War in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following a number of earlier violent incidents. The war ended on 14 December 1995 when the Dayton accords were signed. The main belligerents were the forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and those of Herzeg-Bosnia and Republika Srpska, proto-states led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, 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%), Orthodox Serbs (32.5%) and Catholic Croats (17%) – passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992. Political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs boycotted the referendum, and rejected its outcome. Anticipating the outcome of the referendum boycotted by the majority of Bosnian Serbs, the Assembly of the Serb People in Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the Constitution of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 28 February 1992. Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence (which gained international recognition) and following the withdrawal of Alija Izetbegović from the previously signed Cutileiro Plan (which proposed a division of Bosnia into ethnic cantons), the Bosnian Serbs, led by Radovan Karadžić and supported by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), mobilised their forces inside Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to secure ethnic Serb territory. Then war soon spread across the country, accompanied by ethnic cleansing.

The conflict was initially between Yugoslav Army units in Bosnia which later transformed into the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) on the one side, and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH), largely composed of Bosniaks, and the Croat forces in the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) on the other side. Tensions between Croats and Bosniaks increased throughout late 1992, resulting in the escalation of the Croat–Bosniak War in early 1993. The Bosnian War was characterised by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing, and systematic mass rape, mainly perpetrated by Serb, and to a lesser extent, Croat and Bosniak forces. Events such as the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre later became iconic of the conflict.

The Serbs, although initially militarily superior due to the weapons and resources provided by the JNA, eventually lost momentum as the Bosniaks and Croats allied against the Republika Srpska in 1994 with the creation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina following the Washington agreement. Pakistan ignored the UN's ban on supply of arms, and airlifted anti tank missiles to the Bosnian Muslims, while after the Srebrenica and Markale massacres, NATO intervened in 1995 with Operation Deliberate Force targeting the positions of the Army of the Republika Srpska, which proved key in ending the war. The war ended after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on 14 December 1995. Peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalised on 21 November 1995.

By early 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted forty-five Serbs, twelve Croats, and four Bosniaks of war crimes in connection with the war in Bosnia. Estimates suggest around 100,000 people were killed during the war. Over 2.2 million people were displaced, making it, at the time, the most devastating conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. In addition, an estimated 12,000–50,000 women were raped, mainly carried out by Serb forces, with most of the victims being Bosniak women.

Chronology

Clashes between Muslims, Croats, and Serbs in Bosnia started in late February 1992, and "full-scale hostilities had broken out by 6 April", the same day the United States and European Economic Community (EEC) recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina. Misha Glenny gives a date of 22 March, Tom Gallagher gives 2 April, while Mary Kaldor and Laura Silber and Allan Little give 6 April. Philip Hammond claimed the most common view is that the war started on April 6, 1992.

Serbs consider the Sarajevo wedding shooting, when a groom's father was killed on the second day of the Bosnian independence referendum, 1 March 1992, as the first death of the war. The Sijekovac killings of Serbs took place on 26 March and the Bijeljina massacre (of mostly Bosniaks) on 1–2 April. On 5 April, after protesters approached a barricade, a demonstrator was killed by Serb forces.

The war was brought to an end by the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, negotiated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio between 1 and 21 November 1995 and signed in Paris on 14 December 1995.

Background

Breakup of Yugoslavia

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia as a result of the weakening of the confederational system at the end of the Cold War. In Yugoslavia, the national communist party, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, lost ideological potency. Meanwhile, ethnic nationalism experienced a renaissance in the 1980s after violence in Kosovo. While the goal of Serbian nationalists was the centralisation of Yugoslavia, other nationalities in Yugoslavia aspired to the federalisation and the decentralisation of the state.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, a former Ottoman province, has historically been a multi-ethnic state. According to the 1991 census, 44% of the population considered themselves Muslim (Bosniak), 32.5% Serb and 17% Croat, with 6% describing themselves as Yugoslav.

March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian Constitution allowing the government of Serbia to dominate the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Until then, Kosovo and Vojvodina's decision-making was independent, and each autonomous province also had a vote at the Yugoslav federal level. Serbia, under newly elected President Slobodan Milošević, gained control over three out of eight votes in the Yugoslav presidency. With additional votes from Montenegro, Serbia was thus able to heavily influence the decisions of the federal government. This situation led to objections from the other republics and calls for the reform of the Yugoslav Federation.

At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, on 20 January 1990, the delegations of the republics could not agree on the main issues facing the Yugoslav federation. As a result, the Slovene and Croatian delegates left the Congress. The Slovene delegation, headed by Milan Kučan, demanded democratic changes and a looser federation, while the Serbian delegation, headed by Milošević, opposed it.

In the first multi-party election in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in November 1990, votes were cast largely according to ethnicity, leading to the success of the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH).

Parties divided power along ethnic lines so the President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a Bosniak, the president of the Parliament was a Serb, and the prime minister a Croat. Separatist nationalist parties attained power in other republics, including Croatia and Slovenia.

Beginning of the Yugoslav Wars

Meetings were held in early 1991 between the leaders of the six Yugoslav republics and the two autonomous regions to discuss the ongoing crisis in Yugoslavia. The Serbian leadership favoured a federal solution, whereas the Croatian and Slovenian leadership favoured an alliance of sovereign states. Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegović proposed an asymmetrical federation in February, where Slovenia and Croatia would maintain loose ties with the four remaining republics. Shortly after, he changed his position and opted for a sovereign Bosnia as a prerequisite for such a federation.

On 25 March, Franjo Tuđman and Serbian President Slobodan Milošević held a meeting in Karađorđevo. The meeting was controversial due to claims by some Yugoslav politicians the two presidents agreed to the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On 6 June, Izetbegović and Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov proposed a weak confederation between Croatia, Slovenia, and a federation of the other four republics. That was rejected by the Milošević administration.

On 25 June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, leading to an armed conflict in Slovenia called the Ten-Day War, and the escalation of the Croatian War of Independence in areas with a substantial ethnic Serb population. In the second half of 1991, the war intensified in Croatia. The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) also attacked Croatia from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In July 1991, representatives of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), including SDS president Radovan Karadžić, Muhamed Filipović, and Adil Zulfikarpašić from the Muslim Bosniak Organisation (MBO), drafted an agreement known as the Zulfikarpašić–Karadžić agreement. This would leave SR Bosnia and Herzegovina in a state union with SR Serbia and SR Montenegro. The agreement was denounced by Croat political parties. Although initially welcoming the initiative, the Izetbegović administration later dismissed the agreement.

Between September and November 1991, the SDS organised the creation of six " Serb Autonomous Regions" (SAOs). This was in response to the Bosniaks' steps toward seceding from Yugoslavia. Similar steps were taken by the Bosnian Croats.

In August 1991, the European Economic Community hosted a conference in an attempt to prevent Bosnia and Herzegovina from sliding into war.

On 25 September 1991, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 713, imposing an arms embargo on all former Yugoslav territories. The embargo had little effect on the JNA and Serb forces. By that time, the Croatian forces seized large amounts of weaponry from the JNA during the Battle of the Barracks. The embargo had a significant impact in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the start of the Bosnian War. The Serb forces inherited the armaments and the equipment of the JNA, while the Croat and Bosniak forces obtained arms through Croatia in violation of the embargo.

19 September 1991, the JNA moved extra troops to the area around the city of Mostar. This was protested by the local government. On 20 September 1991, the JNA transferred troops to the front at Vukovar via the Višegrad region of northeastern Bosnia. In response, local Croats and Bosniaks set up barricades and machine-gun posts. They halted a column of 60 JNA tanks, but were dispersed by force the following day. More than 1,000 people had to flee the area. This action, nearly seven months before the start of the Bosnian War, caused the first casualties of the Yugoslav Wars in Bosnia. In the first days of October, the JNA attacked and leveled the Croat village of Ravno in eastern Herzegovina, on their way to attack Dubrovnik in southern Croatia.

On 6 October 1991, Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović gave a televised proclamation of neutrality, it included the statement "it is not our war". In the meantime, Izetbegović made the following statement before the Bosnian parliament on 14 October with regard to the JNA: "Do not do anything against the Army. (...) the presence of the Army is a stabilizing factor to us, and we need that Army (...). Until now, we did not have problems with the Army, and we will not have problems later."

Throughout 1990, the RAM Plan was developed by SDB and a group of selected Serb officers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) with the purpose of organizing Serbs outside Serbia, consolidating control of the fledgling SDS parties and the positioning of arms and ammunition.

The plan was meant to prepare the framework for a third Yugoslavia in which all Serbs with their territories would live together in the same state.

Journalist Giuseppe Zaccaria summarised a meeting of Serb army officers in Belgrade in 1992, reporting they had adopted an explicit policy to target women and children as the vulnerable portion of the Muslim religious and social structure. According to some sources, the RAM plan was crafted in the 1980s. Its existence was leaked by Ante Marković, the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, an ethnic Croat from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The existence and possible implementation of it alarmed the Bosnian government.

Final political crisis

On 15 October 1991, the parliament of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo passed a " Memorandum on the Sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina" by a simple majority. The Memorandum was hotly contested by the Bosnian Serb members of parliament, arguing that Amendment LXX of the Constitution required procedural safeguards and a two-thirds majority for such issues. The Memorandum was debated anyway, leading to a boycott of the parliament by the Bosnian Serbs, and during the boycott the legislation was passed. The Serb political representatives proclaimed the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 24 October 1991, declaring that the Serb people wished to remain in Yugoslavia. The Party of Democratic Action (SDA), led by Alija Izetbegović, was determined to pursue independence and was supported by Europe and the U.S. The SDS made it clear that if independence was declared, Serbs would secede as it was their right to exercise self-determination.

The HDZ BiH was established as a branch of the ruling party in Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). While it called for the independence of the country, there was a split in the party with some members advocating secession of Croat-majority areas. In November 1991, the Croat leadership organised autonomous communities in areas with a Croat majority. On 12 November 1991, the Croatian Community of Bosnian Posavina was established in Bosanski Brod. It covered eight municipalities in northern Bosnia. On 18 November 1991, the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia was established in Mostar. Mate Boban was chosen as its president. Its founding document said: "The Community will respect the democratically elected government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina for as long as exists the state independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina in relation to the former, or any other, Yugoslavia".

Borisav Jović's memoirs show that on 5 December 1991 Milošević ordered the JNA troops in BiH to be reorganised and its non-Bosnian personnel to be withdrawn, in case recognition would result in the perception of the JNA as a foreign force; Bosnian Serbs would remain to form the nucleus of a Bosnian Serb army. Accordingly, by the end of the month only 10–15% of the personnel in the JNA in BiH was from outside the republic. Silber and Little note that Milošević secretly ordered all Bosnian-born JNA soldiers to be transferred to BiH. Jović's memoirs suggest that Milošević planned for an attack on Bosnia well in advance.

On 9 January 1992, the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the "Republic of the Serbian People in Bosnia-Herzegovina" (SR BiH, later Republika Srpska), but did not officially declare independence. The Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia in its 11 January 1992 Opinion No. 4 on Bosnia and Herzegovina stated that the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina should not be recognised because the country had not yet held a referendum on independence.

On 25 January 1992, an hour after the session of parliament was adjourned, the parliament called for a referendum on independence on 29 February and 1 March. The debate had ended after Serb deputies withdrew after the majority Bosniak–Croat delegates turned down a motion that the referendum question be placed before the not yet established Council of National Equality. The referendum proposal was adopted in the form as proposed by Muslim deputies, in the absence of SDS members. As Burg and Shoup note, "the decision placed the Bosnian government and the Serbs on a collision course". The upcoming referendum caused international concern in February.

The Croatian War would result in United Nations Security Council Resolution 743 on 21 February 1992, which created the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR).

During the talks in Lisbon on 21–22 February a peace plan was presented by EC mediator José Cutileiro, which proposed the independent state of Bosnia to be divided into three constituent units. Agreement was denounced by the Bosniak leadership on 25 February. On 28 February 1992, the Constitution of the SR BiH declared that the territory of that Republic included "the territories of the Serbian Autonomous Regions and Districts and of other Serbian ethnic entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the regions in which the Serbian people remained in the minority due to the genocide conducted against it in World War II", and it was declared to be a part of Yugoslavia.

The Bosnian Serb assembly members advised Serbs to boycott the referendums held on 29 February and 1 March 1992. The turnout to the referendums was reported as 63.7%, with 92.7% of voters voting in favour of independence (implying that Bosnian Serbs, which made up approximately 34% of the population, largely boycotted the referendum). The Serb political leadership used the referendums as a pretext to set up roadblocks in protest. Independence was formally declared by the Bosnian parliament on 3 March 1992.

March 1992 unrest

During the referendum on 1 March, Sarajevo was quiet except for a shooting on a Serbian wedding. The brandishing of Serbian flags in the Baščaršija was seen by Muslims as a deliberate provocation on the day of the referendum, which was supported by most Bosnian Croats and Muslims but boycotted by most of the Bosnian Serbs. Nikola Gardović, the bridegroom's father, was killed, and a Serbian Orthodox priest was wounded. Witnesses identified the killer as Ramiz Delalić, also known as "Ćelo", a minor gangster who had become an increasingly brazen criminal since the fall of communism and was also stated to have been a member of the Bosniak paramilitary group " Green Berets". Arrest warrants were issued against him and another suspected assailant. SDS denounced the killing and claimed that the failure to arrest him was due to SDA or Bosnian government complicity. A SDS spokesman stated it was evidence that Serbs were in mortal danger and would be further so in an independent Bosnia, which was rejected by Sefer Halilović, founder of the Patriotic League, who stated that it was not a wedding but a provocation and accused the wedding guests of being SDS activists. Barricades appeared in the following early morning at key transit points across the city and were manned by armed and masked SDS supporters.

Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia on 3 March 1992, sporadic fighting broke out between Serbs and government forces all across the territory.

On 18 March 1992, all three sides signed the Lisbon Agreement: Alija Izetbegović for the Bosniaks, Radovan Karadžić for the Serbs and Mate Boban for the Croats. However, on 28 March 1992, Izetbegović, after meeting with the then-US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann in Sarajevo, withdrew his signature and declared his opposition to any type of ethnic division of Bosnia.

In late March 1992, there was fighting between Serbs and combined Croat and Bosniak forces in and near Bosanski Brod, resulting in the killing of Serb villagers in Sijekovac. Serb paramilitaries committed the Bijeljina massacre, most of the victims of which were Bosniaks, on 1–2 April 1992.

Factions

There were three factions in the Bosnian War:
*Bosnian (mainly ethnically Bosniak), loyal to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
*Croat, loyal to the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatia
*Serb (or Yugoslav), loyal to the Republika Srpska and FR Yugoslavia

The three ethnic groups predominantly supported their respective ethnic or national faction: Bosniaks mainly the ARBiH, Croats the HVO, Serbs the VRS. There were foreign volunteers in each faction.

Bosnian

The Bosnians mainly organised into the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (', ARBiH) as the armed forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were divided into five Corps. 1st Corps operated in the region of Sarajevo and Goražde, while the stronger 5th Corps was positioned in the western Bosanska Krajina pocket, which cooperated with HVO units in and around Bihać. The Bosnian government forces were poorly equipped and unprepared for war.

Sefer Halilović, Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Territorial Defense, claimed in June 1992 that his forces were 70% Muslim, 18% Croat and 12% Serb. The percentage of Serb and Croat soldiers in the Bosnian Army was particularly high in Sarajevo, Mostar and Tuzla. The deputy commander of the Bosnian Army's Headquarters, was general Jovan Divjak, the highest-ranking ethnic Serb in the Bosnian Army. General Stjepan Šiber, an ethnic Croat was the second deputy commander. Izetbegović also appointed colonel Blaž Kraljević, commander of the Croatian Defence Forces in Herzegovina, to be a member of Bosnian Army's Headquarters, seven days before Kraljević's assassination, in order to assemble a multi-ethnic pro-Bosnian defense front. This diversity was to reduce over the course of the war.

The Bosnian government lobbied to have the arms embargo lifted, but that was opposed by the United Kingdom, France and Russia. U.S. proposals to pursue this policy were known as lift and strike. The US congress passed two resolutions calling for the embargo to be lifted, but both were vetoed by President Bill Clinton for fear of creating a rift between the US and the aforementioned countries. Nonetheless, the United States used both "black" C-130 transports and back channels, including Islamist groups, to smuggle weapons to Bosnian-Muslim forces, as well as allowed Iranian-supplied arms to transit through Croatia to Bosnia. However, in light of widespread NATO opposition to American (and possibly Turkish) endeavors in coordinating the "black flights of Tuzla", the United Kingdom and Norway expressed disapproval of these measures and their counterproductive effects on NATO enforcement of the arms embargo.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence also played an active role during 1992–1995 and secretly supplied the Muslim fighters with arms, ammunition and guided anti tank missiles to give them a fighting chance against the Serbs. Pakistan was thus defying the UN ban on supplying arms to Bosnian Muslims, and General Javed Nasir later claimed that the ISI had airlifted anti-tank guided missiles to Bosnia, which ultimately turned the tide in favour of Bosnian Muslims and forced the Serbs to lift the siege.

In his book ''The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President'' from 2009, historian and author Taylor Branch, a friend of U.S. President Bill Clinton, made public more than 70 recorded sessions with the president during his presidency from 1993 through 2001. According to a session taped on 14 October 1993, it is stated that:

Croat

The Croats started organizing their military forces in late 1991. On 8 April 1992, the Croatian Defence Council (, HVO) was founded as the "supreme body of Croatian defence in Herzeg-Bosnia". The HVO was organised in four Operative Zones with headquarters in Mostar, Tomislavgrad, Vitez and Orašje. In February 1993, the HVO Main Staff estimated the strength of the HVO at 34,080 officers and men. Its armaments included around 50 main battle tanks, mainly T-34 and T-55, and 500 various artillery weapons.

At the beginning of the war, the Croatian government helped arm both the Croat and Bosniak forces. Logistics centres were established in Zagreb and Rijeka for the recruitment of soldiers for the ARBiH. The Croatian National Guard (Zbor Narodne Garde, ZNG), later renamed officially to Croatian Army (, HV) was engaged in Bosnian Posavina, Herzegovina and Western Bosnia against the Serb forces. During the Croat-Bosniak conflict, the Croatian government provided arms for the HVO and organised the sending of units of volunteers, with origins from Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the HVO.

The Croatian Defence Forces (HOS), the paramilitary wing of the Croatian Party of Rights, fought against the Serb forces together with the HVO and ARBiH. The HOS was disbanded shortly after the death of their commander Blaž Kraljević and incorporated into the HVO and ARBiH.

Serb

The Army of Republika Srpska (', VRS) was established on 12 May 1992. It was loyal to Republika Srpska, the Serbian portion of Bosnia which did not wish to break away from FR Yugoslavia. Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić stated "Our optimum is a Greater Serbia, and if not that, then a Federal Yugoslavia".

Serbia provided logistical support, money and supplies to the VRS. Bosnian Serbs had made up a substantial part of the JNA officer corps. Milošević relied on the Bosnian Serbs to win the war themselves. Most of the command chain, weaponry, and higher-ranked military personnel, including General Ratko Mladić, were from the JNA.

Paramilitary and volunteers

Various paramilitary units operated during the Bosnian War: the Serb " White Eagles" (''Beli Orlovi'') and " Serbian Volunteer Guard" (''Srpska Dobrovoljačka Garda''), also known as "Arkan's Tigers"; the Bosnian " Patriotic League" (''Patriotska Liga'') and " Green Berets" (''Zelene Beretke''); and Croat "Croatian Defence Forces" (''Hrvatske Obrambene Snage''), etc. The Serb and Croat paramilitaries involved volunteers from Serbia and Croatia, and were supported by nationalist political parties in those countries.

The war attracted foreign fighters and mercenaries from various countries. Volunteers came to fight for a variety of reasons, including religious or ethnic loyalties and in some cases for money. As a general rule, Bosniaks received support from Islamic countries, Serbs from Eastern Orthodox countries, and Croats from Catholic countries. The presence of foreign fighters is well documented, however none of these groups comprised more than 5 percent of any of the respective armies' total manpower strength.

The Bosnian Serbs received support from Christian Slavic fighters from various countries in Eastern Europe, including volunteers from other Orthodox Christian countries. These included hundreds of Russians, around 100 Greeks, and some Ukrainians and Romanians. Some estimate as many as 1,000 such volunteers. Greek volunteers of the Greek Volunteer Guard were reported to have taken part in the Srebrenica Massacre, with the Greek flag being hoisted in Srebrenica when the town fell to the Serbs.

Some individuals from other European countries volunteered to fight for the Croat side, including Neo-Nazis such as Jackie Arklöv, who was charged with war crimes upon his return to Sweden. Later he confessed he committed war crimes on Bosnian Muslim civilians in the Heliodrom and Dretelj camps as a member of Croatian forces.

The Bosnians received support from Muslim groups. Pakistan supported Bosnia while providing technical and military support. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) allegedly ran an active military intelligence program during the Bosnian War which started in 1992 lasting until 1995. Executed and supervised by Pakistani General Javed Nasir, the program provided logistics and ammunition supplies to various groups of Bosnian mujahideen during the war. The ISI Bosnian contingent was organised with financial assistance provided by Saudi Arabia, according to the British historian Mark Curtis.

According to The Washington Post, Saudi Arabia provided $300 million in weapons to government forces in Bosnia with the knowledge and tacit cooperation of the United States, a claim denied by US officials. Foreign Muslim fighters also joined the ranks of the Bosnian Muslims, including from the Lebanese guerrilla organisation Hezbollah, and the global organization al-Qaeda.

Prelude

During the war in Croatia, arms had been pouring into Bosnia. The JNA armed Bosnian Serbs, and the Croatian Defence Force armed Herzegovinian Croats. The Bosnian Muslim Green Berets and Patriotic League were already established in the autumn of 1991, and drew up a defense plan in February 1992. It was estimated that 250–300,000 Bosnians were armed, and that some 10,000 were fighting in Croatia. By March 1992, perhaps three-quarters of the country were claimed by Serb and Croat nationalists. On 4 April 1992, Izetbegović ordered all reservists and police in Sarajevo to mobilise, and SDS called for evacuation of the city's Serbs, marking the "definite rupture between the Bosnian government and Serbs". Bosnia and Herzegovina received international recognition on 6 April 1992. The most common view is that the war started that day.

Course of the war

1992

The war in Bosnia escalated in April. On 3 April, the Battle of Kupres began between the JNA and a combined HV-HVO force that ended in a JNA victory. On 6 April Serb forces began shelling Sarajevo, and in the next two days crossed the Drina from Serbia proper and besieged Muslim-majority Zvornik, Višegrad and Foča. According to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in 1992, after the capture of Zvornik, Bosnian Serb troops killed several hundred Muslims and forced tens of thousands to flee the area. All of Bosnia was engulfed in war by mid-April. On 23 April, the JNA evacuated its personnel by helicopter from the barracks in Čapljina, which had been blockaded since 4 March. There were some efforts to halt violence. On 27 April, the Bosnian government ordered the JNA to be put under civilian control or expelled, which was followed by a series of conflicts in early May between the two. Prijedor was taken over by Serbs on 30 April. On 2 May, the Green Berets and local gang members fought back a disorganised Serb attack aimed at cutting Sarajevo in two. On 3 May, Izetbegović was kidnapped at the Sarajevo airport by JNA officers, and used to gain safe passage of JNA troops from downtown Sarajevo. However, Bosnian forces attacked the departing JNA convoy, which embittered all sides. A cease-fire and agreement on evacuation of the JNA was signed on 18 May, and on 20 May the Bosnian presidency declared the JNA an occupation force.

The Army of Republika Srpska was newly established and put under the command of General Ratko Mladić, in a new phase of the war. Shellings on Sarajevo on 24, 26, 28 and 29 May were attributed to Mladić by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Civilian casualties of a 27 May shelling of the city led to Western intervention, in the form of sanctions imposed on 30 May through United Nations Security Council Resolution 757. That same day Bosnian forces attacked the JNA barracks in the city, which was followed by heavy shelling. On 5 and 6 June the last JNA personnel left the city during heavy street fighting and shelling. The 20 June cease-fire, executed in order for UN takeover of the Sarajevo airport for humanitarian flights, was broken as both sides battled for control of the territory between the city and airport. The airport crisis led to Boutros-Ghali's ultimatum on 26 June, that the Serbs stop attacks on the city, allow the UN to take control of the airport, and place their heavy weapons under UN supervision. Meanwhile, media reported that Bush considered the use of force in Bosnia. World public opinion was "decisively and permanently against the Serbs" following media reports on the sniping and shelling of Sarajevo.

Outside of Sarajevo, the combatants' successes varied greatly in 1992. Serbs had seized Muslim-majority cities along the Drina and Sava rivers and expelled their Muslim population within months. A joint Bosnian–HVO offensive in May, having taken advantage of the confusion following JNA withdrawal, reversed Serb advances into Posavina and central Bosnia. The offensive continued southwards, besieging Doboj, thereby cutting off Serb forces in Bosanska Krajina from Semberija and Serbia. In mid-May, Srebrenica was retaken by Bosnian forces under Naser Orić. Serb forces suffered a costly defeat in eastern Bosnia in May, when according to Serbian accounts Avdo Palić's force was ambushed near Srebrenica, killing 400. From May to August, Goražde was besieged by the VRS, until the siege was broken by the ARBiH on 1 September. In April 1992, Croatian Defence Council (HVO) entered the town of Orašje and, according to Croatian sources, began a mass campaign of harassment against local Serb civilians, including torture, rape and murder.

On 15 May 1992, a JNA column was ambushed in Tuzla. 92nd Motorised JNA Brigade (stationed in "Husinska buna" barracks in Tuzla) received orders to leave the city of Tuzla and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to enter Serbia. An agreement was made with the Bosnian government that JNA units would be allowed until 19 May to leave Bosnia peacefully. Despite the agreement, the convoy was attacked in Tuzla's Brčanska Malta district with rifles and rocket launchers; mines were also placed along its route. 52 JNA soldiers were killed and over 40 were wounded, most of them ethnic Serbs.

The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted as a member State of the United Nations on 22 May 1992.

From May to December 1992, the Bosnian Ministry of the Interior (BiH MUP), Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and later the Bosnian Territorial Defence Forces (TO RBiH) operated the Čelebići prison camp. It was used to detain 700 Bosnian Serb prisoners of war arrested during military operations that were intended to de-block routes to Sarajevo and Mostar in May 1992 which had earlier been blocked by Serb forces. Of these 700 prisoners, 13 died while in captivity. Detainees at the camp were subjected to torture, sexual assaults, beatings and otherwise cruel and inhuman treatment. Certain prisoners were shot and killed or beaten to death.

On 6 May 1992, Mate Boban met with Radovan Karadžić in Graz, Austria, where they reached an agreement for a ceasefire and discussed the details of the demarcation between a Croat and Serb territorial unit in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the ceasefire was broken on the following day when the JNA and Bosnian Serb forces mounted an attack on Croat-held positions in Mostar. In June 1992, Bosnian Serb forces attacked and pounded the small Bosnian village of Žepa, and would lead to the three-year long siege of Žepa.

By June 1992, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons had reached 2.6 million. By September 1992, Croatia had accepted 335,985 refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly Bosniak civilians (excluding men of drafting age). The large number of refugees significantly strained the Croatian economy and infrastructure. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, tried to put the number of Muslim refugees in Croatia into a proper perspective in an interview on 8 November 1993. He said the situation would be the equivalent of the United States taking in 30,000,000 refugees. The number of Bosnian refugees in Croatia was at the time surpassed only by the number of the internally displaced persons within Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, at 588,000. Serbia took in 252,130 refugees from Bosnia, while other former Yugoslav republics received a total of 148,657 people.

In June 1992, the Bosnian Serbs started Operation Corridor in northern Bosnia against HV–HVO forces, to secure an open road between Belgrade, Banja Luka, and Knin. The reported deaths of twelve newborn babies in Banja Luka hospital due to a shortage of bottled oxygen for incubators was cited as an immediate cause for the action, but the veracity of these deaths has since been questioned. Borisav Jović, a contemporary high-ranking Serbian official and member of the Yugoslav Presidency, has claimed that the report was just wartime propaganda, stating that Banja Luka had two bottled oxygen production plants in its immediate vicinity and was virtually self-reliant in that respect. Operation Corridor began on 14 June 1992, when the 16th Krajina Motorized Brigade of the VRS, aided by a VRS tank company from Doboj, began the offensive near Derventa. The VRS captured Modriča on 28 June, Derventa on 4–5 July, and Odžak on 12 July. The HV–HVO forces were reduced to isolated positions around Bosanski Brod and Orašje, which held out during August and September. The VRS managed to break through their lines in early October and capture Bosanski Brod. Most of the remaining Croat forces withdrew north to Croatia. The HV–HVO continued to hold the Orašje enclave and were able to repel an VRS attack in November.

On 21 June 1992, Bosniak forces entered the Bosnian Serb village of Ratkovići near Srebrenica and murdered 24 Serb civilians.

In June 1992, the UNPROFOR, originally deployed in Croatia, had its mandate extended into Bosnia and Herzegovina, initially to protect the Sarajevo International Airport. In September, the role of UNPROFOR was expanded to protect humanitarian aid and assist relief delivery in the whole Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as to help protect civilian refugees when required by the Red Cross.

On 4 August 1992, the IV Knight Motorised Brigade of the ARBiH attempted to break through the circle surrounding Sarajevo, and a fierce battle ensued between the ARBiH and the VRS in and around the damaged ''FAMOS'' factory in the suburb of Hrasnica. The VRS repelled the attack, but failed to take Hrasnica in a decisive counterattack.

On 12 August 1992, the name of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was changed to Republika Srpska (RS). By November 1992, of eastern Bosnia was under Muslim control.

Croat–Bosniak relations in late 1992

The Croat–Bosniak alliance, formed at the beginning of the war, was often not harmonious. The existence of two parallel commands caused problems in coordinating the two armies against the VRS. An attempt to create a joint HVO and TO military headquarters in mid-April failed. On 21 July 1992, the Agreement on Friendship and Cooperation was signed by Tuđman and Izetbegović, establishing a military cooperation between the two armies. At a session held on 6 August, the Bosnian Presidency accepted HVO as an integral part of the Bosnian armed forces.

Despite these attempts, tensions steadily increased throughout the second half of 1992. An armed conflict occurred in Busovača in early May and another one on 13 June. On 19 June, a conflict between the units of the TO on one side, and HVO and HOS units on the other side broke out in Novi Travnik. Incidents were also recorded in Konjic in July, and in Kiseljak and the Croat settlement of Stup in Sarajevo during August. On 14 September, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the proclamation of Herzeg-Bosnia unconstitutional.

On 18 October, a dispute over a gas station near Novi Travnik that was shared by both armies escalated into armed conflict in the town center. The situation worsened after HVO Commander Ivica Stojak was killed near Travnik on 20 October. On the same day, fighting escalated on an ARBiH roadblock set on the main road through the Lašva Valley. Spontaneous clashes spread throughout the region and resulted in almost 50 casualties until a ceasefire was negotiated by the UNPROFOR on 21 October. On 23 October, a major battle between the ARBiH and the HVO started in the town of Prozor in northern Herzegovina and resulted in an HVO victory.

On 29 October, the VRS captured Jajce. The town was defended by both the HVO and the ARBiH, but the lack of cooperation, as well as an advantage in troop size and firepower for the VRS, led to the fall of the town. Croat refugees from Jajce fled to Herzegovina and Croatia, while around 20,000 Bosniak refugees settled in Travnik, Novi Travnik, Vitez, Busovača, and villages near Zenica. Despite the October confrontations, and with each side blaming the other for the fall of Jajce, there were no large-scale clashes and a general military alliance was still in effect. Tuđman and Izetbegović met in Zagreb on 1 November 1992 and agreed to establish a Joint Command of HVO and ARBiH.

1993

On 7 January 1993, Orthodox Christmas Day, 8th Operational Unit Srebrenica, a unit of the ARBiH under the command of Naser Orić, attacked the village of Kravica near Bratunac. 46 Serbs died in the attack: 35 soldiers and 11 civilians.Ivanisevic, Bogdan
"Orić's Two Years"
, ''Human Rights Watch''. Retrieved 31 July 2008. 119 Serb civilians and 424 Serb soldiers died in Bratunac during the war. Republika Srpska claimed that the ARBiH forces torched Serb homes and massacred civilians. However, this could not be independently verified during the ICTY trials, which concluded that many homes were already previously destroyed and that the siege of Srebrenica caused hunger, forcing Bosniaks to attack nearby Serb villages to acquire food and weapons to survive. In 2006, Orić was found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on the charges of not preventing murder of Serbs, but was subsequently acquitted of all charges on appeal.

On 8 January 1993, Serb forces killed the deputy prime minister of the RBiH Hakija Turajlić after stopping the UN convoy transporting him from the airport.

On 16 January 1993, soldiers of the ARBiH attacked the Bosnian Serb village of Skelani, near Srebrenica.http://www.novosti.rs
Skelani Zlocin jos bez kazne
/ref>http://www.srebrenica-project.com
Историјски пројекат Сребреница
/ref> 69 people were killed, 185 were wounded. Among the victims were 6 children.

A number of peace plans were proposed by the UN, the United States, and the European Community (EC), but they had little impact on the war. These included the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, revealed in January 1993. The plan was presented by the UN Special Envoy Cyrus Vance and EC representative David Owen. It envisioned Bosnia and Herzegovina as a decentralised state with ten autonomous provinces.

On 22 February 1993, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 808 that decided "that an international tribunal shall be established for the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law". On 15–16 May, the Vance-Owen peace plan was rejected on a referendum.

The peace plan was viewed by some as one of the factors leading to the escalation of the Croat–Bosniak conflict in central Bosnia.

On 25 May 1993 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was formally established by Resolution 827 of the United Nations Security Council. On 31 March 1993, the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 816, calling on member states to enforce a no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina. On 12 April 1993, NATO commenced Operation Deny Flight to enforce this no-fly zone.

In late July, representatives of Bosnia's three warring factions entered into a new round of negotiations. On 20 August, UN mediators Thorvald Stoltenberg and David Owen, showed a map that would set the stage for Bosnia to be partitioned into three ethnic states. Bosnian-Serbs would be given 52 percent of Bosnia's territory, Muslims would be given 30 percent and Bosnian-Croats would receive 18 percent. Alija Izetbegović rejected the plan on 29 August.

Outbreak of the Croat–Bosniak War

Much of 1993 was dominated by the Croat–Bosniak War. In early January, the HVO and the ARBiH clashed in Gornji Vakuf in central Bosnia. A temporary ceasefire was reached after several days of fighting with UNPROFOR mediation. The war spread from Gornji Vakuf into the area of Busovača in the second half of January. Busovača was the main intersection point of the lines of communication in the Lašva Valley. By 26 January, the ARBiH seized control of several villages in the area, including Kaćuni and Bilalovac on the Busovača–Kiseljak road, thus isolating Kiseljak from Busovača. In the Kiseljak area, the ARBiH secured the villages northeast of the town of Kiseljak, but most of the municipality and the town itself remained in HVO control. On 26 January, six POWs and a Serb civilian were killed by the ARBiH in the village of Dusina, north of Busovača. The fighting in Busovača also led to a number of Bosniak civilian casualties.

On 30 January, ARBiH and HVO leaders met in Vitez, together with representatives from UNPROFOR and other foreign observers, and signed a ceasefire in the area of central Bosnia, which came into effect on the following day. The situation was still tense so Enver Hadžihasanović, commander of ARBiH's 3rd Corps, and Tihomir Blaškić, commander of HVO's Operative Zone Central Bosnia, had a meeting on 13 February where a joint ARBiH-HVO commission was formed to resolve incidents. The January ceasefire in central Bosnia held through the following two months and in the first weeks of April, despite numerous minor incidents. The Croats attributed the escalation of the conflict to the increased Islamic policy of the Bosniaks, while Bosniaks accused the Croat side of separatism.

Central Bosnia

The beginning of April was marked by a series of minor incidents in central Bosnia between Bosniak and Croat civilians and soldiers, including assaults, murders and armed confrontations. The most serious incidents were the kidnapping of four members of the HVO outside Novi Travnik, and of HVO commander Živko Totić near Zenica by the mujahideen. The ARBiH representatives denied any involvement in these incidents and a joint ARBiH-HVO commission was formed to investigate them. The HVO personnel were subsequently exchanged in May for POWs that were arrested by the HVO. The April incidents escalated into an armed conflict on 15 April in the area of Vitez, Busovača, Kiseljak and Zenica. The outnumbered HVO in the Zenica municipality was quickly defeated, followed by a large exodus of Croat civilians.

In the Busovača municipality, the ARBiH gained some ground and inflicted heavy casualties on the HVO, but the HVO held the town of Busovača and the Kaonik intersection between Busovača and Vitez. The ARBiH failed to cut the HVO held Kiseljak enclave into several smaller parts and isolate the town of Fojnica from Kiseljak. Many Bosniak civilians were detained or forced to leave Kiseljak.

In the Vitez area, Blaškić used his limited forces to carry out spoiling attacks on the ARBiH, thus preventing the ARBiH from cutting of the Travnik–Busovača road and seizing the SPS explosives factory in Vitez. On 16 April, the HVO launched a spoiling attack on the village of Ahmići, east of Vitez. After the attacking units breached the ARBiH lines and entered the village, groups of irregular HVO units went from house to house, burning them and killing civilians. When Croat forces arrived in Ahmići, they left all Croats alone, and then massacred the Muslims in the village who couldn't flee in time. The massacre in Ahmići resulted in more than 100 killed Bosniak civilians. The massacre was discovered by United Nations Peacekeeping troops of the 1st Battalion, Cheshire Regiment, drawn from the British Army, under the command of Colonel Bob Stewart. The Bosnian Government made a monument dedicated to all 116 victims. Elsewhere in the area, the HVO blocked the ARBiH forces in the Stari Vitez quarter of Vitez and prevented an ARBiH advance south of the town. On 24 April, mujahideen forces attacked the village of Miletići northeast of Travnik and killed four Croat civilians. The rest of the captured civilians were taken to the Poljanice camp. However, the conflict did not spread to Travnik and Novi Travnik, although both the HVO and the ARBiH brought in reinforcements from this area. On 25 April, Izetbegović and Boban signed a ceasefire agreement. ARBiH Chief of Staff, Sefer Halilović, and HVO Chief of Staff, Milivoj Petković, met on a weekly basis to solve ongoing issues and implement the ceasefire. However, the truce was not respected on the ground and the HVO and ARBiH forces were still engaged in the Busovača area until 30 April.

Herzegovina

The Croat–Bosniak War spread from central Bosnia to northern Herzegovina on 14 April with an ARBiH attack on a HVO-held village outside of Konjic. The HVO responded with capturing three villages northeast of Jablanica. On 16 April, 15 Croat civilians and 7 POWs were killed by the ARBiH in the village of Trusina, north of Jablanica. The battles of Konjic and Jablanica lasted until May, with the ARBiH taking full control of both towns and smaller nearby villages.

By mid-April, Mostar had become a divided city with the majority Croat western part dominated by the HVO, and the majority Bosniak eastern part dominated by the ARBiH. The Battle of Mostar began on 9 May when both the east and west parts of the city came under artillery fire. Fierce street battles followed that, despite a ceasefire signed on 13 May by Milivoj Petković and Sefer Halilović, continued until 21 May. The HVO established prison camps in Dretelj near Čapljina and in Heliodrom, while the ARBiH formed prison camps in Potoci and in a school in eastern Mostar. The battle was renewed on 30 June. The ARBiH secured the northern approaches to Mostar and the eastern part of the city, but their advance to the south was repelled by the HVO.

June–July Offensives

In the first week of June, the ARBiH attacked the HVO headquarters in the town of Travnik and HVO units positioned on the front lines against the VRS. After three days of street fighting the outnumbered HVO forces were defeated, with thousands of Croat civilians and soldiers fleeing to nearby Serb-held territory as they were cut off from HVO held positions. The ARBiH offensive continued east of Travnik to secure the road to Zenica, which was achieved by 14 June. On 8 June, 24 Croat civilians and POWs were killed by the mujahideen near the village of Bikoši.

A similar development took place in Novi Travnik. On 9 June, the ARBiH attacked HVO units positioned east of the town, facing the VRS in Donji Vakuf, and the next day heavy fighting followed in Novi Travnik. By 15 June, the ARBiH secured the area northwest of the town, while the HVO kept the northeastern part of the municipality and the town of Novi Travnik. The battle continued into July with only minor changes on the front lines.

The HVO in the town of Kakanj was overran in mid June and around 13–15,000 Croat refugees fled to Kiseljak and Vareš. In the Kiseljak enclave, the HVO held off an attack on Kreševo, but lost Fojnica on 3 July. On 24 June, the Battle of Žepče began that ended with an ARBiH defeat on 30 June. In late July the ARBiH seized control of Bugojno, leading to the departure of 15,000 Croats. A prison camp was established in the town football stadium, where around 800 Croats were sent.

At the beginning of September, the ARBiH launched an operation known as '' Operation Neretva '93'' against the HVO in Herzegovina and central Bosnia, on a 200 km long front. It was one of their largest offensives in 1993. The ARBiH expanded its territory west of Jablanica and secured the road to eastern Mostar, while the HVO kept the area of Prozor and secured its forces rear in western Mostar. During the night of 8/9 September, at least 13 Croat civilians were killed by the ARBiH in the Grabovica massacre

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