The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia

[Defensor Fidei]

The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia


Prologue


In October, 1992, Jajce, an important town northwest of Travnik on the main road to Banja Luka, had been under siege by the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) for nearly five months. A mixed garrison of Croatian Defense Council and Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina soldiers defended the town and its two important power stations. They were supported from Travnik over a tenuous, narrow, twenty-five-mile-long corridor through Serb-held territory. Reinforcements, food, ammunition, and other vital supplies were brought forward by truck, usually at night. Constantly under fire, the nightly convoys that snaked from Travnik along the primitive road through rough mountain terrain barely sufficed to keep Jajce's beleaguered ganison and civilian population alive. On October 27, 1992, the BSA's I Krajina Corps acted to end the siege of Jajce with an all-out attack preceded by several air strikes. The following day, Jajce's HVO defenders evacuated their sick and wounded along with the Croat civilian residents before abandoning the town that evening. The Muslim soldiers and civilians soon followed when, on October 29, the BSA entered the town and began a program of "ethnic cleansing" that resulted in what has been called "the largest and most wretched single exodus" of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
For many of the thirty thousand refugees who fled over the mountains or down the by-then notorious "Vietnam Road" toward the relative safety of Travnik, it was not the first time they had been forced to flee before the BSA. Many had fled earlier to Jajce from Banja Luka, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Kotor Varos, and other towns and villages in the Bosanska-Krajina region. For the most part, the HVO soldiers and Croat refugees who fled Jajce filtered down into the relative safety of Herzegovina or even into Croatia itself. The twenty thousand or so Muslim refugees, on the other hand, had no place else to go and therefore remained in Travnik, Novi Travnik, Vitez, Busovaca, or villages near Bila and Zenica. Amidst mutual accusations of having abandoned the defense of the city, both the HVO and the ABiH were forced to repair the substantial military damage suffered while their respective civilian authorities were faced with the problems caused by a major influx of refugees into the central Bosnia area.

Therein lay the seeds of the coming conflict. The Muslim refugees from Jajce posed both a problem and an opportunity for Alija Izetbegovic's government. The problem was where to relocate them. The opportunity was a military one: the large number of military age males, well motivated for revenge against the Serbs and equally ready to take on the Croats, provided a pool from which the ABiH could fill up existing units and form new mobile ones that would then be available to undertake offensive missions. Until the last months of 1992, the lack of mobile units trained and motivated for offensive operations had prevented the ABiH from mounting a sustained offensive action against the BSA or anyone else. However, the influx of refugees from Jajce, combined with large numbers of military-age refugees from eastern Bosnia and the arrival of fundamentalist Muslim fighters (mujahideen) from abroad, made it possible for the ABiH to form such mobile units and to contemplate offensive action on a large scale for the first time.

Thus, contrary to the commonly accepted view, it was the fall of Jajce at the end of October, 1992, not the publication of the details of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP) in January, 1993, that precipitated the Muslim-Croat conflict in central Bosnia. It was the Muslims, who had both the means and motive to strike against their erstwhile ally. The United Nations-backed VOPP proposed the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina into ten provinces, each of which-except for the one surrounding Sarajevo- would be dominated by one of the three principal ethnic groups. The plan's details were announced in December, 1992, and the supporting map was released the following month. The common but nevertheless erroneous argument is that the Muslim-Croat conflict in central Bosnia arose from the Bosnian Croats' premature and ruthless efforts to implement the plan in the central Bosnian provinces assigned to them.1 However, that argument rests on faulty post hoc propter hoc reasoning unsupported by convincing factual evidence as to means, motive, and opportunity. Nor does it take into account the time required to plan and execute an offensive campaign. Open conflict between the Muslims and Croats in Central Bosnia broke out on January 14, 1993, just two days after the VOPP cantonal map was finalized in Geneva but two and one-half months after Jajce fell.

On the other hand, the temporal and causative connections between the massive influx of Muslim refugees into central Bosnia following Jajce's fall and the outbreak of the Muslim-Croat conflict are clear. Their disruptive presence in central Bosnia's towns and villages, their incorporation into the ABiH's new mobile offensive units, and the urgent need to find them living space are well-known and widely accepted facts. The role they played as the catalyst for the Muslim-Croat conflict was pointed out by Franjo Nakic, the former HVO Operative Zone Central Bosnia chief of staff, and many other witnesses appearing before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Fomer Yugoslavia in The Hague. As Nakic succinctly stated, "the Croats and Muslims, the local ones, would never have entered into a conflict were it not for the influx of these refugees who sought a space for themselves, having lost their own in Western and Eastern Bosnia."2

______________________________

1 The unsubstantiated opinion that the Muslim-Croat conflict in central Bosnia was precipitated by the Croat insistence on early implementation of the VOPP surfaced early in the conflict. For example, Lt. Col. Robert A. Stewart, commander of the British UNPROFOR battalion in the Lasva Valley, recorded in his diary that he had expressed to the Equerry to the Prince of Wales his belief that “the HVO were causing problems in order to force the Muslims to agree to the Geneva Peace Plan” (Stewart diary, Jan. 29, 1993, sec. 3, 12, KC D56/1 and KC d104/1). It has also been promoted by journalists (e.g. Peter Maas in Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War, n 286); by human rights organizations (e.g. Helsinki Watch [Human Rights Watch] in War Crimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 2:379-81); and in other Western publications (e.g. Jane’s Information Group, Jane’s Bosnia Handbook, sec. 2, 3-4).

2 Franjo Nakic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 13, 2000. Nakic was chief of staff of the HVO’s OZCB from December 1992 to December 1996.


Prelude to Civil War in Central Bosnia


The fall of Jajce to the Bosnian Serb army on October 29, 1992, marked the beginning of open conflict between the Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia. Until that time, the two communities had maintained an uneasy alliance against the BSA, but the tension between them grew during the course of 1991-92. The HVO and ABiH squabbled over the distribution of arms seized from the JNA, and there were numerous local incidents of violence by one group against the other. However, only in the last quarter of 1992 did Muslim-Croat disagreements begin to rise to the level of civil war.
In January, 1993, the building animosity transformed into open conflict as the ABiH, strengthened by large numbers ofMuslim refugees and the arrival of the mujahideen, mounted a probing attack against their HVO allies. Muslim extremists, abetted by the Izetbegovic government and fervent nationalists within the ABiH, planned and initiated offensive action against their erstwhile ally in the hope of securing control of the key military industries and lines of communication in central Bosnia ang clearing the region for the resettlement of the thousands of Muslims displaced by the fighting against the BSA elsewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

There is, of course, no "smoking gun" - no operations plan or policy decision document that proves beyond a doubt the ABiH planned and carried out an attack on the Croatian enclaves in central Bosnia with such objectives. The time and place at which the plan was approved, and who proposed and who approved it, remain unknown. Did a written document outlining the plan ever exist? Probably. Does a copy of that document still exist? Probably deep in the ABiH's archives. Will it ever be produced for public scrutiny? Probably not - for rather obvious reasons. On the other hand, neither does such clear evidence exist to support the oft-repeated hypothesis of journalists, UNPROFOR and ECMMpersonnel, and Muslim propagandists that the HVO planned and carried out such an offensive against the Muslims. The answer to the key question of who planned and initiated the conflict between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia can only be determined by carefully evaluating the thousands of fragments of evidence and fitting them into a coherent pattern showing means, motive, and opportunity in the same way a detective arrives at a viable reconstruction of a crime. The process is tedious, but it produces reliable results. When applied to the events in central Bosnia between November, 1992, and March, 1994, it leads to just one conclusion: only the ABiH had the necessary means, motive, and opportunity; it was, in fact, the ABiH, not the HVO, that developed a strategic offensive plan and attempted to carry it out.

HVO-ABiH Cooperation in the Battle against the Serbs

At the beginning of the conflict with the Bosnian Serbs, the HVO attempted to strengthen coordination in the Muslim and Croat alliance. In mid-April, 1992, the HVO requested that RBiH president Alija Izetbegovic create a joint military headquarters to govern both the HVO and the Muslim-led Territorial Defense forces, but Izetbegovic ignored the request and the issue was never put on the agenda of any meeting of the RBiH Presidency, despite repeated pleas from Croat members of the Presidency. Efforts to improve coordination at the local level also met with Muslim indifference and obstruction. In central Bosnia, the HVO and TO attempted to form a joint military unit to defend against the BSA onslaught. In early 1992, the Vitez Municipality Crisis Staff proposed the establishment of a joint Vitez Brigade made up of a battalion from the HVO and one from the TO. A Croat, Franjo Nakic, would serve as commander, and a Muslim, Sefkija Didic, would be both deputy commander and chief of staff. The rest of the staff would be composed of both HVO and TO officers. However, the Muslims' foot- dragging and quibbling regarding the proposed brigade antagonized the Croats, who increasingly left the Territorial Defense forces for the HVO, which was farther along in its preparations to defend against the Serbs.

Nevertheless, by mid-1992, the hastily assembled and armed HVO and TO forces, with some assistance from the Croatian armed forces, managed to establish a defensive line against the more numerous and much better equipped Bosnian Serb army. However, the BSA had surrounded Sarajevo, the RBiH capital, and the scratch Muslim and Croat forces faced the superior Serb forces on several fronts ringing the newly declared state. The co-operating HVO and Muslim forces faced significant BSA threats in both eastern and western Herzegovina, and a predominantly Muslim army struggled to retain control of several eastern Bosnia towns invested by the BSA. Of principal concern to the commanders of the HVO OZCB and the ABiH III Corps in central Bosnia were an eastern front running from Hadzici north to the Visoko-llijas area; a northern front in the Maglaj-Doboj-Teslic-Tesanj area; and a western front in the area extending from Jajce southward to Donji Vakuf and Bugojno. In all three areas, the RBiH's HVO and Muslim forces struggled to hold back the BSA advance.

The Growth of Muslim-Croat Hostility, March, 1992-January, 1993

Tensions between Muslims and Croats increased steadily throughout the course of 1992 as the two sides vied for political power in the various municipalities in central Bosnia; squabbled over the division of the spoils left by the JNA, which abandoned Bosnia-Herzegovina in May, 1992; sought to gain control over key localities and facilities; and acted to protect their communities from all comers. Despite growing tensions and a number of armed confrontations, the HVO and ABiH continued to cooperate in the defense against the Bosnian Serbs backed by the rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the remnants of the JNA. However, three essentially unrelated incidents in late October-just before Jajce fell to the BSA - signalled the coming conflict: the Novi Travnik gas station incident, the assassination of the HVO commander in Travnik, and the Muslim roadblock at Ahmici. These incidents led to a flare-up of small-scale Muslim-Croat fighting throughout the region that was tamped down by an UNPROFOR arranged cease-fire. Tensions and incidents increased substantially following Jajce's fall and the consequent influx of Muslim refugees, many of them armed, into the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica region. At the same time, the mujahideen presence in central Bosnia began to make itself felt, and the ABiH began to infiltrate armed cadres into the villages and to position regular ABiH units in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica valley in preparation for the planned offensive.

Following numerous Muslim-Croat disagreements and confrontations in the Busovaca area, HVO authorities took over the Busovaca municipal government on May 10, blockading the town, demanding the surrender of weapons by the Muslim-dominated TO units, issuing arrest warrants for prominent Muslims, guaranteeing the security and eventual evacuation of JNA elements from the Kaonik area, and mobilizing the Croats in the town. Moreover, the Croat authorities announced that the Busovaca HVO would take over all JNA weapons, equipment, and barracks in the local area. The Muslim-led Bosnian government was incensed by the Croats' seizure of control in Busovaca and on May 12 openly condemned the HVO authorities for not handing control of the town over to the central government on demand.

The tensions in the Busovaca area were intensified by the Muslim failure to hold to the agreed upon plan for the distribution of arms from the former JNA arsenal in the area. Several similar incidents occurred elsewhere, resulting in small fights between Muslims and Croats over the distribution of the spoils resulting from the JNA's withdrawal. There was a Muslim-Croat confrontation at the Bratstvo armaments factory in Novi Travnik on June 18 when HVO elements attempted to prevent Bosnia-Herzegovina's Muslim-led government from removing from the factory arms the government intended to sell abroad. Two months later in August, HVO and Territorial Defense elements forced the turnover of the JNA arsenal at Slimena in Travnik. The arsenal had been mined by the JNA, and while the HVO tried to negotiate a surrender and the removal of the mines, TO elements broke into the factory and exploded them. In the aftermath of the debacle, the TO soldiers gathered up undamaged weapons parts, which they subse-quently reassembled to make whole weapons. One result of the consequent increase in the numbers of weapons in Muslim hands was an increase in confrontations in the area.

Representatives of the various Croat communities in central Bosnia met in Busovaca on September 22 to discuss the situation, particularly the growing tensions between Muslims and Croats resulting from one municipality or the other coming under the exclusive control of either Muslim or Bosnian Croat authorities. The conferees enumerated a number of general observations regarding the situation throughout the region. They noted in particular the need to revive the local economy and speed up preparations for winter in case they were totally cut off from Herzegovina and Croatia. They called for better coordination between HVO military and civilian authorities and uniformity of policy. Complaints were also made regarding the behavior of Muslims who acted ''as if they have an exclusive right to power in B and H and as if they are the only fighters for B and H," and regarding Muslim attempts to enforce their policies through the use of Croatian Defense Forces (HOS) elements. Special concern was aniculated regarding the daily arrival of new Muslim refugees in the area, as well as the increasing , presence of Muslim forces in the various towns while HVO forces were busy holding the lines against the BSA and HVO military authorities were being urged to prepare defense plans in case of confrontations with the Muslims.

In mid-October, three apparently unrelated incidents led to open fighting between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia. The first of these occurred in the town of Novi Travnik on October 18, and involved a dispute that began at a gas station near HVO headquarters. By mutual agreement, Muslims and Croats were sharing the region's fuel supplies. The conflict apparently broke out when Croats manning the gas station in Novi Travnik refused to provide gasoline to a Muslim Territorial Defense soldier. A squabble began, the Muslim was shot dead, and within minutes HVO and TO forces in Novi Travnik were engaged in a full-scale firefight in the town center. The fighting, led by Refik Lendo on the Muslim side, continued for several days despite the efforts of British UNPROFOR officers to bring it to a halt.

News of the fighting in Novi Travnik spread quickly throughout the region. Both Muslims and Croats erected roadblocks, mobilized local defense forces, and in some areas fired upon each other. Even so, the conflict rermained localized and uncoordinated, the Muslim and Croat forces in each town and village acting according to their own often faulty assessment of the situation. However, the situation worsened two days later when the commander of the HVO brigade in Travnik, Ivica Stojak, was assassinated on October 20 by mujahideen near Medresa, apparently on the orders of Col. Asim Koricic, commander of the 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade.1 From about the time Jajce fell, the newly arrived mujahideen had begun to appear in the Travnik area, and the number of small incidents between Muslims and Croats had risen substantially. Nevertheless, Stojak's assassination may have been personal rather than part of some larger Muslim plot against the HVO in Travnik.

Perhaps the most serious incident of the October outburst was the establishment of a roadblock by Muslim TO forces near the village of Ahmici on the main road through the Lasva Valley. The roadblock was established on October 20, and the TO forces manning it refused to let HVO forces en route to the defense of Jajce pass.2 The TO commander in the Ahmici area, Nijaz Sivro, was young and inexperienced, as was his deputy, Muniz Ahmic. Sivro had gone to the front lines against the Serbs in Visoko just before the roadblock at Ahmici was set up, and Ahmic was entrusted with the task of establishing the roadblock by the "Coordinating Committee for the Protection of Muslims." One Muslim officer characterized the setting up of the barricade as "ill-prepared and disorganized," and the initial confrontation at the Ahmici roadblock resulted in one Muslim soldier killed and several wounded. 'Two days later, October 22, the roadblock was removed without a fight, and HVO forces could again use the Lasva Valley road for mo ing troops to the Serb front. During the course of the altercation, the Muslim TO commander in Vitez told the UNPROFOR's Lt. Cot. Bob Stewart that Muslims had established the roadblock at Ahmici to prevent the HVO from reinforcing their forces then fighting in Novi Travnik. In fact, the establishment of the roadblock had been ordered by the ABiH zone headquarters in Zenica (later HQ, III Corps). 3

After several days of fighting and almost fifty casualties in the Lasva region, officers of the British UNPROFOR unit managed to negotiate a ceasefire on October 21 in the Vitez area that was then extended to Novi Travnik and the rest of the region. The Muslirn-Croat fighting had been widespread, but it appears to have been spontaneous rather than the result of a coordinated action by either side. Although a planned provocation by the Muslims, in and of itself the October 20 roadblock at Ahmici was a minor event. As far as the HVO authorities at the time were concerned, it was not a serious incident. It took on much greater significance, however, after HVO forces assaulted the village on April 16, 1993. Those who wished to portray the HVO as the aggressor in the Muslim-Croat conflict in central Bosnia have painted the October incident as a cause of the April, 1993 events, although the only real connection between the two is that they occurred in approximately the same location: the point at which the village of Ahmici touches the Vitez-Busovaca road at the narrowest part of the Lasva Valley.

One historian has characterized the period from January, 1992, up to the outbreak of Muslim-Croat hostilities in late January, 1993, as one in which "there was some 'pushing and shoving' between Croats and Muslims, and a lack of wholehearted cooperation as each group sought to stabilise and strengthen its own territory."4 Indeed, one can point to numerous small-scale local confrontations between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia during the course of 1992 designed to gain control over stockpiles of arms, munitions, and other military supplies; to gain control of key facilities or lines of communications; and to test the other side's will and capabilities to resist. Such incidents increased in frequency and intensity after Jajce fell on October 29, 1992, but they do not appear to have been part of a coordinated plan by either party. Indeed, they appear to be random, unconnected, and short-lived episodes resulting from the increasing level of tension and distrust between the two communities in central Bosnia. Even the build up of Muslim forces, the infiltration of armed ABiH soldiers and mujahideen into key villages and towns, and the suggestive positioning of ABiH units in central Bosnia went largely unnoticed by the HVO at the time.5 Only in retrospect do they appear to be part of a pattern of actions taken by the ABiH to prepare for the opening of an all-out Muslim offensive against the Croatian community in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica region.

The ABiH Strategic Offensive Plan

Although its author and the date of its creation remain uncertain, events clearly reveal the existence of an ABiH strategic offensive against the HVO in central Bosnia that began in mid-January, 1993, and continued in several phases until the signing of the Washington Agreements in late February, 1994. The strategic objectives of the plan were:

1. To gain control of the north-south lines of communication (LOCs) passing through the Bosnian Croat enclave in central Bosnia, thereby linking the ABiH forces north of the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica Valleys with those to the south and securing the Muslim lines of communication to the outside world.
2. To gain control of the military industrial facilities in central Bosnia (the SPS explosives factory in Vitez and factories in Travnik and Novi Travnik) or on its periphery (factories in Bugojno, Gomji Vakuf, Prozor, Jablanica, Konjic, and Hadzici, among others) so as to facilitate the arming of the ABiH in the war against the Serbs.
3. To surround the Bosnian Croat enclave in central Bosnia and divide it into smaller pieces that could then be eliminated seriatim, thereby clearing the Croats from central Bosnia and providing a place for Muslim refugees expelled by the Serbs from other areas to settle.

Achieving the third objective would also ensure that the Muslims retained political control of central Bosnia so they could continue to dominate the RBiH's central government. There was probably also an anticipation of a peace agreement that would result in a partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina among the Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, in which case possession of the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica region would probably be tantamount to its inclusion in the Muslim area under any settlement, regardless of the area's former ethnic composition, a principle that was observed subsequently in areas seized by the Serbs. In fact, the area in question was part of Canton 10 , under the Vance-Owen Peace Plan and was assigned to the Croats, but at the time the Muslim offensive plan was devised and set in motion the issue was still undecided.6 In any event, occupation by the ABiH of the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica region would probably be cause for revision of the VOPP. In a larger and less sinister context, the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina's infant central government may simply have been eager to exert its authority over such territory as had not already been taken by the Bosnian Serbs. It should also be noted that the Croat enclaves in northern Bosnia posed no threat politically or militarily to the Muslim-led government and were useful for propaganda purposes to show the multiethnic composition and co-operation in the Muslim-led RBiH.

Such a complex and far-reaching plan could only have been worked out in the ABiH General Staff under the direction of Chief of Staff Sefer Halilovic, and further elaborated in Enver Hadzihasanovic's III Corps headquarters. Only they had the resources and expertise to prepare such a plan, and there are some indications that they had considered such a plan much earlier. By the time Jajce fell at the end of October, 1992, the ABiH's logistical situation was near collapse. The Izetbegovic government had failed to induce the United Nations to cancel its arms embargo or to intervene militarily, and, despite Chief of Staff Halilovic's persistent entreaties, had done little to mobilize the Bosnian economy for war. Too weak to seize the arms and equipment it needed from the far more powerful Bosnian Serb army, the ABiH still had sufficient strength to overpower its erstwhile ally, the HVO-at least in the central Bosnia area. Success in such an endeavor would solve two of the most pressing logistical problems. First, it would provide an immediate gain in arms and other equipment, which could be quickly turned against the Serbs. Second, it would open the ABiH's lines of communications through central Bosnia, thereby facilitating the more effective deployment of available ABiH troops, armaments, and supplies, as well as the importation of arms, ammunition, and other vital supplies obtained on the international arms market. Moreover, General Halilovic's associates on the ABiH General Staff had long since identified Kiseljak, Busovaca, Vitez, and Vares as the site for refugee settlements. In the summer of 1992, two of Halilovic's subordinates, Rifat Bilajac and Zicro Suljevic, attended a meeting at SDA headquarters in Sarajevo to discuss the refugee situation. Halilovic relates that they returned to the headquarters infuriated, Bilajac stating angrily:I was informed about everything in the SDA headquarters. There were some 10-12 members of the executive committee present, and when I suggested that refugee settlements should be built in Kiseljak, Busovaca, Vitez and Vares, Behmen tells me nicely: 'It can't be there, as that's Croat national territory.' The other members were silent. Then we quarreled and left the meeting. Well, what are we dying for if this is Croat national territory?"7

As to the question of when such a plan might have been conceived, it is important to note that the ABiH III Corps first openly attacked HVO forces in the Lasva Valley in late January, 1993. A significant amount of time, probably not less than two months, would have been required to assemble and prepare the forces necessary for an offensive on the scale of the January attacks. Thus, the basic plan needed to have been completed no later than November 1, 1992, suggesting that the necessary planning was already in progress even before Jajce fell. It seems likely, therefore, that the concept of the ABiH strategic offensive against the HVO in central Bosnia was developed in the late summer or early fall of 1992 and that the “go-no go" decision was probably made in early November-soon after the fall of Jajce.


The HVO Reaction

While the ABiH was clearly the aggressor in the Muslim-Croat civil war in central Bosnia, the HVO commanders did not sit idly by waiting to be overrun by their more numerous Muslim opponents. Instead they adopted what is known in U.S. military parlance as an "active defense” that is, a defense in which the defender actively and continuously seeks to improve his defensive posture by seizing and controlling key terrain and lines of communication, degrading the enemy's offensive capabilities, and acting aggressively to spoil enemy attacks and keep the enemy off balance.8 To an observer on the ground who did not understand the overall strategic situation-particularly one prone to rash judgments and broad inferences-the HVO's conduct of the active defense might well appear to have been offensive in nature. Yet, the fact is, it was largely reactive and preventive.

Thus, from an HVO perspective the strategic battle was entirely a defensive one, albeit marked by selective use of preemptive spoiling attacks (pre- ventivi), counterattacks, and other offensive actions designed to support the Croat defensive strategy by the conduct of an “active defense" rather than a purely positional defense in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica Valleys. Surrounded, heavily outnumbered (by as much as eight or ten to one according to some accounts), and logistically bankrupt, it would have been com- pletely illogical for the Croats to try to mount a systematic campaign to expand the enclave or to ethnically cleanse Muslims from the Lasva Valley, much less from all of the proposed Canton 10. One former HVO officer has said that an HVO commander would have had to be "insane” to have contemplated an offensive against the Muslims given their tenuous manpower, logistics, and full deployment against the Serbs.9 They were barely able to repel the repeated Muslim attacks and were certainly too weak in numbers, arms, and ammunition to attempt a major offensive. Nevertheless, the hard-pressed HVO forces did manage to mount a number of small offensive actions to secure better defensive positions, prevent the Muslims from obtaining their objectives, and to clear their rear areas of troublesome Muslim enclaves. Generally, a clear military necessity can be shown for each of those offensive actions. More commonly, the HVO forces simply took up defensive positions and repelled a series of increasingly heavy Muslim attacks that inexorably whittled away the territory held by the HVO, inflicted casualties, and slowly asphyxiated the Bosnian Croat defenders.

________________________________

1 Ljubas, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, May 16, 2000; Filipovic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr 11, 2000.
2 Zeko, Blaskic trial testimony, Sept. 11, 1998.
3 Maj. Sulejman Kalco, Kodic-Cerkez trial testimony, Mar. 7, 2000. Kalco was deputy commander of the Muslim forces in Stari Vitez in 1993. He later retired from the Federation Army.
4 O’Ballance, Civil War in Bosnia, 48
5 Major Zeko, the HQ, OZCB, intelligence officer at the time, noted that although he mentioned to his superiors several times the growing disadvantage of the HVO position in the area due to Muslim infiltration and the positioning of ABiH forces to the rear of HVO units defending the front against the Serbs, there did not appear to be any urgent reaction on the part of the HVO leadership (conversation with author, Split, Aug. 17, 1999)
6 The Vance-Owen Peace Plan canton map was not agreed upon until January 10-12, 1993.
8 Halilovic, Lukava Strategija, 78. See also the comments of journalist Ed Vulliamy regarding the "grand scheme" of Mehmed Alagic, a senior ABiH commander in central Bosnia, for "consolidation of the Muslim triangle in central Bosnia" (Seasons in Hell, 257-58)
8 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Pub 1-02, 3, defines "active defense" as: "The employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy". Indeed, the former commander of OZ Northwest Herzegovina used the term exactly in its American sense to describe the series of small counterattacks and other offensive actions taken by the HVO in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica Valleys and elsewhere (Maj. Gen. Zeljko Siljeg, conversation with author, Medjugorje, Aug. 23, 1999)
9 Zeko conversation, Aug. 27, 1999.

[Defensor Fidei]

The ABiH Probing Attack, January, 1993


Even before Jajce fell, the ABiH appears to have been planning some sort of offensive against the Bosnian Croats in central Bosnia. After October 29, 1992, the increasing numbers of able-bodied military-age Muslim refugees entering the region were organized, armed, and trained for offensive operations; mujahideen, ABiH soldiers, and armed refugees were infiltrated into key villages in groups of three or four men and hidden in Muslim homes or mosques; and by the end of 1992, the ABiH had positioned a number of its combat brigades in key locations throughout the Lasva, Kozica, and Lepenica Valleys.1 In retrospect, the latter actions were particularly significant.
The first phase of the ABiH offensive plan began on January 20-21, 1993, and took the form of a probing action designed to seize key terrain and position forces for the coming main attack; to test HVO resistance and uncover HVO defensive plans and methods; and probably to test the reactions of UNPROFOR forces to an open conflict between the Muslims and Croats. This stage of the campaign, which was preceded by an ABiH III Corps attack on the town of Gornji Vakuf in an attempt to seal off the central Bosnia battlefield by closing the vital Route DIAMOND supply route, lasted only a few days, in large part because the HVO was able to repulse the main Muslim probes and quickly force a stalemate. The ABiH subsequently drew back and reformed in preparation for the main offensive in rnid-April, 1993. The ABiH planners probably viewed the UNPROFOR's lack of response as a "green light" for the planned main attack in April.

The ABiH achieved tactical surprise with its January probing operations. Brigadier Ivica Zeko, the OZCB intelligence officer at the time, said in retrospect that it is clear the Muslims were positioning their units for an offensive, but that neither he nor anyone else in the HVO had a clear indication of it before the Muslims launched their attack. The HVO was working with the Muslims against the Serbs, and no one was looking for Muslim perfidy. For example, the HVO headquarters in central Bosnia apparently did not target the ABiH for intelligence purposes before mid-January, 1993, although the Muslim intelligence services targeted the HVO.2 But even had the HVO known in advance of the Muslim attack, there is little that could have done in terms of repositioning its forces, which were heavily committed on the lines against the Serbs.

Despite Zeko's disclaimer, the OZCB apparently did have some indications that something was about to happen. The attack on Gornji Vakuf and fighting in the Prozor area were clear signs that a major ABiH operation was in the offing in central Bosnia, and there were probably warnings from the HVO Main Staff in Mostar. On January 16, 1993, HQ, OZCB, ordered all subordinate units to raise their combat readiness to the highest level, including the cancellation of all leaves, the collection and redistribution of weapons in private hands, the disarming and isolation of Muslim members of the HVO who disobeyed orders, and an increase in the security posture of various Croat villages in the Operative Zone. The HVO brigades in Zenica and Busovaca were directed to organize surveillance of the area between Zenica and the Lasva Valley, and the HVO brigade in Novi Travnik was instructed to monitor the area toward Gornji Vakuf and be prepared to act on order. The 4th Military Police Battalion was ordered to secure the HVO's military and political headquarters, control traffic, and confiscate weapons and other equipment from Muslim transports. The PPN "Vitezovi" and "Ludvig Pavlovic" were employed from January 19 on reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering missions to track the movement of ABiH units in the OZCB area of operations.

The ABiH Attack on Gornji Vakuf

While the town of Gornji Vakuf (usually called Uskoplje by Croats) was in the Operative Zone Northwest Herzegovina rather than the OZCB, it was of vital importance to the defenders of the Croat enclaves in central Bosnia inasmuch as it was the southern terminus of the vital Novi Travnik-Gornji Vakuf supply route. Before the conflict in January, 1993, Gornji Vakuf's population included about ten thousand Croats and fourteen thousand Muslims. Many of the surrounding villages had a Croat majority, and in the town itself the Croats and Muslims lived in mixed areas. When the Serbs attacked Croatia in 1991, the HVO in Gornji Vakuf started making military preparations, and by the time of the Battle of Kupres in 1992 had formed one HVO company. There were few problems in the town; the Muslims and Croats had parallel governmental and military structures, and the two communities coexisted warily. In August, 1992, the Muslim Green Berets, paramilitary group established a headquarters in Gornji Vakuf, and they, rather than Territorial Defense troops, began to patrol the nearby Muslim villages. However, there were no serious incidents between the Muslims and Croats until January 8-10, 1993, when, as a prelude to the ABiH attack on the town, about a hundred Croats were expelled from their homes in the Muslim sections of town. On January 10, the main road was blocked for the first time, and the Muslims refused to allow HVO troops on their way to the BSA front to pass.

On January 13, the 305th and 317th Mountain brigades of the ABiH III Corps, under the command of V. Agic, attacked the HVO forces in Gornji Vakuf. The attack's apparent objective was to test the mettle of the Croat defenders and, if possible, to cut the road to Novi Travnik, thus sealigs central Bosnia off from Herzegovina. The town was defended by elements of the Ante Starcevic Brigade, a unit subordinate to Brigadier Zeljko Siljeg's OZ ,Northwest Herzegovina. There were some three hundred HVO fighters in the town and about two thousand in the surrounding area, reinforced by some seventy HVO military policemen and about 150 men of the PPN "Bruno Busic."

Once the conflict began, a front line was established through the center of town, with the area south of the HVO military police headquarters under Muslim control. Following the initial clashes, the Muslims took positions on the surrounding hills, and the local HVO forces, lacking sufficient manpower to hold a continuous line, established a forty-five-kilometer line of strong points on key terrain facing the Muslims holding the surrounding high ground. Among the key positions the HVO held was the pass on the road between Gornji Vakuf and Prozor. A temporary cease-fire was arranged with UNPROFOR assistance on the afternoon of January 13, and the Croats could again use the road, but there continued to be many problems due to the Muslim checkpoints.

At the time, the OZCB intelligence staff saw the attack on Gornji Vakuf as an isolated "local action" intended to disrupt traffic on the Gornji Vakuf-Novi Travnik road. Only in retrospect was it clear that the Muslims wanted to seal central Bosnia off from Herzegovina and to provoke the HVO into some offensive action to clear their lines of communication, an action that could then be used as a casus belli and proof of Croat perfidy. The fighting around Gornji Vakuf subsequently intensified and assumed even greater significance as the ABiH continued its attempts to secure control of the southern end of the vital Gornji Vakuf-Novi Travnik corridor.

The ABiH Attacks at Kacuni and Busovaca

The two principal objectives of the Muslim probing attacks launched from the villages of Merdani, Lasva, and Dusina in January, 1993, were the village of Kacuni on the important Busovaca-Kiseljak road and the town of Busovaca itself. The intent of the ABiH attackers was to seize Kacuni and thus sever the connection between Kiseljak and the rest of the Croat enclave in central Bosnia. Busovaca was a key Croat political center and controlled the road net west to Vitez and Travnik, east to the Bosna River and thence north to Zenica or south and east to Kakanj, Visoko, and Sarajevo, and southeast to Kiseljak. By taking Busovaca, the ABiH could ensure control of the principal lines of communication in the Lasva, Kozica, and Lepenica Valleys. By definition, a probing attack is one, which, if it encounters only light resistance, can be pressed on to some major goal. In the case of the January, 1993, attack in the Busovaca-Kacuni area, the major goal was to lower Croat morale and divide the Croat enclave in central Bosnia into two segments. In fact, the latter objective was achieved.

The ABiH offensive operation in central Bosnia began on January 19 with the establishment of a checkpoint at Kacuni on the Busovaca-Kiseljak road by elements of the ABiH III Corps.3 This marked the first open clash between the ABiH and the HVO in the area, and, just as the attackers intended, interrupted communications between Busovaca and Kiseljak. Meanwhile, efforts were made to open a road across the Hum-Kula massif leading to the Busovaca-Kacuni area for the purpose of facilitating the "movement of ABiH forces into the contested areas. Elements of ABiH Operations Group (OG) Lasva, under the command of Nehru Ganic, attacked and seized the villages of Lasva and Dusina, and the 333d Mountain Brigade established a line from Lasva through Dusina to Kacuni. In the course of taking control of Dusina, elements of the 2d Battalion, 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade-commanded by Col. Serif Patkovic-massacred a number of Croat soldiers and civilians in the village. They also executed the local Croat commander, Zvonko Rajic, and cut out his heart.4 On January 23-24, elements of the 30lst Mechanized and the 303d, 314th, and 333d Mountain Brigades, supported by part of the 310th Mountain Brigade from the Fojnica area, a battalion of the 7th Muslim Brigade, units of the Mobile Detachment, and a company of military police from the ABiH III Corps, continued the attack from Kacuni toward the village of Bilalovac which was taken thereby linking the ABiH's OG Istok (East) with OG Zapad (West).The villages of Nezirovici, Oseliste, Gusti Grab, and Donje Polje were attacked on January 25-26, and their Croat populations "cleared up.". An accidental result of the Muslim seizure of Kacuni was that the HVO OZCB commander, Col. Tihomir Blaskic, was cut off from his headquarters in Vitez. A native of the Kiseljak area, Blaskic was paying a Sunday visit to his parents when the Busovaca-Kiseljak road was cut at Kacuni. It was some time before he was able to return to his headquarters, so he had to direct operations from the Ban Jelacic Brigade's headquarters in Kiseljak.

Although Muslim-Croat tensions were high, the January attack came as something of a surprise to the HVO soldiers and authorities in the Busovaca area. In December, 1992, armed Muslim refugees from Jajce and the fighting in the Krajina had begun to move into the Busovaca area, and in January, 1993, they were augmented by Muslim troops who had left the front lines against the Serbs and were taking over a building at a time in Busovaca and other towns and villages in the Lasva, Kozica, and Lepenica Valleys. On January 6, the Intelligence Section of the HVO Nikola Subic Zrinski Brigade in Busovaca issued an estimate of Muslim capabilities and intentions that pinpointed ABiH units and noted that they were in position to cut the Busovaca-Kiseljak road at Kacuni, the Busovaca-Vitez road at Ahrnici, and the Busovaca-Zenica road at Grablje.

There were numerous incidents in the Busovaca area in the days immediately preceding the Muslim attack, including the confiscation of weapons and the arrest of Croats by Busovaca Muslim authorities. The ABiH attempted to arrest Ignac Kostroman, a local Bosnian Croat politician on January 22, and two HVO soldiers were killed and barricades were erected by Muslims in Busovaca two days later.5 A sudden exodus of Muslims from Busovaca, many of whom headed to the hospital in Zenica, occurred immediately before the attack on January 25.

Operating from assembly areas in the Merdani-Lasva-Dusina area to the northeast, ABiH forces moved up along the east bank of the Kozica River and launched a probing attack-preceded by heavy and indiscriminate shelling by 82-mm and 120-mm mortars and "Lancers"-on Busovaca itself in the early morning hours of January 25. Some six hundred to seven hundred men from the Nikola Subic Zrinski Brigade's 1st and 2d Battalions defended the town. The Zrinski Brigade was still untried, having just been formed on December 19, 1992, but the HVO troops quickly occupied defensive positions around the town and forestalled a successful attack by the ABiH infantry.

The ABiH Attacks in the Kiseljak-Fojnica-Kresevo Area

Another important objective of the Muslim attackers in January, 1993, was to gain control of the Fojnica junction on the Busovaca-Kiseljak road near Gomionica in order to control access southward to the town of Fojnica, another important Croat stronghold. The Kiseljak-Fojnica-Kresevo area had long been surrounded by ABiH and Territorial Defense forces, and as early as August. 1992, the Muslim-dominated TO staff in Kiseljak had issued instructions for local TO units to prepare for a conflict with the HVO.6 The Muslim's probing attack began in the Kiseljak area at about 6 A.M. on January 25 with a random artillery/mortar attack. The HVO defenders coccupied defensive positions wherever they could, having not prepared any positions in advance. The Muslim forces, including Muslim military police elements, attacked from northeast to southwest across the Busovaca-Kiseljak road, but were stopped by an HVO force consisting of two battalions from the Ban Jelacic Brigade led by an acting commander named Zamenic, reinforced by a company of the HVO 4th Military Police Battalion. Many were wounded during the daylong clash, which ended at about 7 or 8 P.M. The HVO troops were able to improve their positions overnight and counterattacked on January 27, digging in at the end of the day. After five days of fighting, a cease-fire agreement was negotiated and signed. The Muslims attackers thus failed to seize their primary objective, the Fojnica intersection, but they did succeed in gaining control of the villages northeast of the road (Svinjarevo, Behrid, and Gomionica) and established their headquarters in Gomionica, occupying the area with about seven hundred ABiH soldiers. Most Muslim civilians in all of the villages south of Kiseljak and six villages north of the town subsequently left the area, although some remained, hoping the ABiH had sufficient power to protect them in a hotly contested area. Their decision was a fateful one, as the ABiH launched another unsuccessful attack in the heavily defended Gomionica area in April. Thereafter, the struggle in the Kiseljak enclave focused on an ABiH attempt to roll up the HVO positions around Kiseljak from the east and south.

The February-March Pause

With a typical rush to judgment, Lt. Col. Bob Stewart, the UNPROFOR commander in the Lasva Valley, misread the situation on January 25, opining that "both sides were having a go at each other; Croats in Busovaca; Muslims in Kacuni.7 " In fact, it was the Muslims who were “having a go” at the Croats in Kacuni, in Busovaca, and in the Kiseljak area. When all was said and done, the HVO and Croat population in the area paid the heaviest toll for the January fighting: the Croat villages of Nezirovici, Besici, Lasva, Dusina, Gusti Grab, Svinjarevo, Behrici, and Gomionica had been attacked and destroyed or occupied by the ABiH, the vital Busovaca-Kiseljak road had been cut at Kacuni, the southern end of the vital Novi Travnik-Gornji Vakuf line of communication was under attack, and more than forty- four HVO soldiers and Croat civilians had been killed and eighty-two wounded.

The fighting in central Bosnia died down during the last week of January, and a temporary cease-fire was arranged under UNPROFOR and ECMM auspices. However, there continued to be numerous minor incidents as the ABiH consolidated its positions on the heights of the Hum and the Kula overlooking the Busovaca-Kiseljak road, and in the villages of Merdani, Dusina, and Besici. Meanwhile, the HVO, determined not to be surprised again, strengthened its defensive positions in the central Bosnia area and began to monitor ABiH movements more closely. Both sides continued to eye each other warily, and there were frequent violations of the cease-fire agreement as both sides jockeyed for position and advantage.

On January 29, HQ, OZCB, issued a situation report to its subordinate units and higher headquarters noting: "In the course of today the lines of defence have remained unchanged. A 45-kilometer long front has been established. Our defence is positioned and well-entrenched, further entrenchments are being completed, a fire system [i.e.-plan for the employment of artillery and other weapons] has been organised and the situation is under control. The report goes on to note numerous violations of the temporary cease-fire by Muslim units; the excellent morale of HVO fighters and their determination to repel "this brutal aggression"; and the fact that “the BH Army, until yesterday our allies, continued their brutal aggression from the municipalities of Kakanj and Visoko" in the Kiseljak area, and also established a checkpoint in the village of Bilalovac that cut off communications with HVO forces in the village of Jelenov Gaj.

On January 30, 1993, ABiH and HVO leaders met in Vitez under the aegis of UNPROFOR, UNHCR, ICRC, and ECMM personnel to discuss a more permanent cease-fire in the central Bosnia area. Dzemal Merdan, deputy commander of the ABiH III Corps, and Franjo Nakic, the OZCB chief of staff, agreed to a cease-fire to begin at 8 A.M., January 31. In his report to the OZCB commander, Colonel Blaskic, who was isolated in Kiseljak, Nakic noted that Colonel Stewart had stated during the meeting that "he did not blame any side for the violation of the cease-fire [that is, the temporary cease-fire arranged earlier], but the reports he received indicated that it was the HVO who were the ones who started it." Nakic also noted the rather one-sided comments at the meeting by the ECMM representative, Jeremy Fleming, who "was full of praise for the 3rd Corps Command," even stating that "They are doing great things for peace." It seems clear that both the UNPROFOR and the ECMM had already made up their minds-on the basis of who knows what information-to charge the HVO with initiating the January fighting in central Bosnia. However, under cross-examination in the Blaskic trial, Colonel Stewart confirmed that he had visited the ABiH III Corps headquarters in Zenica on January 25, 1993, and complained to its commander, Enver Hadzihasanovic, that the Muslims had started the conflict then raging in central Bosnia.8

The cease-fire arranged by UNPROFOR went into effect at the agreed upon time, and the situation in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica area returned to a semblance of calm as commanders of both HVO and ABiH units sought to enforce the cease-fire and prepare their troops for the next round of the conflict. In early February, international attention focused on Srebrenica and the continuing siege of Sarajevo. Meanwhile, central Bosnia remained relatively peaceful throughout the winter months of February and March as the ABiH assessed the results of its January probing attacks and prepared to launch a full-scale offensive against the HVO in the spring. For its part, the HVO, now alerted to the danger posed by its perfidious ally, began to make its own preparations for defending the Croat population and key facilities in central Bosnia.

On February 1, the commander of UNPROFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina, French general Philippe Morillon, hosted talks at the Bila school base of the British UNPROFOR battalion attended by Enver Hadzihasanovic, the ABiH III Corps commander, Tihomir Blaskic, the commander of the HVO OZCB, and others to discuss implementing the cease-fire and the withdrawal of external forces from the Busovaca-Kacuni area. It was agreed that all such forces should be removed no later than 1 P.M. the next day, and that all routes in the area-particularly the Vitez-Zenica and Kiseljak-Visoko roads-should be opened immediately, with the main barricade blocking the Vitez-Zenica road to be removed by 2 P.M., February 2.

On February 11, the HVO Main Staff issued orders announcing a joint agreement between the chief of the ABiH General Staff, Sefer Halilovic, and the chief of the HVO Main Staff, Milivoj Petkovic, to prevent further "disagreements and conflicts" between the ABiH and the HVO, and "to organise a joint struggle against the aggressor [the BSA]." The same order directed the HVO OZCB commander and the ABiH III Corps commander to create a joint commission composed of HVO and ABiH officers, the purpose of which was to supervise and coordinate efforts to minimize Muslim-Croat conflict in the central Bosnia area. The joint commission was to oversee implementation of the cease-fire agreement with respect to the withdrawal of forces, the removal of barricades, the filling in of trenches and bunkers, and the opening of roads to all traffic, as well as the release of detainees and the investigation of incidents should they arise. The existing ABiH-HVO coordinating teams in Gornji Vakuf and Mostar were instructed to carry out the same actions prescribed for the joint commission in central Bosnia, and all commanders were ordered to ensure that lines of communication in their area of responsibility were open and functioning normally.

The HVO OZCB commander and the ABiH III Corps commander subsequently issued orders implementing the joint agreement of the HVO and ABiH chiefs of staff. A series of joint orders issued by the two commanders on February 13 from Kakanj referred to the joint agreement and ordered the withdrawal of units from forward positions by the fourteenth; the opening of roads by the fifteenth; the filling in of trenches and bunkers sited against the HVO by the twentieth; the establishment of coordinated check- points and roadblocks with a view to the eventual establishment of joint checkpoints; and the establishment of the joint commission to control and investigate incidents.

Despite the cease-fire and occasional cooperation with the ABiH in the defense against the Serbs, the HVO forces remained wary and prepared for a resumption of open conflict with the Muslims in central Bosnia. On February 4, Colonel Blaskic issued orders instructing subordinate commanders to strengthen security and control crime, desertion, and unsatisfactory duty performance by HVO personnel, and also directed that the Operative Zone's logistics system be reorganized. On February 13, he issued orders to increase security and prepare defensive positions in anticipation of a possible resumption of hostilities with the Muslims. The measures to be taken immediately and completed by February 21 included the preparation of defensive bunkers; the registration and assignment of all conscripts; shooting tests for all civilian and military police units and their formation into operative groups and intervention platoons; additional training and live-fire practice for snipers; control of unidentified individuals moving about the defense lines; the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Croat population; the continued assessment of the situation in cooperation with HVO civilian authorities; increased security and intelligence-gathering activities; and the definition of combat assignments for all Croatian personnel in the region.

The OZCB commander's attention also turned to dealing with an increasing number of troublesome incidents of violence by HVO personnel occasioned by the chaotic conditions and the large number of armed men in rear areas. On February 2, an HVO 4th Military Police Battalion investigative team reported on an incident that occurred between 9:30 and 10 P.M., February 1, in which three explosive devices were thrown at the intersection of the main Travnik-Vitez road near the Impregnacija Company's administration building and the house of Djevad Mujanovic. The powerful explosions broke windows in the neighborhood and made a hole in the roof of Mujanovic's garage. The perpetrators were not identified, but they may have been Croats. On February 6, the OZCB commander reminded his subordinate commanders of their duty to carry out earlier orders regarding the suppression of incidents involving murder, the disturbance of public order and peace, threats with firearms, indiscriminate firing in public places, and similar unauthorized actions by HVO personnel. Nevertheless, on February 10, a Bosnian Croat from Novi Travnik, Zoran Jukic, was killed by HVO military policemen while resisting arrest after stabbing a Muslim named Sarajlija in the Kod Dure Cafe in Novi Thavnik. Another bombing incident occurred at 6:10 P.M. on March 15 in front of the Maks store in downtown Vitez. A few nearby cars were damaged, several persons were slightly wounded, and one seriously injured person was taken to the hospital in Travnik. On March 1, the HVO SIS office in Vitez issued an extensive report on the criminal activities of various Croat criminals active in the Travnik, Novi Travnik, Vitez, and Busovaca area. The list included Zarko "Zuti" Andric, the military police chief in Travnik, and Ferdo Gazibaric and Pero "Klempo" Krizanac, both of whom were also from the Travnik area. Additional instructions regarding the treatment of HVO personnel engaged in criminal and destructive conduct were issued on March 17 and disseminated to battalion level. The measures prescribed to suppress such activity included disarming and removing the uniforms of HVO personnel found committing such acts, as well as their arrest and subjection to disciplinary action.

The Muslims initiated a number of serious incidents and cease-fire violations. On February 4, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart travelled to Katici and Merdani to investigate and stop a fight there at the request of Dario Kordic, the HVO political leader in Busovaca. At 9:30 A.M. on February 6, members of the ABiH and Muslim Armed Forces (MOS) arrested seven HVO soldiers in Kruscica. Among those making the arrest were an ABiH soldier from Kruscica and three MOS members from Vranjska. The seven HVO soldiers were questioned about HVO positions in Ribnjak and Lovac and released unharmed at 7 P.M. the same day, although their insignia and personal documents were not returned to them. On March 13, the commander of the HVO N. S. Zrinski Brigade in Busovaca issued a letter of protest addressed to the ECMM, the nearby Dutch-Belgian UNPROFOR transport battalion, and HQ, OZCB, claiming that the cease-fire had been broken at 8:40 P.M. on March 12 by an ABiH M48 tank that had fired its machine gun on HVO positions in the village of Kula.

On the evening of March 16, two HVO soldiers from Travnik were killed at an HVO checkpoint in the village of Dolac on the main Thavnik-Vitez road. The soldiers, Zoran Matosevic and Ivo Juric, attempted to halt a Lada automobile. The four occupants, probably mujahideen, were heavily armed and got out of the car with their weapons. An argument ensued, and a brief fire fight erupted during which Matosevic and Juric were killed and their weapons taken by the car's occupants. Earlier that evening, the same car drove through an HVO checkpoint at Ovnak and its occupants made threatening gestures with their automatic weapons at the personnel manning the HVO checkpoint. A similar incident occurred at 9:40 P.M. on March 28 at an HVO VP checkpoint in the village of Cajdras. Two HVO VPs attached to the Jure Francetic Brigade, Bernard Kovacevic and Ivan Laus, were murdered, apparently by members of the ABiH 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade. Two weeks earlier, on March 15, a group of Muslims led by Ferhet Haskic stopped and searched people traveling to Donja Veceriska. A tractor belonging to an unknown person-presumably a Croat from Novi Bila-was stopped, the owner mistreated, and the tractor's tires punctured. Haskic was also suspected of throwing an explosive device in the front of the HVO headquarters in Donja Veceriska at 12:55 A.M. on March 16th. The ABiH VPs subsequently helped HVO authorities apprehend Haskic.

The only major violation of the January cease-fire in central Bosnia occurred in mid-March, when the ABiH IV Corps's 1st Operational Group attacked north along the Neretvica River toward Fojnica with the objective of seizing control of some twenty Croat villages in the Neretvica Valley and linking up with the ABiH OG Bosanska-Krajina, thereby joining the ABiH III and IV Corps. The attack stalled before reaching the Fojnica area, and Croat residents expelled from the area fled to areas still under HVO control-some toward Kiseljak and some toward Herzegovina. A description of this attack as well as an agreement between the ABiH and RBiH Ministry of the Interior regarding military operations against the HVO was issued March 20.

The Muslim-Croat cease-fire in central Bosnia held through the first weeks of April despite numerous minor incidents, endemic lawlessness, and the organized ABiH offensive in the Neretvica Valley aimed at Fojnica. Although apparently random and probably initiated by extremist individuals or lower-level commanders, some of the more serious incidents suggest a pattern of intelligence gathering by the ABiH, the clandestine movement of Muslim forces throughout the region, and provocations by mujahideen and other Muslim extremists, all of which may have been continuations of the probing action initiated by the ABiH III Corps in January and preparation for the all-out Muslim offensive that began on April 15-16, 1993.

__________________________________
1 The refugees were used first to fill vacancies in existing ABiH units and then to form new units (Zeko conversation, Aug 27, 1999). The positioning of ABiH units in early January 1993, is depicted on a captured ABiH map entitled “Obostrani Raspored Snaga u zoni 3. korpusa kraj decembra 1992. g-januar 1993. god, “ KC d189/1. The map clearly depicts the locations of the 325th, 333d and 309th Mountain Brigade and elements of the 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade, and shows that their orientation is toward the HVO rather than the BSA.
2 Zeko, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Sept 21, 1998.
3 According to the former OZCB chief of staff, Brigadier Franjo Nakic, seventeen to thirty ABiH troops established the checkpoint at Kacuni with the aim of controlling an eleven-kilometer stretch of the main supply route between Busovaca and Kiseljak (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 13, 2000).
4 HQ, Jure Francetic Brigade, Zenica, Jan. 27, 1993, subj: Report, KC d209/1; Col. Serif Patkovic, Blaskic trial testimony, June 10, 1999. Patkovic commanded the TO in Zenica and then the 2d Batallion, 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade. He subsequently served as the 7th Muslim Brigade chief of staff before assuming command of the brigade in April, 1994. Neither Patkovic nor Koricic has been indicted by the ICTY for their war crimes in Dusina and elsewhere.
5 Stewart diary, Sunday, Jan. 24, 1993, 3, 7.
6 Zeko, Blaskic trial testimony, Sept. 21, 1998 concerning an Aug. 5, 1992 document issued by Kiseljak’s Municipal Defense Staff related to the conduct of reconnaissance, collection of information, and preparation for combat operations to seize the key lines of communications in the area (B D 185). In that same trial session, Zeko also referred to an even earlier document from the Kiseljak TO staff regarding the preparation of units for an attack (May 22, 1992, B D184), The HVO in Kiseljak had been successful in taking over most of the facilities and weapons left behind by the withdrawing JNA, and Muslim officials in the Kiseljak area were much chagrined (O’Ballance, Civil War in Bosnia, 49)
7 Stewart diary, Monday, Jan. 25, 1993, sec. 3, 8. Stewart's judgments were often admittedly presumptive. For example, in his diary entry for Friday, January 22, 1993, he notes that while en route back to Vitez from Gornji Vakuf, we "noticed that many of the houses in the village of Bistrica were ablaze. We presumed it was HVO ethnic cleansing" (ibid., 3, 6; emphasis added)
8 Stewart, Blaskic trial testimony, June 17, 1999.

[Defensor Fidei]

The ABiH Main Attack - Vitez, April, 1993


The Vitez Area
Tensions were high throughout central Bosnia on April 15, 1993. Resentment over the ABiH's January probing attacks and the increasing number of clashes between Muslims and Croats had created an atmosphere of fear, hatred, and distrust heightened by the kidnapping on April 13 of four officers from the HVO Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade in Novi Travnik, apparently by Muslim extremists. The ABiH blockaded the Novi Travnik-Gornji Vakuf (Uskoplje) road, the main supply route to Herzegovina, on Apri114, and at 7:15 on the morning of the fifteenth, Zivko Totic, commander of the HVO Jure Francetic Brigade, was kidnapped near his headquarters in Zenica during a brutal attack that left his four bodyguards and a bystander dead. That afternoon, Lt. Col. Bob Stewart, commander of the British UNPROFOR battalion stationed in the Lasva Valley, travelled to Zenica for a meeting with Muslim, HVO, ECMM, UNHCR, and International Red Cross representatives regarding the Totic kidnapping. The meeting was continued until the next morning, and Lieutenant Colonel Stewart spent the night in Zenica rather than return to his headquarters in Stari Bila. At about 5:30 A.M. on the sixteenth, he was awakened by an urgent telephone call from his second in command, Maj. Bryan Watters, who informed him "all hell was breaking loose in Vitez and the Lasva Valley." Indeed, it was; the main ABiH offensive against the Croat enclaves in the Lasva Valley had begun.

The HVO Intelligence Estimates

Stewart later testified that he did not expect the outbreak of a major conflict between the Muslims and Croats in the Lasva Valley. However, the HVO authorities, having been caught flat-footed by the ABiH probing attack in January, were not surprised. The targeting of the ABiH for intelligence purposes began soon after the January 20-21 attacks, and on March 25. lvica Zeko, the intelligence officer at HQ, OZCB, issued an intelligence estimate that accurately forecasted the nature, direction, and objectives of the April offensive.1 A trained intelligence officer, Zeko's analysis of the situation led him to conclude that extremists in the ABiH and SDA, together with Muslim fundamentalists in the Zenica region and military experts, had "devised a plan to destroy the HVO and take control of the territory of Central Bosnia," which "might enable them to ensure living space and safety for the Muslim population" while producing fewer casualties than an offensive against the BSA." According to Zeko, the detailed plans for the Muslim offensive were prepared by Refik Lendo for the Bugojno-Gornji Vakuf-Novi Travnik-Vitez area; by Vehbija Karic for the Kiseljak-Fojnica- Kresevo-Kakanj-Vares area; and by persons unknown in Zenica for the Zenica-Busovaca area.

According to Zeko's estimate, the offensive would open with action by sabotage teams against HVO command posts, communications and wire-tapping centers, logistics bases, and artillery positions. The ABiH would avoid a direct confrontation with HVO forces in the Tesanj-Maglaj- Zavidiovici-Novi Seher-Zepce area, where HVO troops held significant portions of the defense lines against the Serbs. However, the ABiH would seek to blockade HVO population centers, isolate HVO units, and overturn HVO civilian control through the establishment of checkpoints, the positioning of troops near critical installations, and direct attacks or sabotage operations directed against HVO command and control elements. Zeko noted that Muslim forces already surrounded the important population centers Kiseljak, Fojnica, Kresevo, Kakanj, and Vares. However, he believed, larger conflict might be avoided by determined confrontation inasmuch the majority of ABiH forces in the area occupied defensive lines to protect the vulnerable towns of Visoko, Breza, Olovo, Pazaric, and Tarcin from the Serbs. Due to HVO defensive preparations, Vares might be "a hard nut to crack," but the ABiH might achieve some success with selective attacks in the Kakanj, Kiseljak, and Fojnica area. For both the northern (Zepce) and eastern (Kiseljak) areas, Zenica was to be the command and control center, and any operations would be carried out by units from occupied area then quartered in Zenica as well as MOS, "Green League," Green Berets and Patriotic League forces.

According to Zeko, the main battles would occur in the crucial Vitez-Busovaca area and would involve direct offensive action by the ABiH along three main axes of attack: Kacuni-Busovaca-Kaonik-Vitez; Zenica-Kuber (Lasva)-Kaonik-Vitez; and Zenica-Preocica-Vitez. These attacks would be supplemented by forces attacking toward Vitez from Kruscica; from the areas of Vranjska and Poculica toward Sivrino Selo; and from the area of Han Bila through Stari Bila to cut the Travnik-Vitez road and complete the encirclement of HVO forces in the Vitez area. The main part of the ABiH force carrying out this portion of the plan would come from Zenica, Kakanj, all! Visoko. Having surrounded Vitez, the Muslim forces would then continue the attack until gaining full control of the town. In the event HVO force were able to stall the advance on the Han Bila-Vitez axis, the attacker might divert his forces toward Gornja Gora and thereby enable the ABiH forces in Travnik to leave the town and advance toward Vitez. However, ABiH operations in the Travnik-Novi Travnik area would not take the form of a direct attack but would involve small-scale actions to control the HVO units there and keep them from intervening in the Vitez area. Should Busovaca and Vitez fall to the attacker, Travnik and Novi Travnik would gradually be forced to surrender. Muslim forces in the areas of Bugojno, Gornji Vakuf and Fojnica would play an essential role in the offensive by blocking the approach routes to central Bosnia from Herzegovina and by providing manpower, equipment, and supplies for the attacking forces.

Zeko concluded his analysis by noting that the Muslim forces were already occupying the territories in question piece by piece, displacing the Croat population and taking full control, and that they would be likely to continue to do so unless "it is made clear to [them] that the initiation of clashes in broader areas with well-planned attacks in the least expected places will not be tolerated." He then went on to state: "A possible attack by the BH Army will be relentless and it is necessary to take all measures and actions to repel the attack and completely destroy the military strength wherever possible."

On March 14, Zeljko Katava, the Nikola Subic Zrinski Brigade's intelligence officer, had also warned of a possible ABiH attack. He believed the attackers would avoid the HVO position in Cajdras by advancing through Muslim territory from Zenica via Vrazale, Dobriljeno, and Vrhovine to launch an attack from Ahmici in order to cut the Vitez-Busovaca road and then continue via Donja Rovna to link up with Muslim forces in Vranjska. Katava noted in an earlier (January 6, 1993) estimate that ABiH forces had already constructed a road from their positions on Mount Kuber through Vrazale to Zenica, and on April 10, a week before the Muslim offensive began, HVO intelligence officers obtained additional information that the ABiH was indeed making preparations to carry out military operations in the Lasva Valley.

The HVO intelligence estimates were remarkably accurate in predicting the objectives, direction, and participating units of the ABiH offensive that began in mid-April, 1993. The situation remained quiet in the northern sector and around Vares, as well as in Travnik and-following a brief flare-up to pin down HVO forces and cut the road to Gornji Vakuf-Novi Travnik. The ABiH did not mount a general attack from all directions in the Kiseljak area, but again concentrated on trying to seize the critical road junction in the vicinity of Gomionica, which it had failed to do in January. Vitez, the SPS explosives factory, and the town of Busovaca were the primary ABiH objectives, and it was on them that the heaviest blows were struck. Elements of the 303d, 306th, and 325th Mountain Brigades, the 17th Krajina Mountain Brigade, and the 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade-with ABiH military police and antisabotage units (PDO)-participated in the attack in the Vitez area, while elements of the 333d Mountain Brigade attacked toward Busovaca.2 The objectives, as Zeko had predicted, were to cut the Travnik-Busovaca road at Kaonik, at Ahmici, at Stari Bila, and at the Pucarevo turnoff to divide the Travnik-Vitez-Busovaca enclave into smaller parts and isolate the HVO units in Vitez and Busovaca; to take the SPS factory; and to clear Croat civilians from their villages in the area. At the same time, action was taken to eliminate the two HVO brigades in Zenica and to clear Croat civilians from the town and the surrounding villages.

The plan nearly succeeded: the HVO forces in Zenica were eliminated; all ground contact between the Travnik-Vitez-Busovaca enclave and the Zepce and Vares areas as well as with Herzegovina was severed; the HVO brigade in Kakanj was eliminated; the center of Vitez was held by Muslim fighters; and hundreds of Croat civilians were driven from their homes in the region.However, the ABiH failed to achieve its main objectives. This was due in large part to aggressive preemptive attacks and counteraction by the heavily outnumbered HVO forces in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica area. At the end of the Muslim offensive's first push, Travnik, Novi Travnik, most of Vitez, Busovaca, Kiseljak, Fojnica, and Kresevo were still under HVO control; the SPS factory remained in HVO hands; and hundreds of Muslim civilians had fled or been temporarily removed from Muslim villages in the Vitez-Busovaca-Kiseljak area, which had been the target of HVO military action to clear key terrain along the lines of communication and in its rear areas.

Preparatory Operations

The ABiH's April attack in the Lasva Valley was preceded by a number of incidents that call to mind the classic Spetsnaz operations prescribed by Soviet and JNA offensive doctrine and which serve to clarify the fact that, contrary to the usual opinion, the ABiH, not the HVO, initiated the fighting in central Bosnia on April 16, 1993. These incidents were designed to probe and fix local HVO defensive positions, gain control of terrain features critical to the success of the planned operation, sow confusion and fear, and disrupt command and control by decapitating the HVO leadership. The number of minor incidents involving clashes between Muslims and Croats increased during the first two weeks in April. Then, immediately prior to the launching of the Muslim offensive, there were two serious incidents that had all the hallmarks of the classic Spetsnaz operation: the kidnapping of three HVO officers and their driver near Novi Travnik on April 13, and the bloody kidnapping of Zivko Totic, commander of the HVO Jure Francetic Brigade in Zenica, on the morning of April 15.

During the period April 1-11, the HVO 4th Military Police Battalion reported a number of minor incidents including assaults, murders, "carjackings," bombings, and armed clashes involving Muslim and Croat civilians and military personnel. Although many of these incidents were purely criminal or "private" in nature, some were no doubt provocations by the ABiH or extremist Muslim organizations designed to destabilize the situation, spread fear and confusion, and test the reaction of both HVO units and UNPROFOR and ECMM monitors. Typical incidents in the latter category included the March 29 murder of Slavko Pudj, a member of the Zenica HVO who was on guard duty, by three unknown persons in snow camouflage uniforms. The perpetrators escaped in the direction of Preocica, where a number of ABiH units were based. On April 4, someone threw a grenade or similar explosive device into the fenced storage yard of the Orijent Hotel, the HVO military police headquarters in Travnik. On April 9, three ABiH soldiers stopped Vlado Lesic near the Novi Travnik fire station and took his Golf automobile. Lesic was then taken to the Stajiste quarry, where he was abused, forced to bow in prayer, and made to speak in Arabic. The perpetrators fired in front of his feet and then forced him to jump into the quarry. They continued to fire at him, but failed to score any hits.

Several of the incidents in the Travnik area appear to have involved mujahideen or members of the extremist Muslim Armed Forces. On April 2, all HVO checkpoints in Zenica, Travnik, Vitez, and Busovaca were reinforced following an announcement by mujahideen in Zenica that they would attack the HVO military prison in Busovaca unless three MOS members were released. The same day, HVO military police reported that MOS members and mujahideen in Travnik were engaged in provocative and threatening behavior that included the singing of Muslim songs disparaging the Croat people and HVO military units. The Vitez civilian police arrested three armed mujahideen at a checkpoint on April 7, and the following day in Zenica, a van loaded with MOS members or mujahideen passed through the town as the occupants stuck their automatic rifles out the windows and threatened passersby. On April 9, HVO military police in Novi Travnik received telephone calls from someone who stated: "Do you know that there will be no Herceg-Bosna? Things have started in Travnik, now they will start here." That same day, some seventy prominent Croats from the Travnik area were arrested and held by the ABiH.

The HVO did little to avoid provoking such incidents, and a serious outburst of violence began in Travnik when a Muslim soldier fired on some HVO soldiers erecting a flag. Heavily armed soldiers from both sides prowled the streets of Travnik on the evening of April 8, and the conflict over the display of Croat flags continued the following day with armed clashes involving the HVO military police, the Vitezovi, and ABiH soldiers. The April 9 firing began when a group of Muslims attempted to tear down the flag at the Orijent Hotel. Warned to desist, they pressed on, and a small firefight ensued. There were no Croat casualties, but a number of Muslims were apparently killed or wounded. Following the fire fight in Travnik, HVO military police reported the arrival in Travnik of five trucks and several other vehicles carrying mujahideen and members of the Green Legion from Zenica. The conflict continued until Easter Sunday, April 11, with numerous sniper and bombing incidents, arrests and abuse of HVO officers and policemen by ABiH soldiers and mujahideen, and general unrest in the town.3

Two additional incidents, far more serious and far more evocative of classic decapitation operations to disrupt the enemy's command and control system, occurred in the days immediately preceding the April 16 ABiH attack. On April 13, four members of the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade were kidnapped by mujahideen outside Novi Travnik. The four kidnapped personnel included Vlado Sliskovic, deputy commander of the Tomasevic Brigade; Ivica Kambic, the brigade SIS officer; Zdravko Kovac, the brigade intelligence officer; and their driver, Mire Jurkevic. The kidnapped HVO soldiers were bound, gagged, and blindfolded and remained so for most of their captivity. Early on they were beaten frequently and severely every day and interrogated frequently. They were also moved from place to place daily for a time, but were finally hidden at a hotel on the Ravno Rostovo plateau.

Kovac and the others learned much by listening to their captors, who openly bragged of their feat. Apparently the kidnapping was planned well in advance: the perpetrators had waited two days at the kidnap site hoping to take the Tomasevic Brigade's commander. The kidnap team consisted of four mujahideen: "Abu Hamzed" from Tunisia, the leader; "Abu Zafo," also from Tunisia; "Abu Mina" from Egypt; and "Abu Muaz" from Saudi Arabia. Twenty to thirty local Muslims assisted them. During the course of the kidnapping, the mujahideen did not cover their faces and did not hesitate to use their names, but the locals wore hoods. The kidnappers showed contempt for Dzemal Merdan, the deputy commander of the ABiH III Corps, and for the ABiH in general. They communicated by Motorola radio with the deputy commander of the 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade, whom they consulted several times regarding the disposition of the prisoners and who clearly had life-or-death power over them.

The kidnapping near Novi Travnik generated an intensive manhunt throughout the region. ABiH headquarters, feigning shock and surprise, joined HVO authorities in the hunt, which continued without success for some time. On April 14, the OZCB commander issued instructions for all of the HVO 4th Military Police Battalion's units to join in the search for the missing personnel. On April 18, Zeljko Sabljic, the Tomasevic Brigade commander, reported on the progress of the joint ABiH-HVO commission investigating the case, noting that it had identified Vahid Catic from the village of Drvetine (Bugojno municipality) as the driver of the truck used in the kidnapping.

On Apri114, in the wake of the Novi Travnik kidnapping, Muslim forces blocked the main supply route (MSR) to Herzegovina south of Novi Travnik. Thenceforth only UNPROFOR, UNHCR and other relief convoys, and ABiH-HVO teams looking for the kidnapped personnel were allowed to pass. Muslim villagers living along the MSR had operated checkpoints at various points on the route before April 14; ABiH soldiers manned the checkpoints after that date. The closing of the Novi Travnik-Gornji Vakuf road effectively cut off the Croat communities in central Bosnia from all supply and reinforcement from their compatriots in Herzegovina and forced a search for alternate routes over the mountains. Those alternate routes were subsequently closed in early July, 1993, and the surrounded Croats had to make do with the materiel on hand, minuscule amounts of critical items brought in by helicopter, and whatever they could manufacture themselves, seize from Muslim forces, or obtain from relief convoys en route to Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Gorazde, and other Muslim-held areas.

At 7:50 on the morning of April 15, Zivko Totic, commander of the HVO Jure Francetic Brigade in Zenica, was ambushed while en route to his headquarters. His four bodyguards and a bystander were brutally killed, and Totic himself disappeared without a trace. The ambush-subsequently determined to have been carried out by mujahideen-had all the hallmarks of a classic Spetsnaz "decapitation" operation, and it indeed had the intended effect. The Francetic Brigade's command and control system was severely disrupted, and the commander of the other HVO brigade in Zenica, Vinko Baresic, was placed under severe stress. A meeting to discuss the Totic kidnapping was held by EC ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault, UNPROFOR, ECMM, UNHCR, Red Cross, ABiH, and HVO representatives on the after- noon of April 15 without substantive results. The senior ABiH representative, Dzemal Merdan, denied any ABiH involvement in the Totic affair and appeared otherwise unresponsive. The complicity of the ABiH III Corps headquarters in the Novi Travnik and Totic kidnappings remains uncertain in view of the subsequent identification of the perpetrators as mujahideen and Muslim extremists-some or all of whom may having been acting on the orders of the commander of the 7th Muslim Brigade, who was known to act independently. In any event, the two decapitation operations certainly served the III Corps commander's ends with respect to preparing the field for the April 16 offensive.

The three officers from the Tomasevic Brigade and their driver, as well as Zivko Totic, were subsequently exchanged for eleven mujahideen and two Muslim drivers arrested by the HVO between February 16 and early April, 1993. The exchange took place in Travnik, Kaonik, and Zenica on May 17, following the appearance in Zenica on April 19 of two mujahideen who claimed to be holding Totic and the others and who demanded the release of certain mujahideen prisoners held by the HVO for various offenses. The automobile the two mujahideen used while making the exchange demand was later spotted in the III Corps headquarters parking lot. The mujahideen released in Zenica on May 17 were greeted by at least a hundred masked and heavily armed soldiers, probably from the 7th Muslim Brigade, accompanied by a three-barrel 20-mm antiaircraft gun mounted on a five-ton truck, and numerous antitank and antiaircraft shoulder-launched missiles.

The Active Defense in the Vitez Area

In the early morning hours of April 15 the ABiH launched an attack on HVO positions on Mount Kuber north of Busovaca that resulted in three HVO soldiers killed in action (KIA). In view of the increase in incidents, the kidnapping of the four HVO personnel in Novi Travnik and of Zivko Totic, and the ABiH attack on Mount Kuber, Col. Tihomir Blaskic, the commander of Operative Zone Central Bosnia, made an estimate of the situation and issued a series of orders on April 15 preparing his forces for defensive action. The HVO forces in the immediate area of Vitez were very limited.4 The Viteska Brigade was still in the process of being formed. Only the 1st Battalion (formerly the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade's 2d Battalion) was even partially organized, and it had a maximum potential of only about 270 men. In fact, on April 16 the Viteska Brigade was able to deploy only about 80 men. Another sixty men were on shift duty on the Turbe front against the BSA, and an additional 50 were at the hotel in Kruscica preparing to relieve the shift then at the front. The additional forces available to Colonel Blaskic included an unknown, but relatively small, number of HVO village guards; the Vitezovi PPN (about 120 men); the Tvrtko II PPN (probably less than 30 men); and a portion of the 4th Military Police Battalion (probably less than 100 men). The Vitezovi, the "Tvrtkovici," and the military policemen constituted the best organized, best equipped, and most experienced combat forces available to the OZCB commander in the Vitez area, and thus naturally were deployed to face the greatest perceived threats.

At 10 A.M. on the fifteenth, the 4th Military Police Battalion was ordered to increase security of the HQ, OZCB, command post, to ensure that the Travnik-Vitez-Busovaca road was open to all traffic, and to expect "a rather strong attack by the Muslim extremist forces from the direction of the villages Nadioci-Ahmici-Sivrino-Pirici."5 The Vitezovi were assigned responsibility for blockading the Muslim forces in Stari Vitez and preventing an attack from Stari Vitez toward the OZCB headquarters. The Viteska Brigade's 1st Battalion was assigned the mission of blocking any ABiH advance on Vitez from the Kruscica- Vranjska area. In view of the fact that the Viteska Brigade was not yet fully operational, Mario Cerkez, the brigade commander, deployed his remaining forces in a sector defense arrangement with several small combat groups assigned to each sector. All combat forces in the OZCB were ordered to carry out the defense of their assigned zones of responsibility to "prevent the extremist Muslim forces from effecting open cleansing of the territory, the genocide over the Croatian people, and the realization of their goals."

During the course of the day, Colonel Blaskic received additional information regarding a possible attack by the ABiH and accelerated the preparation and positioning of his available forces.6 At 3:45 P.M., he issued orders to all subordinate units to take additional measures to increase combat readiness, prepare for defensive action, and initiate increased antiterrorist, intelligence-gathering, and security measures. The ostensible purpose of such actions was to deter or counter aggressive actions by the 7th Muslim Brigade, the forces of which "have intensified their diversionary terrorist activities within the Operational Zone of Central Bosnia, and have been acting in a most brutal way. ...These activities are planned, organised and promptly executed with the purpose of causing confusion within the HVO units and in order to prepare preconditions for offensive action and for capturing Croatian territory."

By the early morning hours of April 16, Colonel Blaskic had alerted and deployed his limited available forces to meet the anticipated ABiH attack. In the ensuing battle, the HVO, significantly outnumbered and still not fully organized, successfully defended its lines against heavy and repeated ABiH assaults. The successful HVO defense in the Vitez area was due in large part to good intelligence work and the aggressive use of "active defense" measures to disrupt the ABiH offensive. The use of preemptive and spoiling attacks as well as blocking forces and clearing operations-often initiated and carried out by subordinate elements based on local assessments of the situation-prevented ABiH forces attacking the Vitez area from gaining their principle objectives: cutting the vital Travnik-Busovaca road, and seizing the SPS explosives factory. 7

The aggressive actions of HVO forces in the Lasva Valley on April 16 were, in fact, mainly blocking operations and spoiling attacks intended to disrupt the ABiH offensive, prevent the breaching of HVO defensive positions and the loss of key positions such as OZCB headquarters and the SPS explosives factory, and retain control of the Travnik-Busovaca road. The HVO subsequently mounted a number of limited counterattacks and small clearing operations to regain or seize control of key terrain in the area of operations and to strengthen defensive positions by eliminating pockets of ABiH forces with direct observation and fields of fire on HVO positions. Four such HVO actions during the April fighting in the Vitez area merit special attention: the spoiling attack on the village of Ahmici; the clearing operations in the village of DonjaVeceriska and in the village of Gacice, both of which overlook the SPS factory just west of Vitez; and the attempt to contain and then reduce the Muslim pocket in the Stari Vitez-Mahala section of the town of Vitez.

Ahmici

The HVO attack on the village of Ahmici on April 16 and the subsequent massacre of many of its Muslim inhabitants is perhaps the most notorious incident of the Muslim-Croat civil war in central Bosnia and has been at the center of at least five cases before the ICTY in which Bosnian Croat military and political leaders and HVO soldiers have been charged with war crimes.8 Although later portrayed by ICTY prosecutors as the epitome of Croat atrocities in central Bosnia, the events at Ahrnici on April 16 seem to have aroused little comment at the time-other than on the part of Lt. Col. Bob Stewart, the BRITBAT commander-and apparently did not become an issue for the Muslims until 1994-95.9 However, despite investigations by the United Nations and the governments of both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, voluminous testimony before the ICTY by both Muslim and Croat witnesses, and the conclusions of ICTY prosecutors and judges, what actually happened in the village of Ahmici on the morning of April 16, 1993, and why, remain unclear. The most common interpretation is that the innocent Muslim inhabitants of the village were subjected to an unprovoked attack by HVO military police special operations forces. However, the available facts suggest a less fanciful alternative explanation: that Ahmici was a legitimate military target; that the village was defended by armed Muslim forces; that the OZCB commander, anticipating an attack by ABiH forces through the village, ordered a justifiable spoiling attack; and that the unit responsible for carrying out that attack, an element of the HVO 4th Military Police Battalion, either by premeditated design or in the heat of battle or both, went on a mindless rampage that included killing civilians and burning most of the Muslim section of the village.

The village of Ahmici was undoubtedly a legitimate military target for an HVO spoiling attack at the time by virtue of both its location and its probable use as an ABiH staging area. The village lies approximately three and one-half kilometers east of Vitez and on high ground some two hundred meters north of the main Travnik-Busovaca road. It is thus in a position to control the key route through the Lasva Valley at one if its most restricted points by direct and indirect fire.10 Muslim TO forces from Ahmici set up a roadblock near the village in October, 1992, to prevent the passage of HVO forces headed toward Jajce, and it was clearly identified by HVO intelligence sources at various times in March and April, 1993, as being astride the planned ABiH axes of attack into the Vitez area from the north and east. Given the proximity of the village to the Travnik-Busovaca road, it was the most likely assembly area for elements of the ABiH 325th Mountain Brigade and other ABiH forces tasked to make the attack across the road toward the Kruscica area on April 16.

Despite the repeated denials of senior ABiH commanders, on April 16 the village of Ahmici was clearly defended by local Muslim Territorial Defense forces as well as by ABiH elements staging for the attack across the Travnik-Kaonik road. The village is clearly marked on a captured ABiH operational map as being occupied by ABiH forces in January, 1993, and on April 11, 1993, Enes Varupa, a Muslim TO commander, recorded in his notebook that a TO company of at least eighty-five men was in the village on that date.11 Muslim TO members also met at their headquarters in the Zumara elementary school in Ahmici on April 11 to discuss plans for defending the village. Muslim forces in Ahmici were assigned "clearly defined tasks, to secure the line toward Nadioci," and trenches and a number of dugouts had been prepared.12 An HVO intelligence estimate dated April 10 placed elements of the ABiH 325th Mountain Brigade in the village, and elements of the ABiH 303rd Mountain Brigade were also ordered to support the Muslim forces in Ahmici. Croatian Defense Council sources also reported that the ABiH infiltrated thirty exceptionally well-armed soldiers into the village on Apri114. On the evening of the fifteenth, the Muslim forces in Ahmici increased their level of security. In addition to the regular guards, ten men were on standby in the lower part of the village, and the guard force in the upper part of the village was doubled. During the course of the fight for the village on April 16, the Muslim forces in the village were reinforced from Vrhovine, and reinforcements from Poculica and the 325th Mountain Brigade were promised but failed to arrive in time to affect the situation. The HVO assault forces encountered resistance, including shelling by the ABiH, and after the action they recovered weapons and large amounts of ammunition, including 7.62-mm and 12.7-mm machine gun ammunition and RPG-7 rocket propelled grenades.13

The HVO spoiling attack on Ahmici was planned on the afternoon and evening of April 15, and Pasko Ljubicic, commander of the 4th Military Police Battalion, briefed members of his command in the Hotel Vitez, noting that a Muslim message had been intercepted saying that the ABiH would attack in the morning on April 16 and that to forestall the attack the HVO would attack first. Ljubicic then issued orders for elements of the 1st Company to join the 4th Military Police Battalion's Antiterrorist Platoon (known as the "Jokers") at the "Bungalow," a former restaurant close to the road in Nadioci. At 1 :30 A.M. on the sixteenth, Colonel Blaskic, the OZCB commander, issued written orders for the 4th Military Police Battalion to block the Ahmici-Nadioci road (where he expected the Muslim attack) by 5:30 A.M. and to crush the enemy offensive. Further briefings were conducted at the Bungalow, and Ljubicic's second in command noted that several mujahideen had infiltrated into Ahmici during the night.14

The seventy-five-man assault force consisting of the "Jokers" and other elements of the 1st Company, 4th Military Police Battalion, augmented by a few local HVO members was divided into assault teams and moved out from the area of the "Bungalow" between 4:30 and 4:45 hours on the morning of the sixteenth. At 5:30, a single artillery round was fired-the agreed upon signal to start the assault-and the ground assault on the Muslim section of Ahmici was launched from the village's southeastern quadrant. Muslim forces in the lower part of the village resisted vigorously, and the attacking HVO troops immediately came under heavy Muslim fire.15 Muslim defenders barricaded in the mosque and the elementary school were supported by ABiH artillery, by light fire from the villages of Vrhovine and Pirici, and by snipers firing constantly from the woods and clearings above the village.

The Muslim fire was intense, killing three HVO military policemen and wounding three more.16 The HVO countered with intense mortar, small arms, and automatic weapons fire. Many buildings were set afire by tracers. At some point, whether by chance or by premeditated design, the responsible HVO commanders surrendered control of the situation, and what had been a legitimate, well-justified HVO spoiling attack deteriorated into a mindless rampage by the attacking HVO military policemen. Angered by earlier confrontations with the Muslims, the HVO attackers worked their way through the village using automatic weapons and grenades and killing men, women, and children in a cruel and indiscriminate manner.

Unable to stem the HVO advance and failing promised reinforcements from Poculica and the 303d and 325th Mountain Brigades, the Muslim defenders evacuated the remaining civilians toward Vrhovine. They briefly considered a last-ditch stand in the upper village (Gornji Ahmici) before withdrawing at about 4 A.M. on April 17 to establish a defensive line at Barica Gaj, some 150 meters north of Ahmici, where the Muslim line remained until the Washington Agreements in March, 1994. Those Muslim inhabitants remaining in the village after the HVO assault were subsequently taken to the camp in Donja Dubravica and held there for some time.

From a purely military point of view, the HVO spoiling attack at Ahmici was very successful. The planned Muslim attack across the Travnik-Busovaca road in the Ahmici area was completely disrupted and could not be resumed. However, the destruction in the village was horrific, and civilian casualties were appalling. Most of the Muslim houses in the lower village were burned, some with the inhabitants inside. Many houses were set afire by incendiary ammunition and grenades used in the assault, but others were no doubt deliberately "torched." According to some accounts, as many as 109 Muslim civilians, including women and children, died or were missing as the result of the combat action and deliberate killing by the enraged and out of control HVO assault troops. Once the events in Ahmici on April 16 became known, the behavior of the HVO troops was justly characterized as a massacre, and a great deal of effort subsequently has been expended to bring the perpetrators to justice. Although the HVO forces' actions on Apri116, particularly with respect to the unarmed Muslim civilians in the village, undeniably merit condemnation regardless of the emotional state engendered by active combat, the fact remains that the assault began as a legitimate military operation: a spoiling attack to disrupt the planned ABiH attack through Ahmici to cut the Travnik-Busovaca road: To have ordered such a spoiling attack was no war crime, although the events that ensued may have reached that level of culpability. It seems clear that the tragedy resulted not so much from the design of senior HVO leaders but rather from the working of that fear, anger, and madness attendant on many combat operations. In that respect, at least, the tragic events at Ahmici bear afar stronger resemblance to those at My Lai than to those at Lidice or Oradour-sur-Glane.

Donja Veceriska

Even with good planning and near-perfect execution, collateral damage is inevitable during military operations in built-up areas. However, the HVO spoiling attack on the village of Ahmici was clearly an aberration, causing disproportionate destruction and wanton killing of noncombatants. The HVO clearing action in the village of Donja Veceriska on April 16-18, 1993, was much more representative of HVO operations conducted to foil the ABiH offensive in the Vitez area.17

The village of Donja Veceriska is located on a hill about one and one-half kilometers northwest of the center of Vitez and immediately overlooking the SPS explosives factory. In 1993, the population of the village was about 580 souls, of whom about 60 percent were Muslim and about 40 percent were Croats. The village dominated the factory and was thus very much "key terrain," since the SPS explosives factory was a major ABiH objective throughout the Muslim-Croat conflict in central Bosnia. Until late 1992, the village's Croat and Muslim inhabitants worked together to protect it from a possible attack by Bosnian Serb forces. However, in October and November there was an influx of Muslim refugees from Jajce and elsewhere, tensions grew, and the joint Muslim-Croat village guard forces were disbanded. The Muslims began digging trenches in the village, and the number of provocations by Muslim extremists increased. In mid-March, 1993, the Croats in Donja Veceriska began planning to defend the village against possible action by Muslim extremists. The HVO reserve forces (essentially the Croat village guard) were organized, the evacuation of the Croat civilian population in the event of conflict was planned, and demands were issued for the filling in of trenches and the cessation of provocations.

In April, the Muslim Territorial Defense forces in Donja Veceriska included a platoon of forty to fifty men, one machine gun, two automatic rifles, eleven miscellaneous small arms, and various vehicles. According to one Croat resident present at the time, the number of armed and uniformed Muslim soldiers plus armed Muslim refugees in Donja Veceriska may have been closer to a hundred, and their armament included AK-47s, "Gypsy" assault rifles, an M40 sniper rifle, Molotov cocktails, and other arms as well as a quantity of explosives obtained from the SPS factory by Bolo Josic. They also had "Motorolas" (handheld radios) to communicate with ABiH commanders in Stari Vitez. At the same time, the HVO Home Guard forces in the village numbered less than fifty men armed with AK-47 assault rifles, shotguns, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). They, too, were equipped with Motorola radios that enabled them to communicate with higher-level commanders.

The whole Lasva Valley was on alert on evening of April 15, and Ivica Drmic, the HVO leader in Donja Veceriska, received information that the Muslims would attack at 9 A.M. on April 16, 1993, although Colonel Blaskic did not assign any of the OZCB regular forces to defend the village. The Croat families left at the first sign of trouble, and some Muslim civilians were evacuated in a different direction. Both groups of evacuees subsequently mixed at the "train station" on April 17. At around 5:30 A.M. on April 16, the Muslim forces in Donja Veceriska opened fire and attempted to gain control of the village and thus be in a position to dominate the SPS factory and to fire on HVO positions in Vitez. There was a great deal of confusion on all sides, but shortly before 8 AM. an HVO assault force was organized consisting of ten to twelve local men augmented by twelve to fifteen members of the Tvrtko II special purpose force. Their task was to gain control of the village, suppress the Muslim firing, and take the house of Midhat Haskic, a radical Muslim, which was being used to store arms. Fighting from house to house from the top of the village down, the HVO "assault force" succeeded in clearing Muslim fighters from ten to fifteen houses before being stopped at the Muslim strong point at Haskic's house in the middle of the village. All the armed Muslim refugees in Donja Veceriska joined in the fight, and the firing continued all day long, stopping only after midnight on April 17. United Nations Protection Force elements entered the village on April 16 and 17 but did nothing to stop the fighting. During the early morning hours of April 18, UNPROFOR evacuated the remaining Muslim villagers from Donja Veceriska.18 The fighting in Donja Veceriska resumed on April 18, and shortly after noon the HVO mounted a determined house-to-house push that finally cleared the village. The remaining Muslim fighters, having expended their ammunition, withdrew to Grbavica.

During the fighting in Donja Veceriska from April 16-18, the HVO forces suffered seven or eight wounded in action (WIA), including one who died of his wounds. The Muslims had six or seven KIA, and the HVO took nine Muslim prisoners. The latter were held overnight in Vitez and then released. Some Muslim civilians were also detained in Vitez, but all were released within three days.

By taking quick action to forestall Muslim seizure of the village, the HVO forces in Donja Veceriska eliminated a serious threat to the SPS explosives factory and the engagement of HVO forces in Vitez from the rear. The casualties inflicted were entirely proportionate to the ends of the operation, which appears in every way to have been a straightforward and quite legitimate clearing action with minimal military and civilian casualties and destruction of property.

[Defensor Fidei]

Gacice

Events on April 16-19 in the village of Gacice, located on a hill two kilometers southwest of the center of Vitez and immediately to the southeast of the SPS explosives factory, paralleled those in Donja Veceriska and culminated in an HVO clearing operation to take the village. Gacice overlooks-and therefore dominates the SPS factory and is also well within mortar and recoilless rifle range of the center of Vitez. For a time in late 1992, the headquarters of the ABiH 325th Mountain Brigade was located in Gacice's middle school, the so-called Yellow House.

In April, 1993, Gadce numbered about 378 souls, evenly divided between Muslims and Croats. The upper village was mixed, but the lower village near the cemetery and the explosives factory was mostly Muslim. Almost everyone in the village worked in the explosives factory. Some two hundred Muslim refugees from the Krajina moved into Gacice during 1992, perhaps as part of a centrally directed plan to infiltrate Muslim refugees into critical areas in order to change the ethnic balance. Tensions grew between the two ethnic groups that summer, and for a time the Muslims blocked the road by the school.

The Muslims in Gacice had few weapons until August, 1992, when the HVO and TO tried to take over the JNA armory at Slimena in Travnik. The armory was mined, and the Muslims broke in to get arms and exploded the mines while the HVO was negotiating with the JNA. The Muslims subsequently took the pieces and reassembled them into whole weapons. By mid-April, 1993, the Muslim TO forces in Gacice consisted of perhaps sixty well-organized and well-armed men. According to Enes Varupa, they had at least one machine-gun, a radio transmitter, some twenty-eight small arms, and various vehicles. Most were armed with AK-47 and "Gypsy" automatic assault rifles. They also had handheld Motorola radios to communicate with ABiH commanders. Once they were armed and organized, the Gacice Muslims became much more aggressive, and a number of clashes with the Croat inhabitants occurred.

Before the outbreak of fighting in the Lasva Valley on April 16, the HVO had no indication that the ABiH planned an armed takeover in Gacice.19 Once the fighting started on the sixteenth, the Muslims in town, lacking a clear superiority over the Croat inhabitants, sought reinforcements from the ABiH 325th Mountain Brigade in Kruscica and negotiated with the HVO in order to extend the time needed for reinforcements to arrive. The HVO recognized the stalling for what it was, but before attempting to clear the village the HVO gave the Muslims a chance to give up their arms and surrender without a fight. The Muslim response was to start digging in. The HVO then assembled an assault force consisting of a few policemen, about twenty village guards from Gacice and a few from nearby Kamenjace, and ten to fifteen members of the Vitezovi special purpose force.20 At about 6:30 in the morning on April 19, the HVO initiated an assault intended to clear the village of the armed Muslim forces and to halt the firing on Vitez.

The HVO forces attacked in six or seven groups; the Muslims defenders were in three groups. One group of five to seven Muslims surrendered at 4:30 P.M. Others escaped, setting fire to Croat homes on the way out. However, the Muslims were willing to sacrifice their civilians, and although most stayed in their homes, none were killed. The Muslim soldiers fleeing from Gacice took advantage of the roughly six-hundred-meter-long escape route near the SPS factory purposefully left open for Muslim civilians by the HVO. Following the battle, which ended by 5:30 P.M. on the nineteenth, the HVO rounded up Muslim civilians and moved them to Vitez, where they were held until after the fighting in the area ended. They were then returned to their homes the following day.

In the Gacice clearing operation the HVO lost one KIA, and the Muslims lost three KIA (including a man they themselves killed because he did not wish to fight his Croat neighbors). The Viteska Brigade reported taking forty-seven prisoners. Two Muslim 82-mm mortars (without ammunition) and an M-84 machine gun were found after the action ended.

The contest for Gacice appears to have been a straightforward fight for control of a key piece of terrain following Muslim firing on Vitez, unsuccessful negotiations, and an offer by the HVO to resolve the situation without a fight. People were killed and things were broken-but certainly not disproportionately, and the HVO apparently did take positive action to ameliorate the effects of the battle on civilians by offering to accept surrender before the assault and by providing an escape route for Muslim civilians, although it should be noted that the usual Muslim pattern of retaining civilians in the battle area was practiced at Gacice.


Stari Vitez


Some of the most vicious fighting in the weeklong battle in the Vitez area focused on the Muslim enclave in the Stari Vitez-Mahala section of Vitez. Stari Vitez was a Muslim stronghold barely two hundred yards from the HVO OZCB headquarters. Beginning in November, 1992, the ABiH moved in experienced fighters, dug trenches, warehoused ammunition, and shifted an antiaircraft gun from the SPS factory to Stari Vitez. By April, 1993, the TO headquarters in Stari Vitez commanded at least 350 Muslim combatants. They were well-armed with small arms and automatic weapons; an antiaircraft gun; two 60-mm mortars; one M-84 heavy machine gun; three to six 7.62-mm light machine guns; ten rocket-propelled grenade launchers; and three sniper rifles, along with some 360 mortar shells. The Muslim forces were deployed in trenches and shelters constructed around Muslim houses, with strong points in Mahala-Rakite near Otpad, in the community center, in the Metal Borac shop near the cemetery, and in Donja Mahala.

In anticipation of an attack on OZCB headquarters in the early morning t hours of Apri116, Colonel Blaskic ordered the Vitezovi to prevent any attack from Stari Vitez. When OZCB headquarters came under fire on the 6 morning of April 16, HVO forces acted immediately to isolate the Muslims forces in Stari Vitez. The Vitezovi, supported by military and civilian police and troops from the Viteska Brigade, encircled the enclave. A siege like fight ensued as HVO forces first blockaded and then attempted to reduce the enclave and eliminate a serious cancer in their midst. Meanwhile, Muslim forces attacked repeatedly from north of the Travnik-Busovaca road to break through and reinforce their embattled comrades in Stari Vitez.

The battle for the Stari Vitez enclave continued long after the April 18 cease-fire agreement, with frequent shelling of the enclave by the HVO, intense sniper fire from both sides, and occasional attempts at ground assaults by both the Muslims in Stari Vitez and the HVO troops surrounding the enclave. Throughout the so-called siege, Muslim forces in Stari Vitez continued to receive limited amounts of supplies by infiltration through the HVO lines, from humanitarian organizations, with the help of UNPROFOR, and allegedly from the HVO.21 The battle produced heavy casualties on both sides, but the Muslim stronghold proved too hard a nut for the HVO to crack. Finally, on February 27, 1994, UNPROFOR forces mounted Operation Stari Simon and broke into the enclave to evacuate the Muslim sick and wounded.

Assessment

The HVO forces were under legal and moral obligations to conduct their military operations in accordance with the accepted laws of land warfare and the international treaties governing the conduct of military operations, but they were under no obligation to remain inactive and permit Muslim forces to attack them with impunity. Thus, having learned of the planned Muslim attack, Colonel Blaskic laid out an aggressive plan of active defense to foil the Muslim offensive. Except for the deplorable conduct of his subordinates in Ahmici, Colonel Blaskic's employment of the meagre forces at his disposal was admirable. He correctly assessed the main threats and assigned his strongest forces to deal with them. Thus, elements of the 4th Military Police Battalion carried out a successful spoiling attack on the presumed ABiH assembly area in Ahmici, an attack that unfortunately deteriorated into a massacre of Muslim civilians. The Vitezovi blocked the strong Muslim forces in Stari Vitez, and the half-formed Viteska Brigade prevented a Muslim advance out of Kruscica and Vranjska. When Muslim forces in Donja Veceriska and Gacice posed a threat to Vitez and to the SPS factory, HVO assault forces composed of village guards augmented by small special purpose force detachments conducted successful clearing operations. Elsewhere in the Vitez area, local Croat forces, primarily village guards, held the line against advancing ABiH troops. Again with the exception of Ahmici, all of these operations were conducted within the bounds of expected norms. Although casualties were heavy, they were not disproportionate to the legitimate military objectives sought

______________________________________

1 Military Intelligence Service, HQ, OZCB, no. 205-8-I/93, Vitez, Mar. 25, 1993, subj: Estimation of Possible Activities by a Potential Aggressor in the Territories of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, B d190. It should be noted that Zeko’s analysis was contemporary and not an ex post rationalization.
2 Zeko, Blaskic trial testimony, Sept. 11 and 21, 1998; HQ, ABiH III Corps, no. 02/33-867 (to commander, 303d Mountain Brigade), Zenica, Apr. 16, 1993, subj: Order to move out and occupy positions, KC Z673 and KC D190/1
3 HVO Travnik, no. HVO-01-582/93, to the presidents of Croatia, the HZ HB, and the HVO, Travnik, Apr. 12, 1993, subj: Report of the Travnik HVO on the armed conflicts in Travnik before and during Easter festivities, KC Z647. The letter contains a detailed account of the April 8-12 conflict in Travnik and calls upon Croatian president Franjo Tudjman to deny passage through Croatia to "foreign citizens from Islamic and Arab countries using the Republic of Croatia as a transit area to enter Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to fight in the units of BH Army against everything that is Croatian and Christian" (ibid., 2-3).
4 Maj. Anto Bertovic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Oct. 4-5, 2000. Bertovic estimated that at the beginning of April 1993, the overall ratio of ABiH to HVO forces in the Lasva Valley was probably four to one.
5 HQ, OZCB, Vitez, 1000, Apr. 15, 1993, subj: Preparatory Combat Command for the Defense of HVO and the Town of Vitez from Extremist Mudjahedin-Muslim Forces, KC Z660.1.
6 The HVO Main Staff apparently informed HQ, OZCB, of the forthcoming attack after making a number of communications intercepts (Bertovic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony; OZCB Duty Officer Log, 70-71). Communications intercepts were a common form of intelligence collection used extensively by both sides.
7 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Pub 1'02, defines Active defense as the “employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy”. A spoiling attack is “A tactical maneuver employed to seriously impair a hostile attack while the enemy is in the process of forming and assembling for attack” A preemptive attack is defined as “An attack initiated on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is imminent”. Both are legitimate military operations but to an observer imperfectly informed as to the overall operational situation, either might appear to be entirely offensive in nature. However, although by definition both are “attacks”, both are essentially defensive operations, designed to prevent the success of a planned enemy attack and to preserve the defensive position intact (ibid. 3, 195, 355)
8 Among those tried and convicted of war crimes related to the Ahmici incident are: Maj. Gen. Tihomir Blaskic, then commander of the OZCB; Dario Kordic, then a prominent Croat politician in the Lasva Valley; Mario Cerkez, then commander of the Viteska Brigade; Vladimir Santic, then commander of the 1st Company, 4th Military Police Batallion; and Anto Furundzija, then commander of the antiterrorist platoon, 4th Military Police Batallion. Among the HVO soldiers tried, Dragan Papic was acquitted; Drago Josipovic was convicted; and the convictions of Zoran Kupreskic, Mirjan Kupreskic and Vlatko Kupreskic were overturned on appeal. The trial of Pasko Ljubicic, then commander of the 4th Military Police Batallion, is pending.
9 See, among others, Filipovic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 11, 2000. The matter was apparently not even discussed at ABiH-HVO Joint Commission meetings (Franjo Nakic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 14, 2000). Even Stewart did not mention Ahmici in his diary until April 22, well after the event. See Stewart diary, Apr. 22, 1993, sec. 3, 41: “ABiH reluctant to withdraw due to claimed incident at Ahinici [Ahmici].”
10 Even UNPROFOR officers have stated that the village had military significance. See, for example, Lt. Col. Bryan S. C. Watters, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, July 29, 1999. Watters was deputy commander of the 1st Batallion, 22d (Cheshire) Regiment, the British UNPROFOR unit in the Lasva Valley in April, 1993. Both the deputy commander and chief of staff of the OZCB identified the Ahmici-Santici area as the narrowest part of the Croat Vitez enclave and thus of supreme military significance (Filipovic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 11, 2000; Franjo Nakic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 13, 2000)
11 Captured ABiH map entitled “Obostrani Raspored Snaga u zoni 3. korpusa kraj decembra 1992. g. – januar 1993. god”; Enes Varupa notebook, entry for Apr. 11, 1993, B D17. Varupa was a member of the Muslim TO in the Lasva Valley. His notebook was captured by the HVO at Grbavica later in 1993.
12 Statement of Fuad Berbic. 5. Berbic had commanded the Muslim TO forces in Ahmici in 1992. The fortification of Ahmici before April 16 was also confirmed by the testimony of Witness CW1 in the Blaskic trial.
13 Witness AT, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Nov 27, 2000, as cited in Kordic-Cerkez Judgment 213. Witness AT was a senior member of the 4th Military Police Batallion and was present in Ahmici on April 16. He testified in a private session late in the Kordic-Cerkez trial, and although referred to in the Kordic-Cerkez Judgment, his testimony is not available on the ICTY website. The Kordic-Cerkez defense team impugned Witness AT’s character and veracity, but the prosecutor and the trial chamber relied heavily upon his testimony. His allegations regarding the attack’s planning and the supposed orders of senior HVO commanders are probably false, but his narration of some of the events leading up to the attack and the assault itself are credible.
14 According to Witness AT, Pasko Ljubicic told the assault force that Colonel Blaskic had ordered all the Muslim men in the village to be killed, the houses set on fire, and the civilians spared. Given the unreliability of Witness AT on such matters, it is doubtful that Blaskic ever issued such instructions.
15 "When the attack commenced our guards and reinforcements in the lower part of Ahmici engaged in combat” (Statement of Fuad Berbic, 5). See also Witness AT, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Nov 27, 2000, as cited in Kordic-Cerkez Judgment, 213.
16 HQ, 4th Military Police Batallion, Vitez, April 16, 1993, subj: Report, B D280; Witness AT, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Nov 27, 2000, as cited in Kordic-Cerkez Judgment, 213. Witness AT stated that the mosque was used as a strong point and that there was an observation post and heavy machine gun located in the minaret (ibid., 207). Antitank rockets hit the mosque during the attack and the minaret collapsed. Colonel Stewart testified in the Blaskic trial that he found the reports of the use of the mosque as a strong point incredible "because mosques are rotten places to defend". However, mosques were frequently used as hiding places, assembly areas, command posts, and storage areas for arms and ammunition for Muslim forces throughout the central Bosnia area. That some of the Muslim forces in Ahmici, under heavy ground attack, should have barricaded, themselves in the mosque (and elementary school) is, in fact, consistent with reports from other areas during the period.
17 Details of the events in Donja Veceriska from December 1992, through April, 1993, are drawn primarily from Bono Drmic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Sept. 27, 2000; and Witness V, Kordic-cerkez trial testimony, Nov 25, 1999. In 1993, Drmic, a Bosnian Croat, was a firefighter at the SPS factory and a resident of Donja Veceriska. It should be noted that there is an important distinction between English words clearing and cleansing, a distinction not always reflected by the interpreters in trials before the ICTY when translating the BSC word ciscenje. In American military parlance, the term cleansing operation implies a legitimate local offensive operation designed to clear enemy and armed forces from key terrain.
18 HQ, Viteska Brigade, no. 01-125-23/93, Vitez 0600, Apr. 18, 1003, subj: Operations Report for the period midnight to 0600, B D307; Bono Drmic, Kordic-Cerkez tral testimony. The UNPROFOR forces in central Bosnia routinely evacuated wounded Muslims to hospitals and Muslim civilians to places of safety but refused to perform the same services for Croats. See, among others, the complaints recorded April 17-19 in OZCB Duty Officer Log, 109, 112, 119, 126, 128-129, 139.
19 Nikola Mlakic testified that shortly before the outbreak of fighting in the Vitez area on April 16, the Muslim mayor of Gacice, Sabahudin Hrustic, taunted the town’s Croat residents by saying to them in effect, "Why are you Croats hanging around here? The III Corps will be here tomorrow” (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Sept. 21, 2000)
20 Mlakic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Sept. 21, 2000. Witness AP stated that an HVO soldier told her that the 303d Split Brigade and the 125th Varazdin Brigade of the Croatian Army also participated in the Gacice fighting (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Mar. 7, 2000). However, during Witness AP’s cross-examination, Mario Cerkez’s defense counsel noted that Nesad Hrustic had stated that he saw no Croat forces in Gacice. In any event, no such named units ever existed in the Croatian army.
21 Ibid. Kalco stated that Muslims in Stari Vitez purchased ammunition from HVO soldiers. A senior ABiH commander, Mehmed Alagic, boasted in his memoir that the ABiH was able to supply ammunition to the Muslims in Stari Vitez with the help of UNPROFOR (see Alagic et al., Ratna Sjecanja, 28). Former British army captain Lee Whitworth, the BRITBAT liaision officer in the Vitez area from June until November 1993, testified about an incident in which ammunition hidden in bandages was brought into Stari Vitez by a BRITBAT armoured vehicle (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Oct. 18, 1999).

[Defensor Fidei]

The ABiH Main Attack - Busovaca, Kiseljak, Zenica




Busovaca, Kiseljak, Zenica, and Elsewhere

Although the principal objectives of the April, 1993, Muslim offensive-the SPS explosives factory, OZCB headquarters, and the vital Travnik-Kaonik road-were in the Vitez area, the attack extended, as HVO intelligence officer Ivica Zeko predicted, to the Busovaca, Kiseljak, and Zenica areas. Elsewhere-in Travnik, Novi Travnik, Zepce, and Vares-the ABiH elected to avoid an all-out attack in order to concentrate their forces in the critical Vitez-Busovaca-Kiseljak-Zenica area. The HVO mounted a strong active defense and repelled the Muslim attack in Busovaca and Kiseljak. But Muslim attackers in the Zenica area succeeded in destroying the HVO forces and expelling the Croat population from the town and many of the surrounding villages.

The ABiH Attack in the Busovaca Area

The town of Busovaca and the road junction at Kacuni were important ABiH objectives during the probing attacks in late January, 1993. Although elements of the ABiH 333d Mountain Brigade seized control of the Kacuni intersection and took up positions overlooking Busovaca from the east, they were unsuccessful in taking either the Kaonik road junction north of Busovaca or the town itself, both of which the HVO vigorously defended. In the Muslim offensive that began on April 16, Busovaca and the critical Kaonik intersection were important Muslim objectives, and the fighting in the HVO Nikola Subic Zrinski Brigade's defensive zone was intense and sustained, punctuated by sequential Muslim attacks and HVO counterattacks that flowed back and forth over the hapless villages north and east of the Vitez-Busovaca road. The more numerous ABiH aggressors gained ground and inflicted heavy casualties on the HVO defenders, but they were ultimately unsuccessful in obtaining their principal objectives.

The ABiH forces committed to the offensive in the Busovaca area in April, 1993, consisted of elements of five mountain brigades (the 302d, 303d, 305th, 309th, and 333d), the 301st Mechanized Brigade, and the 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade, supported by the 2d Antisabotage Detachment-Zenica (2d PDO-Zenica), RBiH Ministry of the Interior police, Territorial Defense troops from Rovna, Kruscica, Busovaca, Fojnica, and Kakanj, Muslim Armed Forces units, and other troops. In all, the attacking ABiH forces probably totaled over five thousand men.

Unlike the HVO defenders in the Vitez area, who had to defend against a Muslim attack on a broad front but from only one direction (albeit with significant pockets in the center of Vitez and to their right and left rear), the Zrinski Brigade in Busovaca was compelled to adopt an all-around defense with significant "fronts" to the northwest, north/northeast, east/southeast, and south. The 3d Battalion, 333d Mountain Brigade, reinforced by elements of the 2d PDO-Zenica, was deployed northeast of Busovaca on a front extending from the village of Putis south across the Kaonik-Lasva road to a point just southeast of the village of Skradno. The battalion command post was located in Grablje. The 2d Battalion, 333d Mountain Brigade-with its command post near Bozevic-was deployed to the southeast of the 3d Battalion, extending east of the village of Krcevine to run parallel to (and north of) the Busovaca-Kiseljak road to the Kacuni intersection. The area south- west of the Kacuni intersection was occupied by the 1st Battalion, 333d Mountain Brigade with its command post co-located with the Brigade command post near Benchmark (BM) 455 just northwest of the village of Mehurici and reinforced by the 4th Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade. The 1st Battalion, 333d Mountain Brigade's zone began at the Kacuni intersection and ran southwest to Prosje, then northwest to Ocehnici, and then southwest again to link up with a 180- man detachment of Muslim TO forces from Fojnica in the vicinity of BM 751. The Muslim line extended farther to the southwest in an area occupied by elements of the 305th Mountain Brigade's 1st Battalion (about 170 men), extending from a point northeast of BM 1138 and running southwest to BM 1410. To the west of Busovaca, HVO forces were opposed by an eighty-man detachment from the Rovna TO forces deployed just west of the village of Kovecevac and a small ABiH pocket just to the northwest of the village of Bare. The area directly north of Busovaca, from the village of Nadioci east to the Loncari-Jelinak-Putis area was assigned to elements of the ABiH 303d Mountain Brigade from Zenica.

The area to the rear of the 333d Mountain Brigade's 2d and 3d Battalions in the vicinity of the villages of Merdani, Dusina, and Lasva was occupied by elements of the 305th Mountain Brigade, which maintained its command post in Biljesevo near Kakanj. The ABiH forces in the Busovaca area were also supported by several tanks from the 301st Mechanized Brigade in Zenica. Later in the battle, elements of the 302d Motorized Brigade from Visoko were also committed in the Busovaca area.

The HVO defenders in the Busovaca area consisted of the three battalions of the Nikola Subic Zrinski Brigade, commanded by Dusko Grubesic from a command post at "Sumarija" in Busovaca. The 3d Battalion was deployed northwest of Busovaca in the vicinity of the village of Bare, facing local Muslim forces from the Ravno and Kruscica area. The 2d Battalion, commanded by Anto Juric from a command post just south of the Kaonik intersection, was deployed north of Busovaca astride the road guarding the vital Kaonik intersection, with forward elements forming a thin screen in the Kuber area north of the intersection from the vicinity of Nadioci east to include Loncari, Jelinak, and Putis then southeast to the vicinity of BM 366 across the road from the village of Katici. The headquarters of the 1st Battalion, commanded by Anto Dusic, was located just west of the center of Busovaca and northwest of the road to the village of Kupres, and the battalion manned a line in the Kula area running southeast from the Strane area to Mejdani then just west of Solakovici south to the Busovaca-Kiseljak road in the vicinity of Krcevine. The 1st Battalion sector also included a deep salient along the Busovaca-Kiseljak road toward Kiseljak, the point of which was near Kacuni, the northern shoulder at Donja Polje, and the southern shoulder near Ocehnici.

The situation remained relatively calm in the Busovaca area in early April as the HVO and ABiH forces faced off in the area north, east, and south of the town. The Muslim roadblock at Kacuni, established on January 23, prevented direct HVO access between Busovaca and Kiseljak, but there were no major direct confrontations. On April 8-9, the commanders of the 333d Mountain and Zrinski Brigades issued a joint order addressing the plan for filling in of trenches in the area no later than April 12, and the completion of the withdrawal of outside forces by April 16 in accordance with the pro- visions of the January cease-fire agreements On April 8, Zrinski Brigade headquarters reported a quiet night, and on April 10 the ABiH III Corps headquarters reported a generally quiet situation with "occasional provocation by HVO forces in the Busovaca municipality" as a result of the deterioration of Muslim-Croat relations in the Travnik area. The following day, April 11, III Corps HQ reported that on the night of April 10-11, an HVO platoon deployed on the Kula-BM 712-Mejdani line opened fire with small arms on ABiH positions on the Solakovici-Marjanov Kosa line. Single shots and short bursts provoked no ABiH response, and there were no casualties. An UNPROFOR patrol also reported the fall of six mortar rounds in the vicinity of the UNPROFOR checkpoint near Kacuni at 12:40 A.M. on April 11, as well as heavy small arms and machine-gun fire in the surrounding area following the mortar impact.

On April 12, the Zrinski Brigade HQ reported a generally quiet situation in the preceding period with no significant combat activity, stable defense lines, satisfactory morale, good logistical support, and functioning communications. The Busovaca-Kiseljak road remained closed, and new ABiH entrenchments were observed in the Kula sector. On April 13, ill Corps HQ re- ported that during the previous night HVO forces had provoked ABiH units in the Gornja Rovna area, but no one was hurt.The ECMM reported progress with filling in the trenches in the Busovaca area on April 14, and ECMM representatives met with the Croat mayor of Busovaca and the Muslim president of the War Presidency of Kacuni, who agreed to form a temporary joint municipal government."
Despite the relative calm and apparent progress in implementing the January cease-fire agreements in the Busovaca area, there were solid indications that the Muslim forces were preparing for offensive action. On April 11, a soldier from the Zrinski Brigade's 2d Battalion reported to the Busovaca Security Information Service office that while talking with one Vinko Ljubicic from Zenica he had learned that rumors were rampant in Zenica that the ABiH was prepared to sacrifice three thousand to five thousand men in order to capture territory in the vicinity of the Busovaca municipality.1

The Muslim offensive in the Busovaca area began on Apri115, and for the next four days it took the form of artillery, mortar, and direct-fire attacks from a distance. There was little or no movement toward the HVO defensive lines, and thus no direct close combat. At 3:05 P.M., April 15, two HVO Zrinski Brigade soldiers were wounded in the area of Sarcevici and transported to the war hospital in Busovaca. At 3:30, ECMM and UNPROFOR observers reported small-arms fire in the vicinity of the Kacuni bridge, and ECMM monitors protested to the HVO headquarters in Busovaca. The HVO authorities claimed their forces were being fired upon by ABiH troops in positions overlooking the HVO checkpoint at Gavrine Kuce, a claim that was later confirmed. At about 5:30, HVO forces mounted a spoiling attack with small arms supported by artillery against ABiH units in the village of Putis. The ABiH casualties included two KIA and two WIA.

The 303d Mountain Brigade's participation in the Busovaca attack provides an important indicator of Muslim intentions and the timing of the ABiH offensive. At noon on April 16, Suad Hasanovic, the brigade commander, issued his attack order based on orders received from the III Corps commander.2 The order noted that the 3d Battalion, 303d Mountain Brigade, controlled the villages of Merdani, Grablje, and Putis from a command post in Grablje and that the 2d Antisabotage Detachment of the Zenica TO forces had organized the defense in the Saracevica-Kicin area. The 303d's 2d Battalion was ordered to move from its deployment area along the Zenica-Drivusa-Janjici-Gumanic axis to occupy defensive positions on the line Saracevica (BM 957)-Kicin (BM 921) as far as BM 567. After consolidating its defenses along that line, the units were then to “mount an attack" along a primary axis of advance from Saracevica via Jelinak to Loncari; to occupy the Obla Glava-Gradina heights; and then “mount an attack" along the Saracevica-Vrela route to reach the line BM 813-Vrana Stijena-Bakije-Katici, where the battalion was then to prepare to advance on order toward the Busovaca-Vitez communication line. After occupying the defensive area between Saracevica and Kicin, elements of the 2d and 3d Companies of the 2d PDO-Zenica were to come under the control of the 2d Battalion, 303d Mountain Brigade, which would also be reinforced by the following forces: part of the brigade reconnaissance platoon; a 120-mm mortar platoon; two squads of 20-mm antiaircraft guns; a squad equipped with a 128-mm light rocket launcher; and one Maljutka (Sagger) antitank rocket. The 3d Battalion was to designate a company to act as a reserve for the attacking 2d Battalion. Following occupation of Saracevica, the 2d Battalion was also to be reinforced by one T-55 tank from the 301st Mechanized Brigade, the employment of the tank and the Maljutka antitank weapon to be controlled directly by the 303d Mountain Brigade commander. The brigade artillery group (minus the 120-mm mortar platoon) and other brigade elements were assigned suitable supporting tasks. As shown on a captured ABiH map, the sector assigned to the 303d Mountain Brigade ran from BM 514 just northeast of the village of Ahmici east through Loncari and Jelinak to Putis.

Two important facts need to be emphasized regarding the 303d Mountain Brigade's attack order of April 16, 1993. First, it is clearly labeled an "Order for Attack," and it indeed instructs subordinate units to carry out an attack-rather than a counterattack or a defensive action. Second, the rather lengthy and detailed order was apparently issued at noon on the sixteenth, following receipt of a III Corps order dated earlier in the day. Considering the time required to prepare and issue the III Corps order and the time required for the 303d Mountain Brigade commander to conduct his analysis of the corps order, prepare an estimate of the situation, and prepare his own implementing orders, it is highly unlikely that the 303d Brigade operation was undertaken in reaction to an HVO attack in the early morning hours. Given the known defects of ABiH staff work and communications, the 303d Brigade action had to have been planned much earlier.

At 8: 15 on the morning of Apri116, a British UNPROFOR patrol reported heavy fighting in the area of the Croat village of Rijeka and the Muslim village of Vranjska, where many houses were burning. At 5 P.M., Zrinski Brigade HQ reported that the fighting had continued during the day with a strong Muslim infantry attack launched from the Gornja Rovna and Pezici area at 5:30 A.M. on the HVO positions in the villages of Donja Rovna and Bare, to which the HVO forces responded vigorously. Light combat activity was also reported in the Kuber-Obla Glava area; otherwise, the defense lines around Busovaca remained quiet during the day. At 7:45 P.M., HQ, OZCB, issued orders for the Zrinski Brigade to reinforce the defense in the Kuber area with a minimum force of one company (120 men) of "your best prepared and most able forces." The Zrinski Brigade was further ordered to coordinate its actions with the Viteska Brigade and "make sure that Kuber does not fall."

The ABiH III Corps HQ reported on April 16 that the intensity of operations and the movement of HVO forces directed at the 333d Mountain Brigade had been "weak to the point of non-existence," and that in the southern sector occupied by the 333d Mountain Brigade's 1st Battalion and elements of the Busovaca TO forces, "no significant HVO forces activity has been observed."Elements of the 309th Mountain Brigade were also reported being introduced into the area of Sudine, and elements of the Kakanj TO forces into the area of Dusina.

The ABiH elements identified as belonging to the Muslim Armed Forces launched a strong infantry attack from the area of Dvor and Grabalje at about 5:30 A.M., April 17 , on HVO forces in Kuce, Putis, and Jelinak in the Kuber-Obla Glava area? The Muslim attack in that area continued with artillery support throughout the day. However. at 8:30 A.M., the Zrinski Brigade reported that Muslim forces had lost their positions on Mount Kuber and broken contact, and that ABiH forces were in control of BM 897 and Saracevici. At 11:25 on April 17, the Information Office of HQ, OZCB, notified International Red Cross, ECMM, and UNPROFOR authorities that Muslim extremists were killing civilians in the villages of Jelinak and Putis and throughout the Kuber area, with some sixty civilians massacred already. The international authorities were asked to investigate the situation and act to protect civilians. At 1:56 P.M., British UNPROFOR patrols reported that the village of Kuber was under attack by ABiH forces, and at 6:15 hours, HQ, OZCB, issued additional defensive orders for protection of the Kuber area and the vital Vitez-Busovaca road to the commanders of the Viteska and Zrinski Brigades and the 4th Military Police Battalion. The order, to take effect immediately, called for the formation of a defense line in the Kuber area to link forces from Vidovici via BM 514, BM 646, and Jelinak to Obla Glava in order to prevent a Muslim advance toward Kaonik and Nadioci at all costs.

Elsewhere in the area on April 17, a general alert was sounded in the town of Busovaca at 10 A.M. as mortar shells began to land. The positions of the Zrinski Brigade's 3d Battalion in Bare and Donja Rovna were also under fire all day from ABiH positions in and around Pezici and Gornja Rovna, and the 1st Battalion's positions in Strane, Gavrine Kuce, and Podjele also received sporadic fire from Merdani. The HVO reported one KIA and nine WIA (three seriously), and morale and logistics support were deemed satisfactory.

The HVO reconnaissance elements reported late on the seventeenth that Muslim mortars were firing on the Rovna and Donja Rovna areas of the Busovaca municipality from BM 536. On the morning of April 18, the Zrinski Brigade commander reported a quiet night in the brigade zone of operations and described the measures taken to increase the readiness of his forces and establish the defense lines prescribed by the OZCB commander the previous day. During the course of the day, the ABiH liaison officer to the ECMM reported heavy fighting in the area of Pezici and Rovna. The Zrinski Brigade also reported continued combat activity in the Kuber and Bare-Donja Rovna region as well as in the Kula area, including an intense attack launched by Muslim forces at 5: 50 P.M. that unsuccessfully attempted to break through the HVO defense lines in the areas of Polom, Vrata-Skradno, and Roske Stijene. Brigade headquarters also reported that an antiaircraft machine gun located in the area of Crna had fired into HVO positions in the village of Strane. All defense lines remained stable, and morale and logistics support continued to be rated satisfactory.

On April 19, even as the UNPROFOR-arranged cease-fire began to take hold in the Vitez area and the Boban-lzetbegovic agreement of April 18 became known, the fighting in the Busovaca area became even more intense. Colonel Blaskic, the OZCB commander, complained to UNPROFOR representatives that the ABiH offensive north of Busovaca centered on the villages of Kuber, Jelinak, and Kaonik contravened the cease-fire agree- ments. Zrinski Brigade HQ reported that the ABiH launched a general attack at 6:45 A.M. on Busovaca from the direction of Dvor-Putis-Gradina (BM 650) with a force of some 500 men from the 7th Muslim Brigade. Their objective was probably to take Gradina (BM 650) and seize control of the surrounding villages. In the Solakovici-Milavice sector, an attack was carried out by a force of approximately 450 men from the 333d and 309th Mountain Brigades in Kakanj. Finally, some 400 men from the 333d Mountain and 302d Motorized Brigades, supported by 82-mm and 120- mm mortars, launched an attack from the Kapak-Prosje-Polom-Ocehnici area apparently with the aim of taking the Draga barracks and surrounding buildings. Meanwhile, ABiH forces numbering some 2,000 men from the 303d and 305th Mountain Brigades, supported by a few tanks from the 301st Mechanized Brigade, were reported to be in reserve in the Dusina-Lasva-Merdani-Grablje area, poised to move along the Kaonik-Grablje-Lasva road to take HVO positions and gain full control of the lines of communication.

Zrinski Brigade HQ also reported the deployment of the thirteen hundred HVO defenders under its command on April 19. The 1st Battalion held the line Vrata-Podjele-Strane-Gravrine Kuce-Jelinak and the line Donja Rovna-Kovacevac-Roske Stijene-Busovaca-Grad-Tisovac-Polom and was currently engaged but repelling the attacks in the Dvor-Putis-Gradina and Kapak-Polom-Ocehnici areas with some difficulty. The 2d Battalion held the line Prosje-Polje-Milavice-Donja Solakovici-Krcevine-Kula-Vrata and was currently engaged on the stretches Solakovici-Milavice and Donja Polje-Prosje. Croatian Defense Council forces had pushed the ABiH attackers back some three hundred meters in the Solakovici-Milavice area, but they could not maintain the new positions due to unfavorable terrain and were thus forced to return to their starting position. The Muslim attack on the Donja Polje-Prosje sector was successfully repelled, and the attackers withdrew to their starting positions. The Dutch/Belgian UNPROFOR transport battalion based in Busovaca confirmed the fighting and shelling in the area, and noted that an M-63 Plamen multiple-barrel rocket launcher fired numerous salvos throughout the morning from a position between the villages of Kula and Skradno.

The battle continued on April 20 in the Polom, Roske Stijene, Putis- Gradina-Jelinak, and Bare-Donja Rovna areas. The HVO defenders repelled the Muslim attacks, but often with heavy casualties. During the course of the day, the HVO established roadblocks north and south of Busovaca to control traffic on the vital Kaonik-Kacuni road. Both the soldiers manning the HVO roadblocks and the deputy commander of the Zrinski Brigade insisted that the British UNPROFOR battalion had been involved in black market operations and the delivery of arms to Muslim villages in the Vitez area, so UNPROFOR vehicles were denied passage.3

The following day, April 21, the fighting in the Busovaca area began to subside as the Muslim offensive started to run out of steam. The battered HVO defenders sought a respite from the intense combat of the previous three days. The Dutch/Belgian UNPROFOR transport battalion based in Busovaca reported that the town remained quiet throughout the day and that, although the HVO roadblocks north and south of Busovaca remained in place, UNPROFOR vehicles were permitted to pass once the local police were informed. The two HVO checkpoints were removed altogether on April 22, but the ABiH established two additional checkpoints on the Busovaca-Kiseljak road and informed UNPROFOR patrols that no UN vehicles would be allowed to pass for the next ten to fifteen days. Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stewart, commander of the British UNPROFOR battalion, personally led a reconnaissance through the villages of Poculica, Vrhovine, Kuber, Jelinak, Loncari, and Ahmici on April 22. He observed that the Muslim soldiers he encountered were not happy about having received orders to withdraw from their forward positions in accordance with the peace plan then being put into effect.

On April 21, the British UNPROFOR battalion conducted an assessment of the situation in the Vitez-Busovaca area and noted that the ABiH III Corps seemed to be in the dominant military position despite having suffered heavy casualties in the fighting that began on April 15-16. The as- sessment also notes that the III Corps estimate of the situation was that a continuation of the "present conflict" (that is, the Muslim offensive) would probably provoke increased HVO artillery shelling of Zenica and perhaps the intervention of HVO forces from outside central Bosnia. Thus, although the ABiH was in position to continue the attack in the Busovaca area and against a number of key Croat villages, the decision to not do so was made in order to avoid additional casualties.

On April 25, the situation in the Kuber sector remained generally quiet, and UNPROFOR forces reported that the villages of Vidovici, Ahmici, Jelinak, and Putis appeared to be deserted. The fighting continued unabated on the Kula front east of Busovaca, however. At around 7:30 A.M., heavy machine gun and small arms firing broke out north of the UNPROFOR transport battalion's base in Busovaca, and HVO mortar positions in the town began firing in a northerly direction, expending some 140 rounds in the course of the morning. The HVO artillery located at Mosunj north of Vitez also fired between ten and fifteen rounds into the area northeast of Kula that morning. At 11 A.M., the OZCB commander complained to Dutch/Belgian UNPROFOR authorities that the Muslims had launched a large attack along the line Strane-Podjele-Kula-Donja Polje that began with the ABiH firing approximately ten mortar rounds from positions in the villages of Grablje and Merdani into the town of Busovaca at 4:30 A.M. The 9/12th Lancers ran a patrol into the area of Kula in the afternoon to investigate the HVO claims but found the village quiet other than for occasional small arms fire, although villagers reported that there had been mortar fire during the morning. At 6:37 P.M., the bridge across the Lasva River to Katici and Merdani was reported to have been demolished. The Muslim attack in the Kula area petered out on the afternoon of April 25, but the following day HVO authorities in Busovaca were still concerned, and the ABiH alleged that the HVO had launched an attack on Solakovici from Kula. The same day a British UNPROFOR liaison officer visiting the headquarters of the ABiH 305th Mountain Brigade confirmed that the brigade had in fact been committed in the Busovaca area.

The lines remained stable and there was only minor combat action in the Busovaca area on the morning of April 27 , although firing and troop movements occurred throughout the day in the vicinity of the village of Kazagici and Sotnice. At 7:30 A.M., HVO forces repelled a brief attack on the town itself, and at 9:30 ABiH artillery fired from the Silos area on civilian buildings in the village of Donja Polje. Three 120-mm mortar rounds were fired causing great destruction but no casualties. Snipers remained active throughout the area of operations.

The Muslims mounted attacks in the Kuber and Kula sectors on April 28. The HVO responded with artillery and mortar fire as well as a tenacious ground defense. Early in the morning, the ABiH launched an attack from the area of Putis on the villages of Bakje and Jelinak as well as the Gradina feature. Dutch/Belgian UNPROFOR observers in Busovaca reported that the HVO mortar positions north of town opened fire at 6: 15 A.M. and had fired some fifty rounds by 7:50, at which time small arms and heavy machine-gun fire could be heard south of the town as well. The ABiH launched another attack at about ten o’clock, this time from the Dusina and Solakovici areas on the HVO line from Kula down to Milavice, with heavy small-arms fire reported in the area which intensified around 2 P.M. Heavy fighting also continued in the Kazagici village area on April 28 as the ABiH retook the village from the HVO. The fighting in Kazagici on Apri127-28 resulted in heavy damage to the village, where almost every house had been set afire.

The heavy fighting in the Bakje-Jelinak-Gradina area and in the Kula area continued on April 29, even as Lieutenant Colonel Stewart escorted the senior officers of both the ABiH (Sefer Halilovic) and HVO (Milivoj Petkovic) to the lines near Kula in an effort to get the cease-fire going. Their efforts were largely in vain, however, and the month of April ended with HVO and ABiH forces still engaged around Busovaca in the Kuber and Kula sectors. On April 30, British UNPROFOR patrols reported seeing about a hundred ABiH soldiers occupying the ruins of the village of Jelinak and a group of fifty HVO soldiers in the village of Loncari. Although the ABiH was able to gain some ground and inflict heavy casualties on the numerically inferior HVO defenders, the Muslim offensive in the Busovaca area had failed to achieve its principal objectives, just as had the attack in the Vitez area. The stubborn HVO defense around Busovaca denied the ABiH the prized Kaonik intersection and the town of Busovaca for the moment, but the Muslims would soon resume their offensive.

[Defensor Fidei]

The ABiH Attack in the Kiseljak Area

The April, 1993, Muslim attack in the Kiseljak area also developed much as Ivica Zeko, the OZCB intelligence officer, had predicted almost a month earlier. The HQ, OZCB, preparatory order issued at 10 A.M. on April 15 accurately forecast the details of the Muslim operational plan. As expected, the ABiH focused its April attack on occupying the BM 661-Svinjarevo-Mladenovac-Gomionica area, cutting the Busovaca-Kiseljak road at the Fojnica intersection just west of Gomionica, and linking up with Muslim forces in the Visnjica area, thereby dividing the already isolated Kiseljak enclave into two parts and effectively cutting off the HVO forces in Fojnica. The ABiH offensive against Kiseljak was thus restricted to a single axis of advance from the northwest, even though ABiH forces to the northeast, east, and south of the Kiseljak enclave had been active earlier. The ABiH IV Corps was committed to the Muslim spring offensive against the HVO in the Neretva Valley and was thus unable to mount a simultaneous assault from Tarcin toward the Kresevo-Fojnica-Kiseljak area. The ABiH I Corps units to the northeast and east of Kiseljak remained heavily engaged against the Bosnian Serb Army forces surrounding Sarajevo and were thus also unavailable for the offensive in the Kiseljak area.

Having failed to cut the Busovaca-Kiseljak road at the Fojnica junction in January, despite repeated bloody assaults, the Muslim forces consolidated and reinforced their positions in the villages northeast of the road (Svinjarevo, Behrici, and Gomionica) during the uneasy cease-fire in February and early April. The ABiH military police units from Visoko were brought in, and there was a steady stream of Muslim-Croat confrontations leading up to the renewal of active combat operations in mid-April. Muslim forces identified in the area north and northeast of Kiseljak in the December, 1992, through January, 1993, period included elements of the 302d Motorized Brigade from Visoko (command post near Dautovci); the 1st Battalion, 303d Mountain Brigade (command post southeast of Dautovci); the 1st and 2d Battalions, 17th Krajina Mountain Brigade; and Territorial Defense forces from the Kiseljak area. As far as can be determined, the same forces remained in place through mid-April.

The ABiH forces deployed in the area of Svinjarevo and Gomionica to the northeast of the Busovaca-Kiseljak road constituted the most significant threat to the Croats in Kiseljak. The forces in that area also posed a potential threat to the HVO defense of Busovaca to the northwest. Accordingly, at 9: 10 A.M., April 17, under heavy ABiH attack in the Vitez area, the OZCB commander ordered the Ban Josip Jelacic Brigade commander in Kiseljak to prepare for a preemptive attack on Muslim positions around Gomionica. He was further ordered to blockade Visnjica and other villages that could be used by the ABiH to launch an attack; to take control of Gomionica and Svinjarevo following a strong artillery and mortar preparation, the main attack to be made from Sikulje and Hadrovci; and reinforce the HVO positions at Badnje and Pobrdje with one company each. Finally, the brigade commander was enjoined to "keep in mind that the lives of the Croats in the region of Lasva depend upon your mission. This region could become a tomb for all of us if you show a lack of resolution."

Shortly before midnight on April 17, Colonel Blaskic gave final, detailed orders to the Jelacic Brigade for the proposed preemptive attack. The brigade was ordered to hold Zavrtaljka firmly and, following preparation of the objective area with mortar fire, to attack and capture Gomionica and Svinjarevo then regroup and conduct an artillery preparation for continuation of the attack to capture Bilalovac. HVO forces in the Fojnica area were assigned the mission of protecting the brigade's left flank and launching an attack on the hamlet of Dusina (south of Fojnica) or a breakthrough toward Sebesic. The operation was set to commence at 5:30 A.M., April 18.

At 1:40 A.M. on the eighteenth, the OZCB commander issued orders directly to the commander of the HVO battalion in Fojnica, instructing him to carry out the planned "combat operation" toward either Dusina or toward Sebesic, the purpose of which was to relieve pressure on the HVO defenders of Busovaca and gain control over the no-man's-land between the Kiseljak and Busovaca areas of operations. Despite being issued in the most forceful terms and essential to counteract the heavy Muslim attacks in the Vitez and Busovaca areas, Colonel Blaskic's orders were not obeyed by Stjepan Tuka, commander of the Ban Jelacic Brigade's 3d (Fojnica) Battallion, who with the support of the civilian authorities in Fojnica refused to execute the operations ordered and thereby provoked a crisis in the HVO command system.

Before the HVO attack ordered by Colonel Blaskic on April 17 to clear the Gomionica/Svinjarevo area could be mounted, the ABiH forces launched an attack of their own from the Svinjarevo-Gomionica area. At about 6 A.M. on Sunday, April 18, the battle for Gomionica-temporarily suspended in January-resumed when ABiH military police advanced from the village and made a frontal assault across the Busovaca-Kiseljak road.4 The Muslim assault was brought to a halt by ten, at which time the Jelacic Brigade headquarters reported that "our forces which are fulfilling their tasks in the village of Gomionica are being attacked." The same hurried situation report noted that other assigned tasks were being accomplished: the Muslim inhabitants of the villages of Jehovac, Gromiljak, Mlava, and Palez had been disarmed. The report also noted that "we have received zip from Fojnica bojna [battalion]."5 At 4:45 P.M., Mijo Bozic, the Jelacic Brigade commander, reported that the conflict had spread to the villages of Rotilj, Visnjica, Doci, Hercezi, and Brestovsko, and that the HVO had lost Zavrtaljka and failed to push the Muslim forces out of Gomionica-although they had advanced about a kilometer on either side of the village. Heavy fighting was still in progress, and the HVO forces reported three KIA, four W1A, and an unknown number of missing.

At 2 A.M. on April 19, Jelacic Brigade headquarters reported that heavy fighting continued in the Gomionica area as the Muslim forces reinforced their lines following an unsuccessful "counterattack"-a renewed attack launched after the HVO halted their initial attack. There was a lull in the fighting elsewhere in the Kiseljak area. The stalemate around Gomionica continued on April 19 and 20, with neither side able to advance. Despite several fevered messages from the OZCB commander referring to the massacre of Croats in Zenica and the imminent destruction of all HVO forces in central Bosnia, the Jelacic Brigade was unable to move forward in the Gomionica area until April 21, when it launched a counterattack that drove the ABiH forces back some five hundred meters north of the Busovaca-Kiseljak road. The lines stabilized once more, and would remain there for some time to come. The forces engaged in the Gomionica area from April 18-21 included about seven hundred ABiH soldiers and about 420 HVO troops. The HVO forces reported three KIA and thirty WIA, and estimated the Muslims had suffered some 266 casualties.

Having halted the ABiH assault at Gomionica on April 18, the HVO began to clean up the Muslim salient west of the Busovaca-Kiseljak road even before their successful counterattack on April 21. The Muslims simultaneously evacuated the entire salient. About 80 percent of the Muslim civilians in the area left on their own volition and moved to Visoko, Fojnica, and Kresevo. The Muslims in Doci and Hercezi surrendered their weapons on Apri119, and the HVO arrested 120 people in Brezovena and captured two 82-mm mortars and one 120-mm mortar. They also found five 120-mm, two 82-mm, and two 60-mm mortars, as well as three 60-mm mortars ABiH troops had thrown away in a stream. The HVO took Visnjica and Polje Visnjica on April 20, and evacuated almost all of the Muslim women and children there. It is perhaps worth noting that when Fojnica fell to the Muslims on July 10, 1993, and the Croats were expelled, many of them went over the mountains to Visnjica and occupied empty Muslim houses there.

The vigorous clearing actions in the villages on both sides of the Busovaca- Kiseljak road generated a fairly large number of Muslim refugees (some 1,038 went to the Visoko area alone before Apri128), and the HVO actions were subsequently characterized by ECMM teams in the area as "ethnic cleansing." Undeniably, Muslim houses were burned and Muslim civilians killed in the course of clearing armed Muslim defenders from positions in the various villages in the area of operations north and south of the Busovaca-Kiseljak road. However, neither the destruction nor the loss of life was disproportionate to the necessity of eliminating active centers of resistance in the HVO rear areas. Moreover, the ECMM reports appear to be based solely on Muslim allegations and quick visits to various Muslim villages. The ECMM monitors apparently did not investigate claims of destruction in Croat villages in the area; at least they did not comment on such claims. The British UNPROFOR observers appear in this case to have been more balanced in their judgments. On April 23, elements of the 9/12th Lancers conducted a detailed reconnaissance northeast of Kiseljak around the villages of Gromiljak, Svinjarevo, and Behrici. Fighting was still going on along the ridgeline between the villages of Svinjarevo and Podastinje, and houses were burning in Behrici and Gomionica. However, the British UNPROFOR intelligence analyst reported: "although the callsigns reported Croat/Mus1im clashes there appears to be no evidence of ethnic cleansing."

The village of Rotilj appears to have been of special concern to the ECMM monitors. Following the failed ABiH assault at Gomionica on April 18, some seventy ABiH soldiers occupied Rotilj. The HVO offered to accept the surrender of the Muslim weapons but was told to "buzz off" by the Muslim commander, who did not want to surrender. The HVO subsequently took the village in a one-day fight on the eighteenth. The ECMM report on the affair alleges that Rotilj was attacked from 3 P.M. on April 18 to noon on April 19 (a twenty-one-hour fight!) by some twenty masked soldiers "alleged to be HVO," who supposedly destroyed all the Muslim houses (nineteen of them) in the west end of village as well as other structures. As usual, the ECMM team reported that none of the Croat houses were damaged. The Muslim men in the village were reportedly arrested and jailed in the Kiseljak HVO prison, and most of the inhabitants evacuated to the older part of town-except for seven persons who were "savagely executed." On April 25, the ECMM reported some six hundred people were in the southwest part of the village (including about one hundred to 150 refugees from Visoko) surrounded by the HVO. They were still there on May 22. Apparently the HVO had a rather glacial ethnic- cleansing program.

The Muslim offensive in the Kiseljak area seems to have been launched in order to gain control of the important Visoko-Fojnica line of communications, divide the Kiseljak enclave into several smaller pieces and isolate the various Croat villages, and, ultimately, to open the area to settlement by Muslim refugees from eastern Bosnia and the Krajina. The ABiH was unable to achieve any of those objectives during the April fighting in the Kiseljak area, but it would renew its efforts in the months to come.


The ABiH Attack in the Zenica Area


The ABiH plan for its April, 1993, offensive appears to have included the elimination of HVO military forces in the Zenica area as well as the expulsion of the Croat community from Zenica and its surrounding villages. Although HVO forces and the Croat population in the Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak areas came under heavy attack and suffered greatly, it was in the Zenica area that the Bosnian Croats received the most devastating blows. The two HVO brigades in Zenica were destroyed, most of the Croat population in Zenica was expelled and became refugees, and the Croat villages west and northwest of the city were attacked and "cleansed." In addition, the sole line of communication between the Croat enclaves in the Lasva Valley and those in the northern area around Zepce was severed.

Tensions in the Zenica area increased following the kidnapping of four HVO soldiers from Novi Travnik on April 13 and the ambush and kidnapping of Zivko Totic in Zenica on the morning of April 15, but the HVO forces in Zenica appear not to have expected any major confrontation.6 The two HVO brigades in the Zenica area (the Jure Francetic and 2d Zenica Brigades) increased their level of readiness and blocked the roads under their control notably the Zenica-Stranjani- Tetovo and Zenica-Raspotocje routes. Nevertheless, at 6 A.M. on April 16, the Jure Francetic Brigade's headquarters in Zenica reported that the preceding night had been quiet in the brigade zone, the town was under control and HVO units were permitting unarmed civilians to pass through checkpoints on their way to work.

The situation in Zenica changed dramatically in the early morning hours on April 7. Attacking from two directions, the ABiH began to take control of the Croat areas in the Zenica municipality and to encircle the two HVO brigades (Jure Francetic and 2d Zenica) and disarm them. Able-bodied men were taken to the detention center in Zenica, but elements of both brigades, escaped via Nova Kar to the HVO lines near Novi Bila, and HVO elements outside the town took up defensive positions. Vinko Baresic, commander of the 2d Zenica Brigade, then still in the process of formation, reported at, 5:30 A.M. that his headquarters had been attacked from all directions and was surrounded. In the same report, issued at 10:20 hours, Baresic urgently requested instructions and assistance from HQ, OZCB in Vitez, noting that HVO forces in the village of Stranjani were completely under siege and had been given an ultimatum by the ABiH to surrender their weapons; the Muslims were progressively surrounding the villages of Zmajevac and Cajdras; and many displaced Croats were seeking refuge in Cajdras. Baresic also informed HQ, OZCB, that he had issued orders for a breakout toward Janjac and Osojnica but that the morale of his forces was declining rapidly and he was unsure whether or not his orders would be obeyed. He himself was going to try to get to Cajdras.

At 1:15 A.M. on April 18, the OZCB commander appealed to the UNPROFOR battalion at Stari Bila and ECMM authorities in Zenica to take immediate action to protect the Croatian population in the Zenica municipality, particularly those in the village of Cajdras. Later that day, Colonel Blaskic telephoned Lieutenant Colonel Stewart and repeated his urgent request for the UNPROFOR forces to act to save the Croats in Cajdras. In his diary Lieutenant Colonel Stewart noted: "things got worse overnight; Zenica blown up with violence and Muslims having a go at Croats who live in/around Zenica; lots of Croat refugees in Croat-held area at Cajdras; 800 civilians ethnically cleansed from Podbrezje West of Zenica by Muslims; Muslim soldiers hostile and looting; HVO had been attacked and all HVO/HOS buildings in Zenica taken over by ABiH; Boban and Izetbegovic agreed to a cease-fire." 7

Indeed, things had gotten very much worse for the Croats in the Zenica area. At 3:45 P.M. on April 18, Vinko Baresic reported from Cajdras that although some two hundred men of the 1st Battalion, Jure Francetic Brigade, continued to man the defensive perimeter around Cajdras (running from the Cajdras crossroads-Palijike-Serusa-Strbci-Jezero-Tromnice); the 3d Battalion, 2d Zenica Brigade, had already agreed to Muslim demands; and the brigade's 1st and 2d Battalions, as well as the 2d and 3d Battalions of the Francetic Brigade, were sure to follow soon. Baresic noted that the HVO troops in Zmajevac were abandoning their positions, leaving the Cajdras defenders in an even more perilous situation. He also noted that he and some other officers did not wish to surrender because "even if we were to surrender, I am sure that we would be executed." He went on to request instructions regarding Lieutenant Colonel Stewart's offer to evacuate HVO personnel from Cajdras to Vitez or Busovaca.

The destruction and "cleansing" of Croat villages in the Zenica area was widespread and thorough, despite Muslim assurances that Croat refugees could return home. On April 21, the ECMM Regional Center in Zenica forwarded a special report to ECMM headquarters in Zagreb dealing with the two hundred Croats the Muslims had imprisoned in the Zenica Prison's military section; the existence of detention centers at Bilimisce, the "Music School" in Zenica, and Nemila; and the destruction by Muslims of Croat villages in and around Zenica. Having visited and investigated the devastated Croat villages of Cajdras, Vjetrenice, Janjac, Kozarci, Osojnica, Stranjani, Zahalie, and Dobriljeno, the ECMM monitors in their usual fashion minimized the damage to Croat property and the deaths of Croat civilians caused by the Muslims and concluded that "except from Zalje the damages was [sic] less than expected."

Having rid themselves of their erstwhile allies and a good part of the Croat civilian population in Zenica, blocked the road to Zepce, and "cleansed" the Croat villages in the Zenica area, the Muslims were free to concentrate on their offensive in the Vitez-Busovaca-Kiseljak area. Although the HVO forces and Croat civilians in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica area suffered significant destruction and casualties, Croat losses in the Zenica area were substantial, and the HVO presence and influence in the area definitively eliminated. Thenceforth, Zenica was a thoroughly Muslim stronghold. Nowhere else did the Muslims' April offensive achieve such decisive results.

[Defensor Fidei]

The Alleged HVO Shelling of Zenica on April 19, 1993

Between 12:10 and 12:29 P.M. on April 19, six artillery shells fell in downtown Zenica, killing and wounding a number of civilians. After a hasty investigation, the ABiH authorities blamed the shelling on the HVO, claiming that it was intended as a warning to the Muslims. Numerous "experts" from the ABiH, UNPROFOR, and ECMM subsequently conducted additional analysis of the fuse and shell fragments and impact areas and concluded that the shells had been fired by HVO forces from a position near Puticevo. Faulty analytical methods and ignorance of the capabilities of the various types of artillery in use in the area reinforced the assumption that the HVO had fired the six rounds. However, as Prof. Slobodan Jankovic-a bona fide ballistics expert and expert on the artillery weapons and ammunition in use at the time-has demonstrated, it was more likely that the six rounds were fired by Bosnian Serb artillery located on the Vlasic massif, just as the HVO authorities suggested at the time. The essence of Professor Jankovic's technical argument is that the six rounds which fell in downtown Zenica on April 19 could have been fired either by the HVO or by the Serbs. Both had guns (122-mm and 152-mm) within range that used the type of shells and fuses of which fragments were found after the shelling. However, Professor Jankovic points out that: (1) the ABiH/ECMM crater analysis was limited to only one crater, and the allowable standard deviation (as to the direction from which the shells were fired) argues for a Serb gun rather than an HVO gun; (2) the HVO had no meteorological capability and could not have achieved such a tight dispersion pattern without it; (3) the two HVO guns in the best position to have fired the six rounds were reported by ABiH observers not to have fired during the period in question; and (4) the missing factor needed to determine definitively who fired the six shells is the tube life of the guns involved (which affects initial velocity) .

Although Professor Jankovic has declined to state definitively who fired the rounds, he leans toward two Serb guns located on the Vlasic massif firing three rounds each. He discounts the use of a forward observer who provided corrections, as well as the idea that the rounds might have been fired by one HVO gun that fired several rounds and then displaced. The HVO gunners simply were not well enough trained to have gone out of battery; moved, and reload the gun within the time available. In general, HVO artillery fire was quite inaccurate due to the absolute lack of meteorological data; substandard, black market ammunition (inconsistent performance); lack of ammunition management (use of mixed lots); lack of records of tube life (which meant most guns likely were used after their recommended tube life); and lack of gun crew training. All of this means that, even when aiming at a military target, the HVO artillery probably could not have avoided hitting nearby civilian facilities.

Actions Elsewhere in April, 1993

Ivica Zeko's predictions of March 25 as to probable Muslim actions in areas outside the main Vitez-Busovaca-Kiseljak area were remarkably accurate. Unable to mount simultaneous attacks on the HVO concentrations throughout central Bosnia, the ABiH elected to maintain the status quo with only minor actions in those Croat enclaves outside the central Vitez-Busovaca-Kiseljak-Zenica area. Tensions increased, as did the number of incidents, but there were no direct ABiH attacks in the peripheral areas. Novi Travnik, Travnik, Zepce, and Vares remained relatively quiet while the battle raged in the central area. In part, the ABiH decision to avoid open conflict outside the central area was dictated by the fact that the HVO held significant portions of the lines against the Bosnian Serb Army and could not be attacked and destroyed without crippling the Bosnian defense against the Serb aggressors.

Travnik and Novi Travnik

Conflict between Muslims and Croats erupted briefly in the Travnik-Novi Travnik area in mid-April following the dispute over the Croat flags at Easter in Travnik and the kidnapping of the four members of the Stjepan Tomasevic Brigade by mujahideen near Novi Travnik on April 13. Incidents multiplied, and there were numerous arrests and detentions of both military personnel and civilians from both sides as Muslims and Croats provoked and tested each other. On April 12, HVO forces detained a group of some forty to fifty armed Muslims, of whom twenty were ABiH soldiers in uniform, at a checkpoint in Dolac near Travnik. The detainees-including Nihad Rebihic, the assistant commander for morale, propaganda, and military police of the Vitez Territorial Defense organization-were taken to the local HVO headquarters and tied up. The civilians were released thirty minutes later. On Apri114, HQ, ABiH III Corps, reported that the security situation in the Travnik-Novi Travnik area had deteriorated since the kidnapping of the Tomasevic Brigade personnel and that, although they did not engage in combat, the HVO had occupied some key points in the Novi Travnik area, abused ABiH soldiers and Muslim civilians, and reopened the Stojkovici camp. Checkpoints and roadblocks were established by both sides in the area, weapons and vehicles were seized, and the vital road link to Gomji Vakuf was severed. On April 15, the intelligence sections of the ABiH 312th Mountain Brigade and OG West reported that the HVO had arrested some 150 Muslim civilians and ABiH personnel in the Travnik-Novi Travnik area between April 13 and 15, and put them in the so-called vats in the village of Stojkovici (Novi Travnik municipality) .Similarly, on Apri120, the Travnicka Brigade headquarters reported that its communications were being tapped and that Muslim forces were arresting Croats on a massive scale in the center of Travnik from the barracks to the entry of the town from the direction of Vitez. Also in mid-April, some 110 wounded HVO soldiers were expelled from the Travnik hospital, and a makeshift HVO field hospital was established in the church in Nova Bila. On Apri125, HQ, OZCB, reported to UNPROFOR, ECMM, ICRC, and HQ, ABiH III Corps that mujahideen forces from Mehurici had entered the nearby Croat village of Miletici and taken away sixty to seventy people-mainly elderly people, children, and the sick-and maltreated the underage men, who were detained in the cellars of nearby Muslim houses.

Both the ABiH and HVO drew reinforcements from the Novi Travnik area for the fight around Vitez. At 8: 15 P.M. on April 16, HQ, OZCB, ordered the Tomasevic Brigade commander to take action to prevent the movement of Muslim forces from the Novi Travnik area toward Gornji Veceriska and Donja Veceriska. At 2:30 the following afternoon, the Viteska Brigade reported that information had been received regarding the movement of Muslim forces from the village of Opara south of Novi Travnik toward the village of Zaselje-the Croat inhabitants of which were evacuating in panic in the direction of Veceriska. At 8 P.M. on April 17, the Tomasevic Brigade commander was ordered to immediately dispatch a twenty-five- to thirty- man unit to the Vitez area to prevent any further advance toward Vitez by Muslim units coming from Krcevine. Earlier, on the evening of the sixteenth, the OZCB commander ordered the 4th Military Police Battalion unit in Travnik to move to Vitez no later than 10 P.M. to reinforce HVO elements that were heavily engaged in the town.

Despite the large number of heavily armed ABiH and HVO troops in the area, the high level of tension, and numerous incidents and provocations, the Travnik-Novi Travnik area remained relatively quiet even as the HVO forces in nearby Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak fought desperately to blunt the Muslim offensive. For the most part, the situation remained as the Tomasevic Brigade headquarters reported on April 17: "The night was quiet on the territory of Novi Travnik municipality. We received no information on potential conflicts with the BH Army."

Zepce, Zavidovici, and Novi Seher

The HVO forces in the Zepce-Zavidovici-Novi Seher area were critical to the Bosnian defense against the Bosnian Serb Army in the northern salient. They also constituted a well-organized and well-armed force that was prepared to offer significant resistance to any ABiH attempt to overcome them. Although provocations and minor incidents multiplied during the month of April, Muslim-Croat tensions did not erupt into open fighting in the area despite the fact that the HVO forces had been isolated by ABiH forces cutting the Zenica-Zepce road. On April 16, Ivo Lozancic, commander of the 111xp Brigade in Zepce, reported: "the fundamentalists [Bosnian Muslims] are constantly advocating peace whilst trying to occupy the best possible positions for conducting war with the Croatian Defence Council. Their preparation for war with Croats continues to be visible. We are under siege, unable to communicate and receive ammunition and for us it would be difficult to start a conflict. The latest information confirms that the enemy (the greens) are well armed, well equipped and have enough ammunition and they are intent to fight against the Croats."

Nevertheless, Lozancic reported the following day that "relations with the BiH Army are on a satisfactory level," and two days later, April 19, he addressed another report to the HVO Main HQ in Mostar and HQ, OZCB, in Vitez in which he noted that "there have been no conflicts with the Muslims and their behaviour is odd." Lozancic went on to note that

"The town of Zepce has been deserted like a ghost town for two days. Inns owned by Muslim owners are empty. The Islamic troops that nave been returned from the checkpoint have left for Z. Polje. I am considering to issue an order on the withdrawal of our forces from the territory of the defence of the town of Maglaj, as a warning for the attacks they are conducting on our forces in Central Bosnia. I have been receiving some information on the mistreatment of Croats in Zenica, about the complete disarmament and search carried out in a village above Crkvica and the confiscation of weapons. We do not have complete information, nor has the truth about the sufferings of Croats been sufficiently represented in the Croatian media. ...We have learned that the Muslims are about to launch an attack on Zepce in five days. We are completely cut off from the world, but we have enough reserves to be able to fight to the annihilation of one or the other."
The ABiH attack on the Zepce enclave did come not in five days. The conflict in the Zepce area did not come until the end of June-after the ABiH had mounted a successful major attack against HVO forces in the Travnik-Novi Travnik area.

Sarajevo and Vares

The HVO brigade in the Sarajevo area, Slavko Zelic's Kralj Tvrtko Drugi Brigade, was nominally subordinate to the OZCB commander but generally operated autonomously. By virtue of its importance to the defense of the Bosnian capital no action was taken against the Tvrtko Brigade during the Muslims' April offensive. The same was generally true of the Bobovac Brigade in the Vares area. Although tensions increased and a number of brief fire fights took place in April Vares remained, as Zeko had predicted, "too tough a nut" for the ABiH to "crack"-at least for the moment. The ABiH units in the Vares area did increase their combat readiness, and they reported that the HVO had reinforced Vares from Kiseljak and provoked, Muslim forces in several incidents.

The Situation at the End of April, 1993

The ABiH seriously underestimated the ability and determination of HVO forces to resist their April offensive. As a consequence, what Muslim leaders had most probably envisaged as a quick and thorough defeat of the HVO military followed by cleansing the Vitez-Busovaca-Kiseljak-Zenica area for settlement by Muslim refugees turned out to be a significant battle. Moreover, the ABiH failed to achieve any of its major goals despite inflicting serious casualties on HVO military personnel and the Croat civilian population. The aggressive HVO active defense, including the selective use of preemptive and spoiling attacks, counterattacks, and clearing operations, stalled the Muslim advance around Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak. The HVO's defensive operations-with the exception of Ahmici-inflicted serious, but not disproportionate, damage on Muslim property and persons. At the end of the month, the two antagonists still faced each other from lines north and south of the vital Travnik-Kiseljak road and several smaller Muslim enclaves in the Lasva Valley, but the SPS explosives factory in Vitez remained in HVO hands, the two Croat enclaves remained intact, and the people making up the core of the Croat community in central Bosnia continued to occupy their homes and operate their businesses. Further ABiH operations would be required if the Muslims were going to realize their ambitions in the area.

_______________________________

1 SIS (Zarko Petrovic, aide to the cheif of the SIS), no. 137/93, Busovaca, Apr. 14, 1993, subj: Report, B D262
2 HQ, 303d Slavna "Glorious" Mountain Brigade, no. 01/2524-1, Zenica, noon, Apr. 16, 1993, subj: Order for Attack, KC Z674. The III Corps order (HQ, ABiH III Corps, no. 02/33-867, Zenica, Apr. 16, 1993, subj: Order to Move out and Occupy Positions, KC Z673 and D190/1), also instructs the 303d Brigade commander to "be prepared to provide assistance to our forces in the village of Putis, Jelinak, Loncari, Nadioci and Ahmici. In the event of an attack launched by the enemy, forcefully repel it and embark on a counterattack along the Nadioci-Sivrino Selo axis."
3 The northernmost roadblock consisted of two trucks blocking the road and five TMA-5 mines. The allegations of black market activities and supplying the Muslim forces in the Vitez area by British UNPROFOR personnel have persisted. The same allegations were made to the author during a conversation with former HVO personnel in Vitez in August, 1999. When asked how the Muslim forces in Donja Veceriska were resupplied, the response was "By the British UNPROFOR, of course! They would provide anything to anyone for gold." The czar of British UNPROFOR black market operations was said to be a captain named Perry. He has since been identified, but no action has been taken against him.
4 The question of who started the fighting in the Kiseljak area in April, 1993, is moot. The ABiH attack, whether it was the opening of a planned offensive or simply a spoiling attack, apparently came just minutes before the planned HVO preemptive attack was to be launched.
5 Ibid. The report quotes what was apparently a report from the Fojnica batallion: "Everything is ready, they are asking for negotiations. At this moment UNPROFOR came to the commander."
6 Colonel Robert Stewart testified that, in his opinion, the Totic kidnapping "came as a severe shock to the HVO, and the HVO Brigade commander, the second one [Vinko Baresic, commander of the 2d Zenica Brigade], was extremely concerned," which led Stewart to conclude that the HVO authorities in the Zenica area were not prepared for a conflict (Blaskic trial testimony, June 18, 1999). Indeed, neither of the two HVO brigades was at anywhere near full strength, and both were physically isolated from HQ, OZCB. Moreover, the commander of the Francetic Brigade, Zivko Totic, was still being held captive by Muslim extremists.
7 Stewart diary, Sunday, Apr. 19 (should be 18), 1993, sec. 3, 39.

[Defensor Fidei]

The Continuation of the Muslim Offensive, May-June 1993


Having failed to eliminate the HVO defenders and seize the core Croat enclaves in Central Bosnia by direct assault in April 1993, the ABiH regrouped in May and in June began a sustained campaign to reduce the Croat strongholds by attacking key points on their periphery. In turn, the Muslims took Travnik, most of the Novi Travnik municipality, Kakanj, Fojnica, and other Croat territory in Central Bosnia as well as Bugojno, Gornji Vakuf, Konjic, and Jablanica on the southern periphery. In the process more than 100,000 Bosnian Croats were expelled from their homes.1

The April, 1993, Cease-Fire

The temporary cease-fire in the Lasva Valley area brokered by Maj. Bryan Watters, second-in-command of the British UNPROFOR battalion at Stari Bila, on April 16 and agreed to by the HVO and ABiH commanders the following day, was a fragile reed and did little to stop the fighting in the area. However, pursuant to the military provisions of the Vance-Owen Peace Plan signed on March 3, 1993, RBiH president Alija Izetbegovic and Mate Boban, the leader of the Bosnian Croat community, signed an agreement in Zagreb on April 18 that called for an immediate cessation of all Muslim-Croat fighting; the exchange of prisoners and detainees; proper care of the wounded; the investigation of related crimes; and the reestablishment of communications between ABiH and HVO authorities. The Boban-Izetbegovic agreement also called for the return of all HVO and ABiH military and police forces to their "home" provinces; control over all forces in the proposed VOPP Provinces 1, 5, and 9 by the ABiH Main Staff and in the proposed VOPP Provinces 3, 8, and 10 by the HVO Main Staff; and the establishment of an ABiH-HVO joint command.

At noon on April 21, the HVO and ABiH chiefs of staff (Milivoj Petkovic and Sefer Halilovic, respectively) met at the ECMM office in Nova Bila to discuss the implementation of the Boban-Izetbegovic cease-fire agreement. European Community ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault presided over the discussions. Although punctuated by bitter charges and countercharges by both sides regarding violations of the existing cease-fire arrangements, the meeting resulted in an agreement for an immediate cessation of combat activities; the separation of forces and insertion of UNPROFOR monitoring elements between them; unhindered patrolling by UNPROFOR units between Kiseljak and Travnik; full guarantees for the Muslims besieged inVitez and the Croats surrounded in Zenica; and a joint meeting of "coordination teams" at 10 A.M. on April 22. Lieutenant Colonel Bob Stewart noted in his diary, "everyone parted on good terms."

Colonel Tihomir Blaskic, a participant in the meeting, subsequently recorded his own observations on the negotiations, noting that the ABiH delegation seemed preoccupied, cold, and worried about the many Croat civilian casualties caused by their offensive. Blaskic's prophetic assessment of the ABiH was that "they are either totally scatter-brained so they have agreed to everything, or they can no longer control their own actions, so now they accept everything in order to create space for a new attack, one they will not give up on." Despite his misgivings, on April 22, Blaskic ordered HVO forces in central Bosnia to implement the chiefs of staff's agree- ments. Subordinate commanders were once again enjoined to halt all com- bat activities against the ABiH and to not respond to Muslim provocations unless ordered to do so by higher headquarters. Nor were they to restrict the movements of UN and ECMM teams. Colonel Blaskic also ordered the withdrawal of HVO forces from the Sljivdc-Vrhovine-BM 808-Gavrine Kuce line and informed his subordinates that the area along the Vitez- Busovaca road-from the Vjetrenica-Zenica road on the left to the Kaonik intersection on the right-was to be a demilitarized zone occupied only by UNPROFOR elements.

The high emotional level of the troops on both sides and the lack of discipline and firm control that had always characterized both the ABiH and the HVO magnified the difficulties of implementing the cease-fire agreements. In the last week of April, Colonel Blaskic attempted to rectify that deficiency by issuing a series of orders relating to the proper conduct of HVO forces, observing the cease-fire and the laws of land warfare, and avoiding interference with the operations of the UNPROFOR, ECMM, ICRC, and other international organizations in the central Bosnia area. Arson and looting were strictly forbidden, and stiff sanctions were threatened against those found guilty of such crimes. Noting that the lack of military discipline evoked the condemnation of the media and the international community, Colonel Blaskic reminded his subordinates on April 23 that they were responsible for enforcing discipline among their troops and that they were to ensure that UN and ECMM patrols and teams were unhindered. He also forbade HVO forces to carry out offensive actions or to respond to isolated provocations by the ABiH, noting that they were permitted to "open fire only in case of direct attack by Muslim forces, but only after an order is issued by the superior commanders, about which the brigade commanders must inform me immediately." The proper treatment of the wounded, civilians, and prisoners was covered in an order issued April 24, and a general recapitulation of the earlier instructions on the proper conduct of HVO personnel was issued the same day. Measures to reduce the spread of rumors and to raise troop morale and defensive spirit were directed on April 28. The following day, Colonel Blaskic again reminded his subordinate commanders of their obligations with respect to the release of civilian detainees. Presumably, the ABiH III Corps commander issued similar admonitions to his troops, although no such orders have come to light thus far.

Following their April 21 meeting, the ABiH and HVO chiefs of staff frequently traveled to frontline areas with UNPROFOR representatives in order to stop the fighting and to personally encourage their troops to obey the cease-fire agreements. Generals Halilovic and Petkovic and their subordinate commanders also met weekly to resolve ongoing issues and work toward full implementation of the Boban-Izetbegovic cease-fire agreement. In view of the continued fighting and the fundamental distrust between Muslims and Croats, the meetings were usually full of recriminations and made little progress toward the ultimate goal. For example, on April 28, Halilovic and Petkovic met at the Spanish UNPROFOR battalion headquarters in Jablanica and discussed three special issues: the security and freedom of movement for ECMM and UNPROFOR elements; the evacuation of civilians from two Croat villages near Konjic by UNPROFOR personnel; and the establishment of a joint operational center in Mostar. From Jablanica the meeting participants traveled to Zenica by way of Tarcin and Kresevo, and then Generals Halilovic and Petkovic, accompanied by Colonels Hadzihasanovic and Blaskic, went to yet another meeting in Visoko. That meeting begun in a bad atmosphere" when General Petkovic complained about an ongoing ABiH attack against HVO positions and set "pre-conditions to any further cooperation." The meeting deteriorated further when it was interrupted by a British UNPROFOR battalion report that a forty-truck UNHCR convoy carrying food for Muslims in Zenica had been «highjacked» by HVO forces in the Busovaca area.

The Joint Coordination Commission (JCC) headed by ABiH colonel Mehmed Alagic and HVO colonel Filip Filipovic was established to implement the earlier January, 1993, cease-fire arrangement. It continued to function in a desultory manner even after the beginning of the ABiH April offensive. However, the JCC became superfluous on April 22, when the ABiH and HVO commanders in central Bosnia took the first step toward forming the Joint Operational Center (JOC) called for in the Boban- Izetbegovic agreement by appointing their representatives: Dzemal Merdan and Vezirj Jusufspahic for the ABiH and Franjo Nakic and Zoran Pilicic for the HVO. The JOC began to function from a headquarters in Vitez a few days later. On April 25, the ECMM representative to the JOC noted that the new organization had gotten off to a slow start but that the presence of experienced members from the older JCC would no doubt ensure better performance in the next few days despite the many cease-fire violations.

The May Respite


The fighting between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia died down as both sides licked their wounds and prepared for the next round. Minor cease-fire violations and even small-scale engagements between ABiH and HVO forces occurred, but for the most part the situation remained relatively calm. Typical incidents included the killing of an HVO soldier by a sniper near Pokrajcici on May 10, and small-scale fighting between units of the ABiH 306th Mountain Brigade and the HVO Frankopan Brigade on the morning of May 11, which resulted in one KIA and one WIA on each side. The continuing incidents were serious enough, however, to elicit several complaints by the OZCB commander to ECMM and UNPROFOR authorities. At the same time, Colonel Blaskic was obliged to once again remind his own forces of their obligations under the terms of the cease-fire agreement, particularly as related to the free passage throughout the central Bosnia region of UNPROFOR, UNHCR, and other international organizations.

Meanwhile, the JOC sought to prevent incidents and coordinate the efforts of the two opponents to make the cease-fire work. The joint coordination concept was implemented at lower levels as well. On May 11, following talks between Mensud Kelestura, commander of the ABiH 325th Mountain Brigade, and Mario Cerkez, commander of the HVO Viteska Brigade, a joint commission was established to deal with problems surrounding the release of prisoners, care of the sick and wounded, handling of the dead, and essential infrastructure services (water, sewage, electricity, roads, and telephone and telegraph). The members of the joint commis- sion included Borislav Jozic and Stipo Krizanac for the HVO, and Refik Hajdarevic and Nihad Rebihic for the ABiH. Each side was to provide two vehicles and four military policemen with equipment to accompany the commission members. It was anticipated that the commission's work would not extend beyond June 1.

In early May, Colonel Blaskic made a comprehensive assessment of the situation in the OZCB, which he forwarded to the highest authorities of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna and HVO Main HQ in Mostar. With respect to the ABiH's intentions, Colonel Blaskic characterized the situation as one of "overt hostile activity of the forces of the 7th Mechanized Brigade of the MOS [ABiH] and other extremist forces with the clear intention of settling scores with the Croats in the Lasva region" and noted that the Muslim forces "are waiting for materiel and significant logistics support and have for the time being intensified sniping, the torching of Croat houses, and provocations with the objective of making our forces respond vigorously and use up as much ammunition as possible."

Blaskic went on to state that the ABiH "seriously expect 'the job to be finished' in Konjic and then regroup forces and attack Kiseljak, Kresevo and Busovaca via Fojnica." His assessment of the Muslim forces in the central Bosnia region was that they included parts of the ABiH I and II Corps as well as fifteen mountain brigades and assorted units such as the Green Legion, Patriotic League, and mujahideen under the command of the ABiH III Corps in Zenica. He characterized the opposing Muslim units as mainly poorly supplied and poorly equipped infantry forces with large numbers of snipers; frustrated by their lack of success in the Lasva region and thus highly motivated to press the offensive against the HVO; and supported by "extensive use of the media to project an image of themselves as victims." Blaskic believed the ABiH intended "To take full control of the Croatian area of the Lasva region, in particular of Kiseljak-Busovaca and Vitez with the taking of control of Busovaca being a priority. If MOS [Muslim forces in general] achieve these objectives then they would link up with the Konjic- Gornji Vakuf-Bugojno forces on the one side and those of Visoko-Kakanj and Zenica on the other side and thereby totally blockade the Croats of Kakanj, Vares and Zepce."

In support of his estimate of ABiH intentions, Blaskic offered as evidence the pattern of deployment of the Muslim forces, the main body of whom- elements of some six brigades-were grouped to endrcle Busovaca, "their principal task being the total blockade of this city and the cutting off of the Busovaca-Vitez road at Kaonik, to be followed by the total destruction of the city." He also noted the deployment of strong Muslim forces throughout central Bosnia, most of whom were not oriented toward the defense against the Bosnian Serb Army. The 301st Mechanized, 303d Mountain, 314th Mountain, and 7th Muslim Motorized Brigades, together with MOS, Patriotic League, and Green Legion forces were stationed in Zenica; the 304th Mountain Brigade at Breza; the 302d Motorized Brigade at Visoko; the 309th Mountain Brigade at Kakanj; the 305th Mountain Brigade at Biljesevo (rather than in Zenica as UNPROFOR had guaranteed); the 308th Mountain Brigade at Novi Travnik with some three hundred mujahideen at Ravno Rostovo; the 325th Mountain Brigade at Vitez; the 333d Mountain Brigade at Kacuni; and the 306th and 312th Mountain Brigades and 17th Krajina Mountain Brigade at Travnik.

Colonel Blaskic also listed the probable avenues of attack for Muslim forces against HVO positions in the Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak area, and commented on ABiH electronic warfare and intelligence-gathering activities as well as the state of ABiH morale and logistical support. As to the state of his own forces, he noted that their combat readiness was at its highest level, but they were "utterly exhausted and fatigued" and lacked weapons-some fifteen hundred to two thousand guns as a minimum. He also remarked upon the physical separation of the various Croat enclaves and the length of the HVO defense line: thirty-seven kilometers in the Kiseljak area; thirty-eight kilometers in the Busovaca area; and twenty-eight kilometers in the Vitez area-not counting the portions facing the BSA.

Blaskic's concern over a probable resumption of the ABiH offensive was sufficient to warrant a special message on May 15 to Lt. Coi. Alistair Duncan, commander of the British UNPROFOR battalion at Stari Bila, and Jean-Pierre Thebault, the EC ambassador at Zenica, in which he stated: "we use this opportunity to inform you that ABiH forces are gathering and consolidating from the areas of KISELJAK, BUSOVACA and VITEZ. They plan to attack the areas in the above mentioned municipalities." Blaskic went on to request that UNPROFOR units immediately be sent to the agreed-upon separation lines (Kuber-Saracevici-Kula-Dusina, Kacuni, and Grablje as well as in the Ran Bila-Guca Gora area) in order to forestall any Muslim offensive actions.

Colonel Blaskic's anxieties were well founded, and all of the efforts of the JOC, international organizations, the ABiRH and RVO chiefs of staff, and particularly the commander of HVO forces in central Bosnia, to implement the Boban-Izetbegovic cease-fire agreement would prove largely in vain during the month of June.

The Fall of Travnik


The expected resumption of the Muslim offensive came at the end of the first week of June, when elements of eight ABiH brigades struck the HVO forces manning the defensive line against the Bosnian Serb Army in the Travnik area. The Muslim attack achieved tactical surprise and was completely successful, capturing the HVO positions and driving the surviving HVO soldiers and thousands of terrified Croat civilians into the hands of the Serbs, who took them prisoner. 2

Tensions between Muslims and Croats had been building in the Travnik area since January. Between January and April, the ABiH packed troops into the Thavnik area using buses from Zenica traveling via Guca Gora to minimize observation by the HVO. The buses allegedly were engaged in rotating Mus.lim troops on the front lines against the Serbs, but Croat civilians frequently reported that buses were returning empty toward Zenica. Muslim troops and mujahideen from Zenica, Mehurici, and Milize were also hidden in Muslim villages in the area or in groups of two or three in Muslim houses in Croat villages. By April, the ABiH forces in the Travnik area totaled some 8,000-10,000 men under Mehmed Alagic, commander of the ABiH III Corps's OG Bosanska-Krajina (soon to be redesignated the ABiH VII Corps). The ABiH forces in the Travnik area included the 312th Mountain Brigade (about 3,300 men; commanded by Zijad Gaber); the 17th Krajina Mountain Brigade (about 3,300 men; commanded by Fikret Cuskic); the 27th Krajina Mountain Brigade (about 2,100 men; commanded by Rasim Imamovic); the 3d Battalion, 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade (about 900 men); the 1st Battalion, 308th Mountain Brigade; elements of the 325th Mountain Brigade and of the 37th Krajina Mountain Brigade; the "EI Mudzahid" Detachment of mujahideen (about 400 men); some 800 men of the RBiH Ministry of the Interior Police; and two special purpose units: "Mercici" and "Nanetovi," each with around 60-80 men. The town itself and the surrounding area was also packed with some 15,000 Muslim refugees, many of whom were armed. 3

In early April, prior to the Muslim offensive against Vitez, Busovaca, and Kiseljak, the ABiH fed even more reinforcements into the Travnik area. For example, on April 15, an HVO checkpoint near the town stopped an ABiH convoy of three buses, six trucks, and thirteen other vehicles loaded with troops. The Muslim convoy attempted to pass through the HVO lines three times before it was finally permitted to go through to the barracks in Travnik. On June 5, immediately before the ABiH offensive against Travnik began, the Muslim forces in Travnik were reinforced by an additional eight hundred men.

From January to April, the HVO forces manning the defense lines against the BSA in the immediate Travnik area consisted of the Travnicka Brigade, commanded by Filip Filipovic, with all three of its battalions. On April 1, a second brigade-the Frankopan Brigade-was formed under the command of Ilija Nakic, and from that point onward there were five battalions in the sector. In all, there were some twenty-five hundred to three thousand HVO soldiers on the defense lines in April, many of whom were rotated in from other areas in the Lasva-Kozica-Lepenica region. The HVO headquarters on the Travnik front was situated above the town of Travnik in the village of Jankovici.

On June I, the defensive lines facing the BSA in the Travnik area were held in part by the ABiH and in part by the HVO, with the HVO holding about two-thirds of the total line.4 The responsibility for the HVO portion of the line was divided among the HVO Novi Travnik (Tomasevic Brigade, Zeljko Sabljic commanding), HVO Travnik (Travnicka Brigade, Jozo Leutar commanding), and the Frankopan Brigade (llija Nakic commanding). The Tomasevic Brigade held from "Sweetwater" (near BM 1182) south- west to BM 986 near the village of Petkovici, at which point the ABiH continued the line south toward Donja Vakuf and Bugojno. The Travnicka Brigade was responsible for the line from Sweetwater northwest to Kazici (a ground distance of about four and one-half kilometers), where the ABiH took up a short section of about two kilometers running northwest to Giganic. The Travnicka Brigade took over there and continued the defensive line around the Turbe salient and then east to the vicinity of BM 1109. The Frankopan Brigade, headquartered at Dolac, took up the line at BM 1109 and extended it around the Vlasic plateau and then north to the Vlaska-gromila area (near BM 1919), where the ABiH assumed responsibility. The ABiH controlled Travnik, although the HVO maintained a headquarters and other facilities in the town. Muslim roadblocks at Ran Bila and at the entry to Travnik near the mosque at a place called "Bluewater" controlled entry into the town itself.

On June 6, the commander of the British UNPROFOR battalion in the Lasva Valley met with Enver Radzihasanovic, the ABiH III Corps commander, to discuss the growing problems in the Travnik area. Hadzihasanovic, taking a hard line, remarked that the Muslims were left little alternative but military action in what had become "an outright civil war." After the meeting, British UNPROFOR authorities reported, "the BiH were no longer prepared to restrain themselves, and were likely to take the military initiative in the Lasva Valley." A second meeting was scheduled for the same day with Colonel Blaskic, the OZCB commander, but Hadzihasanovic refused to attend because he thought it was "too late for negotiation." The BRlTBAT intelligence analyst noted that the "Corps, judging by the attitude of its commander, seems poised for further military action having clearly rejected the concept of negotiation."5 Indeed, the ABiH was poised for further military action.

Without prior warning, Muslim troops commanded by Mehmed Alagic struck their erstwhile ally on June 6, 1993. Within seventy-two hours, the heavily outnumbered HVO forces in Travnik surrendered or were driven over the Serb lines.6The 303d Mountain Brigade attacked via Ovnak toward Guca Gora, while the 306th Light Brigade attacked in the direction of Pokrajcici. The 312th Mountain Brigade, the 17th and 27th Krajina Mountain Brigades, and the 3d Battalion, 7th Muslim Motorized Brigade, launched attacks directly into the rear of the HVO units holding the front lines against the Serbs. Muslim Ministry of the Interior Police surrounded the "Star" headquarters in Travnik and isolated it. The fiercest attacks, which came on June 8, resulted in twenty-four HVO soldiers and sixty-eight Croat civilians killed. Unable to sustain the house-to-house fighting and unable to obtain reinforcements or resupply, the HVO forces in and around Travnik broke and fled into the Serb lines accompanied by several thousand Croat civilians. On June 10, the new overall ABiH commander, Rasim Delic, ordered his troops to halt their advance.

Having secured the town of Travnik and driven the HVO soldiers from their positions facing the Serbs, the ABiH began systematically clearing the Croat villages northeast of Travnik in order to secure their line of communications to Zenica. At 3 A.M. on June 7, the ABiH attacked elements of the Frankopan Brigade holding the villages of Grahovici, Brajkovici, Plavici, Guca Gora, and Bukovica in an attempt to seize control of the road from Zenica to Travnik. As the HVO units blocking the roads withdrew, the Croat villages fell one by one into the hands of Muslim extremists who engaged in a program of very thorough ethnic cleansing. By June 14, the Zenica-Travnik road via Guca Gora was firmly in ABiH hands. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, Croatian radio reported some thirty-two Croat villages had been cleansed, among which UN sources identified Brajkovici, Grahovici, Bukovica, Radojcici, and Maljine. The story of the village of Guca Gora and its famous Catholic monastery was perhaps typical. Muslim extremists, who had been hiding in nearby Muslim homes, seized the village and desecrated the church in the Franciscan monastery. They carried away the religious statuary and murdered the HVO defenders, several civilians in the monastery, and eight village guard sentinels. British UNPROFOR troops, having observed Muslim troops firing machine guns at Croat civilians fleeing into the woods, prevented an even greater tragedy by rescuing more than 180 Croats trapped in the monastery.7

Croatian radio reported more than 250 dead in the Travnik region, as well as some fifteen thousand Croatian refugees following the June 6-10 attack. According to one contemporary newspaper account, there was "strong evidence of atrocities" as Muslim forces attempted to seize the back roads northeast of Travnik leading to Zenica. By June 9, some 8,000 HVO soldiers and Croat civilians had crossed into the Serb lines on the Vlasic massif, and 1,000 of the HVO soldiers were disarmed and taken by the Serbs to the "notorious Manjaca camp." United Nations sources reported that as of June 10, 500 Croats had been killed, thirty-eight villages had been burned, and some 30,000 displaced persons were in the Novi Bila-Vitez- Busovaca-Novi Travnik area.8 Overall, in June, July, and August, some 427 HVO soldiers and 157 Croat civilians were killed, 1,000 were wounded, 20,000 Croat civilians were displaced, fifteen hundred Croat homes and thirty-one hundred other buildings were burned, and about fifty Croat villages between Travnik and Zenica were destroyed, including Grahovcici, Donja Maljina, Guca Gora, Bikosi, Sadici, Goillja Puticevo, Rudnik, Bila, and Cupa.

Although the Muslim forces had already launched two other major at- tacks since the beginning of 1993, one contemporary newspaper account noted on June 9: "The fighting reflected a possible new Muslim tactic. With attempts to regain territory from rebel Serbs failing, Muslim-led government troops appear to be trying to wrest territory from the Croats. 'I believe that a general (Muslim) offensive is under way,' said Col. Alastair Duncan, commander of British soldiers serving with the UN peacekeeping forces."9

Another contemporary newspaper account noted: "The offensive apparently was prompted by a desperate desire by Muslims for land and revenge after months of defeats by Bosnian Serbs and humiliation by Bosnian Croats. ...By capturing Travnik, Muslim-led forces moved closer to linking their strongholds of Tuzla and Zenica to the north with Muslim-controlled Konjic in the south."
Even the ECMM was forced to admit that the ABiH had indeed undertaken a military offensive against the HVO and Bosnian Croat civilians in the Travnik and Lasva Valley areas.10

The "Convoy of Joy"

As thousands of Croat civilians fled the Travnik area, one group had a chance encounter with a convoy, en route to the relief of Muslims in the central Bosnia area. With emotions in a high state of agitation, the tired, hungry, and desperate Croat refugees-primarily women and children- blocked the convoy's route in several places on June 10 and 11 and spontaneously looted trucks, killing several of the drivers in the process while the UNPROFOR troops stood by, unwilling to fire into the mass of pitiful refugees. The first encounter occurred at about 7 P.M. on June 10, just north of Novi Travnik, when forty to fifty Croat women blocked the road. Shortly thereafter, the BRITBAT received reports that HVO soldiers were dragging drivers from the trucks, shooting them, and then driving the vehicles away. Throughout the night of June 10-11, BRITBAT armored vehicles provided security for the convoy, which began to move again early

diers and Croat civilians were forced across the Serb lines to join the msands of Croat refugees already in Bosnian Serb hands. They were subseqently permitted to transit BSA-held territory to the north of Zenica and enter HVO territory in the Kiseljak area.

On June 18, the Muslims mounted an attack on the new Novi Travnik line with elements of the 308th Mountain Brigade and the 1st and 2d Batallions, 17th Krajina Mountain Brigade, supported by other ABiH forces. The battle for the Novi Travnik lines continued into July with the lines changing in only minor ways. The major foci of the ABiH attacks were the HVO salient south of Rastovci toward Zubici, and the important Puticevo intersection-neither of which the Muslims succeeded in taking. Meanwhile, the HVO achieved some minor successes, taking the ABiH salient around the village of Lazine. Some two thousand Muslim attackers were held off by about 150 HVO defenders.

The June Cease-Fire

On June 15, 1993, the day before peace talks resumed in Geneva, yet another general cease-fire agreement was signed, this time by all three parties the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Maj. Gen. Milivoj Petkovic for the HVO, Brig. Gen. Ratko Mladic for the BSA, and Gen. Rasim Delic for the ABiH. The agreement was to go into effect at noon on June 18, at which le all combat activities were to cease and all military activities, to include troop movements and improvement of fortifications, were to be frozen.

Even before the cease-fire was signed, pessimistic British UNPROFOR thorities opined that "the BiH appear to have no intention of surrendering their present advantage, by observing the cease-fire." On June 16, colonel Blaskic, the OZCB commander, issued detailed implementing instructions for the cease-fire in which he instructed his subordinates to issue their own signed orders for the cease-fire. At the same time, Blaskic reminded his subordinates of their obligation to ensure cooperation with UNPROFOR and humanitarian organizations, allow free passage of humanitarian aid, honor the Geneva conventions, and protect human rights. Over the next several months, Blaskic issued no fewer than nine additional orders dealing with such matters as the treatment of civilians and the protection of civilian property, the passage of aid convoys, and the treatment of prisoners of war. That Blaskic's orders reached the lower levels of the OZCB is attested to by the series of implementing orders issued between between 21 and September 16 by Zarko Saric, commander of the 2d Battalion, Viteska Brigade. Of course, issuing orders and guaranteeing compliance with them are two different things, and the June cease-fire was observed more often with breaches by both sides.

In view of the resumption of heavy fighting between ABiH and Croat forces in the central Bosnia region and the obstinacy of the ABiH III Corps mmander, Enver Hadzihasanovic, the JOC, meeting formally for the fourth time at the headquarters of the British UNPROFOR battalion at 10 A.M. on June 28, decided that it was no longer appropriate for the body to sit. The representatives from both sides agreed to notify their commanders they were unable to make any progress and to request that new orders be issued for renewal of the cease-fire, especially in the Zepce-Maglaj area. Both sides agreed to continue to send representatives at regular intervals to meet at the headquarters of the British UNPROFOR battalion, to keep the telephone lines open between Vitez and Zenica, and to continue the operations of the Joint Humanitarian Commission for the release of prisoners.

______________________________________

1 ICTY, Brief of Appellant Dario Kordic, vol. 1, Publicly Filed, case no. IT-95-14/2-A. See Pavo Sljivic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, May 16, 2000. Sljivic was a Croat municipal official in Kakanj.
2 The degree to which the HVO was again surprised by an ABiH offensive may be seen by the fact that on June 1, the OZCB commander ordered a reduction in the readiness level of his units in order to decrease the manpower burden. See HQ, OZCB, no. 01-6-3/93, Vitez 0900, June 1, 1993, subj: Order for combat Readiness of Units re: Combat Order no. 01-5-816/93 of 31 May 1993, KC Z10003.
3 McLeod Report, Annex F, F-3. KC Z926.
4 Ibid.; Filipovic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 11, 2000. Despite its much greater manpower resources, the ABiH had only fifteen hundred to seventeen hundred troops actually manning positions against the Serbs in the Travnik sector (see Zeko, Blaskic trial testimony, Sept. 23, 1998).
5 1 PWO MILINFOSUM no. 038, June 6, 1993, KC D164/1. The lack of cooperation by Enver Hadzihasanovic, the ABiH III Corps commander, was confirmed by Brigadier Guy de Vere Wingfield Hayes: "The BiH were no longer prepared to restrain themselves and were likely to take the military initiative in the Lasva Valley, where they enjoyed a tactical advantage over the HVO" (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Mar. 8, 2000). Hayes was UNPROFOR chief of staff from April 7 to October 13, 1993.
6 See, among others, COMBRITFOR MILINFOSUM no. 223, June 7, 1993, KC D317/1, para. 2 and ibid., no. 224, June 8, 1993, para. 2, KC D317/1. Contemporary newspaper accounts reported the HVO was outnumbered four to one. See "Atrocities cited as Muslims rout Croats" Toronto Star, June 9, 1993, A16. HVO leaders later reported that the HVO was outnumbered eight to one (Ljubas, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, May 16, 2000; franjo Nakic, Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Sept 11, 1998.
7 "Atrocities" A16; Neimarevic conversation; 1 PWO SITREP, 091800B, June 1993, para. 2b, KC D316/1; 1 PWO SITREP; 101800B, June 1993, para. 2b, KC D316/1; COMBRITFOR MILINFOSUM no. 225, June 9, 1993, para. 2c, KC D317/1. See also "Atrocities", A16, "Muslim Forces Push Offensive in Bosnia" Toronto Globe; June 10, 1993, A10. On the desecration of the Guca Gora monastery by the mujahideen, see, among others, UNPROFOR Weekly INFOSUM no. 34, June 21, 1993, para. 4a(2), KC Z1090; and COMBRITFOR MILINFOSUM no. 233, June 17, 1993, para. 2c(3) LC D317/1.
8 COMBRITFOR MILINFOSUM no. 227, June 11, 1993 para. 2c (2), KC D317/1. Major Franjo Ljubas reported that the ABiH expelled some twenty thousand Croats from the Travnik area. He also denied the canard that the Croats left Travnik in response to HVO propaganda (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, May 17, 2000). Brigadier Franjo Nakic stated: "no propaganda could have driven these people away. They were forced to flee by the [ABiH] onslaught" (Kordic-Cerkez trial testimony, Apr. 13, 2000).
9 "Croat Town Falls to Muslims," 8.
10 "Muslims Push Offensive for Bosnian Land" Toronto Star, June 10, 1993, A13