts interspersed by relative lulls in fighting. Jajce fell to the VRS on 29 October 1992, and the town's capture was followed by the destruction of all its mosques and Roman Catholic churches.
The fighting improved the safety of VRS lines of communication south of the Bosnian Serb capital of Banja Luka, and displaced between 30,000 and 40,000 people, in what foreign observers called "the largest and most wretched single exodus" of the Bosnian War. The ARBiH and HVO in Jajce were not only outnumbered and outgunned, but their units were also plagued by inadequate staff work, compounded by lack of coordination between separate command and control structures maintained by the two forces throughout the battle. The defence of Jajce also suffered from worsening Croat–Bosniak relations and skirmishes between the ARBiH and the HVO along the resupply route to Jajce. Ultimately, the outcome of the battle itself fueled greater Bosniak–Croat animosities, which eventually led to the Croat–Bosniak War. The VRS saw the cracking of the ARBiH–HVO alliance as a very significant outcome of the operation. Read more... - The Gabela camp or Gabela prison was a prison camp run by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatian Defence Council in Gabela. The camp was located several kilometres south of Čapljina. Its prisoners consisted of Bosniaks and Serbs. Read more...
The Siege of Srebrenica (Bosnian: Opsada Srebrenice, Serbian: Опсада Сребреницe) was a three-year siege of the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina which lasted from April 1993 to July 1995 during the Bosnian War. Initially assaulted by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG), the town was encircled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) in May 1992, starting a brutal siege which was to last for the majority of the Bosnian War. In June 1995, the commander of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) in the enclave, Naser Orić, left Srebrenica and fled to the town of Tuzla. He was subsequently replaced by his deputy, Major Ramiz Bećirović.
In July 1995, Srebrenica fell to the combined forces of the Republika Srpska and numerous paramilitary formations which included hundreds of Greek and Russian volunteers in what was codenamed Operation Krivaja '95 (Bosnian: Operacija Krivaja '95, Serbian: Операција Криваја '95). The subsequent massacre of the town's male population led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, and is considered the largest act of mass murder in Europe since the end of World War II. It was judged to have been a crime of genocide by international criminal courts. As a result, VRS General Radislav Krstić was found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of murder, persecution and aiding and abetting genocide, while VRS General Zdravko Tolimir was also convicted of genocide. Both men were sentenced to life imprisonment. One of the indictments against Ratko Mladić, the commander of the VRS during the war, is for the massacre in Srebrenica. The commander of Bosniak forces in the enclave, Naser Orić, was found guilty of failing to prevent the mistreatment of VRS prisoners held in Srebrenica between September 1992 and March 1993. However, his conviction was overturned in 2008. Read more...
The Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (Bosnian: Autonomna Pokrajina Zapadna Bosna) was a small unrecognised state that existed in the northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1993 and 1995. It consisted of the town of Velika Kladuša (its capital) and a few nearby villages. It was proclaimed as a result of secessionist politics by Fikret Abdić against the Bosnian central government during the Bosnian War. For a short time in 1995 it was known as the Republic of Western Bosnia. Read more...- The Gornja Jošanica massacre occurred in village Gornja Jošanica, near Foča in eastern Bosnia, where 56 Serbian civilians were killed during an attack by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) from 19 December 1992, on St. Nicolas Day.
On 19 December 1992, muslim soldiers attacked the village of Gornja Jošanica. About 600 members of the so-called BiH Army took part in the attack, in ten groups deployed to ten other Josanica hamlets, which were wiped out. Read more... - The Mokronoge massacre was the massacre of nine Bosniak civilians, in the Duvno Valley village of Mokronoge, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was committed on 10 August 1993 by Croatian Defence Forces (HVO) soldiers during the Bosnian War. In November 1999, Zagreb District Court found Ivan Baković guilty in absentia and sentenced him to 15 year imprisonment. After Ivan Baković was arrested, he was also tried in the Cantonal Court in Livno and found guilty of war crimes committed against the civilian population. In 2004, he was sentenced to 15 year imprisonment. Read more...
The Battle of Žepče was a battle between Army B&H and HVO in Žepče, Bosnia and Herzegovina on the 24th of June 1993. The 319th Mountain Brigade which was located in the city found itself surrounded while other brigade of Army B&H took over high ground around city. Žepče was defended by HVO 111th xp Žepče brigade and Andrija Tadić battalion. After six days of fighting for Žepče, on 30 June Galib Dervišević agrees to surrender of 305th and 319th Brigade after which brigades ceases to exist.
Captured Muslim soldiers numbered to around 5000. Read more...- Violence assumed a gender-targeted form through the use of rape during the Bosnian War. While men from all ethnic groups committed rape, the great majority of rapes were perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and Serb paramilitary units, who used genocidal rape as an instrument of terror as part of their programme of ethnic cleansing. Estimates of the number of women raped during the war range between 12,000 and 50,000.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) declared that "systematic rape" and "sexual enslavement" in time of war was a crime against humanity, second only to the war crime of genocide. Although the ICTY did not treat the mass rapes as genocide, many have concluded from the organized, and systematic nature of the mass rapes of the female Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population, that these rapes were a part of a larger campaign of genocide, and that the VRS were carrying out a policy of genocidal rape against the Bosnian Muslim ethnic group. Read more...
A Danish IFOR Leopard I tank crushing a decommissioned Serbian antiaircraft gun in 1996
Operation Amanda was a United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) mission conducted by Danish peacekeeping troops, with the aim of recovering an observation post, S01, belonging to 9th mech inf coy Nordbat 2 near Gradačac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on October 25, 1994. Read more...- The Karađorđevo meeting was held on 25 March 1991 by the presidents of the Yugoslav federal states Croatia and SR Serbia, Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević, at the Karađorđevo hunting ground in northwest Serbia. The topic of their discussion was the ongoing Yugoslav crisis. Three days later all presidents of the six republics met in Split.
Although news of the meeting taking place was widely publicized in the Yugoslav media at the time, the meeting became controversial in following years, because of claims by some Yugoslav politicians that Tuđman and Milošević had discussed and agreed to the partitioning of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina along ethnic lines. Read more...
The 6th Corps, along with the 7th Corps, of the Bosnian army was formed a little later than the first 5 Corps. Read more...- The Sušica camp was a detention camp set up by Serb forces for Bosniaks and other non-Serbs in the Vlasenica municipality in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina. Read more...
The Croatian Defence Forces (Croatian: Hrvatske obrambene snage or HOS) were the paramilitary arm of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) from 1991 to 1992, during the first stages of the Yugoslav wars. During the Croatian War of Independence, the HOS organized several early companies and participated in Croatia's defense. At the peak of the war in Croatia, the HOS was several battalions in size. The first HOS units were headed by Ante Paradžik, an HSP member who was killed by Croatian police in September 1991. After the November 1991 general mobilization in Croatia and the January 1992 cease-fire, the HOS was absorbed by the Croatian Army.
The HOS units in Bosnia and Herzegovina consisted of Croats, Bosniaks and foreign volunteers led by Blaž Kraljević. On 9 August 1992, Kraljević and eight staff members were assassinated by Croatian Defence Council (HVO) soldiers under the command of Mladen Naletilić. The HOS was disbanded shortly afterwards, and absorbed by the HVO and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the beginning of the Croat-Bosniak War. The last HOS unit was dissolved on 5 April 1993 in central Bosnia. Read more...- The Dretelj camp or Dretelj prison was a prison camp run by the Croatian Defence Forces (HOS) and later by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) during the Bosnian War. Read more...
Operation Mistral 2, officially codenamed Operation Maestral 2, was a Croatian Army (Hrvatska vojska – HV) and Croatian Defence Council (Hrvatsko vijeće obrane – HVO) offensive in western Bosnia and Herzegovina on 8–15 September 1995 as part of the Bosnian War. Its objective was to create a security buffer between Croatia and positions held by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (Vojska Republike Srpske – VRS) and to put the largest Bosnian Serb-held city, Banja Luka, in jeopardy by capturing the towns of Jajce, Šipovo and Drvar. The combined HV and HVO forces were under the overall command of HV Major General Ante Gotovina.
The operation commenced during a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) air campaign against the VRS codenamed Operation Deliberate Force, targeting VRS air defences, artillery positions and storage facilities largely in the area of Sarajevo, but also elsewhere in the country. Days after commencement of the offensive, the VRS positions to the right and to the left of the HV and the HVO advance were also attacked by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Armija Republike Bosne i Hercegovine – ARBiH) in Operation Sana. The offensive achieved its objectives and set the stage for further advances of the HV, HVO and ARBiH towards Banja Luka, contributing to the resolution of the war. Read more...- The Battle of Kupres (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: Bitka za Kupres) was a battle of the Bosnian War, fought between the Bosnian Croat Territorial Defence Force (Teritorijalna obrana – TO) supported by the Croatian Army (Hrvatska vojska – HV) troops on one side and the Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska narodna armija – JNA), augmented by the Bosnian Serb TO on the other at the Kupres Plateau, on 3–11 April 1992. During the fighting on 8 April, the Bosnian Croat TO was reorganised as the Croatian Defence Council (Hrvatsko vijeće obrane – HVO). The objective of the battle was to control the strategic Kupres Plateau, a major supply route.
The opposing sides began bringing in reinforcements to the Kupres Plateau on 5 March to strengthen positions held around individual settlements populated by different ethnic groups, communications between those positions, and roads leading away from the plateau to the north and south. Different parts of the town of Kupres were controlled by the opposing forces, while the adjacent territory surrounding the town was controlled by the Bosnian Croat TO. In turn, that territory was surrounded by Bosnian Serb TO-held territory. By the end of the month, the bulk of the civilians living in the area were evacuated. On 2 April, negotiations to defuse the situation failed while the reinforcements continued to arrive. The battle commenced the next day. In Kupres itself, the Bosnian Croat TO achieved minor territorial gains on 4–5 April, before the JNA managed to advance to the outskirts of the town the next day. The JNA entered Kupres in the afternoon of 7 April and in the next few days, it successfully drove the Croatian forces from the plateau. The breakthrough came about after the infantry originally deployed to the battle was reinforced by an armoured battalion deployed from Knin. Read more... - Operation Leap 1 (also known as Operation Jump 1) (Operacija Skok 1) was designed to widen the salient and allow the Croatian forces to advance towards Bosansko Grahovo. By spring 1995, relatively small shifts of the line of control west of the Livanjsko field enabled the VRS and the ARSK to threaten the HV positions on Dinara and Staretina mountains. Gotovina was concerned that the salient established by the HV and the HVO in Operation Winter '94 was too small and was vulnerable to counterattacks by the VRS and the ARSK. To create the necessary preconditions for the upcoming push, elements of the HV 4th Guards Brigade and the 126th Home Guard Regiment advanced approximately 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) over Dinara. The 4th Guards Brigade captured the strategic 1,831-metre (6,007 ft) Presedla and 1,777-metre (5,830 ft) Jankovo Brdo peaks on 14–18 March; the 126th Home Guards Regiment protected its flank, advancing through areas around the Croatia–Bosnia and Herzegovina border that were previously controlled by the ARSK.
Gotovina defined several objectives for Operation Leap 1: the capture of more favourable positions, allowing the approach to ARSK-held positions around Kijevo—where a strategic mountain pass is located, and Cetina west of Dinara—where ARSK artillery positions were located; securing the left flank of the force on Dinara; preventing ARSK attacks from that direction, and regaining positions lost during the winter of 1994–1995. The operation was scheduled to allow a HV advance in two steps of 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) each, over a period of one to two days. Read more... - Operation Jackal (Serbo-Croatian: Operacija Čagalj, Операција Чагаљ), also known as Operation June Dawns (Operacija Lipanjske zore, Операција Липањске зоре), was an offensive of the Bosnian War fought between a combined Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian Defence Council (HVO) army against the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) from 7–26 June 1992. The offensive was a Croatian pre-emptive strike against the VRS, a Bosnian Serb military formed in May 1992 from Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) units that were stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The HV concluded that the JNA offensive operations of April and May 1992, resulting in the capture of Kupres and much of the Neretva River valley south of Mostar, were aimed at capturing or threatening the Croatian Port of Ploče and possibly Split. To counter this threat, the Croatian leadership deployed the HV, under the command of General Janko Bobetko, to the "Southern Front" including the area in which Operation Jackal was to be conducted.
The offensive marked the first significant Bosnian Serb defeat in the war and placed the HV in a favourable position to push back the VRS and remnants of the JNA holding positions north and east of Dubrovnik. The HV later re-established overland links with the city which had been under siege by the JNA since late 1991. The attack resulted in an HV/HVO victory and the capture of approximately 1,800 square kilometres (690 square miles) of territory in and around Mostar and Stolac. Read more... - The 1992 Yugoslav People's Army column incident in Sarajevo occurred on 3 May 1992 in Dobrovoljačka Street, Sarajevo, when members of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) attacked a convoy of Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) troops that were exiting the city of Sarajevo according to the withdrawal agreement.
The attack is thought to have happened in retaliation for the arrest of the President of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović, who was detained at the Sarajevo Airport by the Yugoslav Army the previous day. Read more...
The Vilina Vlas hotel, where Bosniak prisoners were beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted during the Bosnian War.
Vilina Vlas is a hotel that served as one of the main detention facilities where Bosniak prisoners were beaten, tortured and the women sexually assaulted by Serbs during the Višegrad massacres in the Bosnian War of the 1990s. It is located about four kilometers north-east of Višegrad, in the village of Višegradska Banja.
After the war, Vilina Vlas was re-opened as a tourist facility. Read more...- The Bijeljina massacre involved the killing of between 48 and 78 civilians by Serb paramilitary groups in Bijeljina on 1–2 April 1992 during the Bosnian War. The majority of those killed were Bosniaks (or Bosnian Muslims). Members of other ethnicities were also killed, such as Serbs deemed disloyal by the local authorities. The killing was committed by a local paramilitary group known as Mirko's Chetniks and by the Serb Volunteer Guard (SDG, also known as Arkan's Tigers), a Serbia-based paramilitary group led by Željko Ražnatović (aka Arkan). The SDG were under the command of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), which was controlled by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević.
In September 1991, Bosnian Serbs proclaimed a Serbian Autonomous Oblast with Bijeljina as its capital. In March 1992, the Bosnian referendum on independence was passed with overwhelming support from Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, although Bosnian Serbs either boycotted it or were prevented from voting by Bosnian Serb authorities. A poorly organized, local Bosniak Patriotic League paramilitary group had been established in response to the Bosnian Serb proclamation. On 31 March, the Patriotic League in Bijeljina was provoked into fighting by local Serbs and the SDG. On 1–2 April, the SDG and the JNA took over Bijeljina with little resistance; murders, rapes, house searches, and pillaging followed. These actions were described as genocidal by the historian Professor Eric D. Weitz of the City College of New York. Professor Michael Sells of the University of Chicago concluded that they were carried out to erase the cultural history of the Bosniak people of Bijeljina. Read more...
Four major international peace plans were proposed before and during the Bosnian War by European Community (EC) and United Nations (UN) diplomats before the conflict was settled by the Dayton Agreement in 1995. Read more...
Operation Spider (Serbian: Операција Паук, Operacija Pauk) was a combined effort by Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serb Krajina to recover the territory of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, which was a key ally of the Serbs. The Bosnian central government had previously overrun and seized the territory. The operation ended in a Serb victory and the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia remained in existence until the fall of its key ally the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the subsequent end of the war. Read more...- In June 1991, representatives of Bosnian Muslims (Party of Democratic Action, SDA) and Bosnian Serbs (Serb Democratic Party, SDS) met to discuss the future status of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav crisis. On behalf of SDA president Alija Izetbegović, Adil Zulfikarpašić and Muhamed Filipović met with SDS president Radovan Karadžić, Nikola Koljević and Momčilo Krajišnik. The two sides reached an agreement[a] that BiH was to be sovereign and undivided, remaining in a Yugoslav confederation with Serbia and Montenegro. The Muslim-inhabited area of Sandžak in SR Serbia was to become autonomous, while SAO Krajina and SAO Bosanska Krajina was to abandon their unification plan. Zulfikarpašić received the consent of Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, who also promised 60% of Sandžak to BiH. Izetbegović, who initially supported it, abandoned the agreement. Read more...
The Croatian Defence Council (Croatian: Hrvatsko vijeće obrane or HVO) was the official military formation of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, an unrecognized entity that existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1991 and 1996. The HVO was the main military force of Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the initial stage of the Bosnian War, the HVO fought alongside the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) against the Bosnian Serbs, but in the latter stage of the conflict clashed against its former ally, particularly in the Mostar area. Read more...
Seated from left to right: Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović, Franjo Tuđman initialling the Dayton Peace Accords at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on 21 November 1995.
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, Dayton Accords, Paris Protocol or Dayton–Paris Agreement, (Bosnian: Dejtonski mirovni sporazum, Serbian: Dejtonski mirovni sporazum, Croatian: Daytonski sporazum) is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, United States, on 1 November 1995, and formally signed in Paris, France, on 14 December 1995. These accords put an end to the 3 1⁄2-year-long Bosnian War, one of the Yugoslav Wars. Read more...
The Doboj massacre refers to war crimes, including murder, wanton destruction and ethnic cleansing, committed against Bosniaks and Croats in the Doboj area by the Yugoslav People's Army and Serb paramilitary units from April until October 1992 during the Bosnian war. The Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo registered over 2,300 dead or missing people in the area during the war. Read more...
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Selected images
Novi Travnik in 1993, during the Croat–Bosniak War
UN troops on their way up "Sniper Alley" in Sarajevo
Bosnia and Herzegovina before the Dayton Agreement
The front lines in the Lašva Valley in 1993 between the ARBiH and the HVO, including Novi Travnik, Vitez and Busovača
Goran Jelisić shooting at a Bosnian Muslim victim in Brčko in 1992
The Executive Council Building burns after being hit by tank fire in Sarajevo May 1992; Ratko Mladić with Army of Republika Srpska officers; a Norwegian UN soldier in Sarajevo.
Seated from left to right: Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman signing the final peace agreement in Paris on 14 December 1995.
The skull of a victim of the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre in an exhumed mass grave outside of Potočari, 2007
Mourners at the reburial ceremony for an exhumed victim of the Srebrenica massacre.
A grave digger at a cemetery in Sarajevo, 1992
- First version of the Vance-Owen plan, which would have established 10 provincesBosniak provinceCroat provinceSerb provinceSarajevo districtPresent-day administrative borders
The cemetery at the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery to Genocide Victims
A victim of a mortar attack delivered to a Sarajevo hospital in 1992.
Aerial photograph of destroyed buildings in Mostar
Damaged buildings in Grbavica during the Siege of Sarajevo
Map of Operation Corridor 92, fought between the VRS and the HV-HVO
Model of the Čelebići camp near Konjic. Presented as evidence in the Mucić et al. trial.
Bodies of people killed in April 1993 around Vitez.
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