Bosnian Mujahideen - Bosnian War

Bosnian War

Secret discussions between Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević on the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia were held as early as March 1991 (known as Karađorđevo agreement). Following the declaration of independence of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbs attacked different parts of the country. The state administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina effectively ceased to function, having lost control over the entire territory. The Serbs wanted all lands where Serbs had a majority, eastern and western Bosnia. The Croats and their leader Tuđman also aimed at securing parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatian. Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) were an easy target, because the Bosnian government forces were poorly equipped and unprepared for the war.

On September 25, 1991 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 713 imposing an arms embargo on all of former Yugoslavia. The embargo hurt the Bosnian Army the most because Serbia inherited the lion's share of the former Yugoslav People's Army arsenal and the Croatian army could smuggle weapons easily through its ports.

At the outset of the Bosnian War the Serb forces attacked the Bosnian Muslim civilian population in Eastern Bosnia. Once towns and villages were securely in their hands, the Serb forces - military, police, the paramilitaries and, sometimes, even Serb villagers – applied the same pattern: Bosniak houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burnt down, Bosniak civilians were rounded up or captured, and sometimes beaten or killed in the process. Men and women were separated, with many of the men detained in the camps, where many were tortured and killed. The women were kept in various detention centres where they were mistreated in many ways including being raped repeatedly.

Meanwhile, Croat forces started their first attacks on Bosniaks in Gornji Vakuf and Novi Travnik, towns in Central Bosnia on June 20, 1992, but the attacks failed. The Graz agreement caused deep division inside the Croat community and strengthened the separation group, which led to the Lašva Valley ethnic cleansing campaign against Bosniak civilians. The campaign planned by the self-proclaimed Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia's political and military leadership from May 1992 to March 1993 which was launched the following April, was meant to implement objectives set forth by Croat nationalists in November 1991. The Lašva Valley's Bosniaks were subjected to persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, deliberately discriminated against in the context of a widespread attack on the region's civilian population and suffered mass murder, rape, internment in camps, as well as the destruction of cultural sites and private property. This was often followed by anti-Bosniak propaganda, particularly in the municipalities of Vitez, Busovača, Novi Travnik and Kiseljak.

Foreign mujahideen arrived in central Bosnia in the second half of 1992 with the aim of helping their Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) coreligionists to defend themselves from the Serb and Croat forces. Mostly they came from North Africa, the Near East and the Middle East. On 13 August 1993, the Bosnian government officially organized foreign volunteers into the detachment known as El Mudžahid in order to impose control and order. Initially, the foreign mujahideen gave food and other basic necessities to the local Muslim population, deprived many necessities by the Serb forces. Once hostilities broke out between the Bosnian government and the Croat forces (HVO), the mujahideen also participated in battles against the HVO alongside ARBiH units.

The foreign mujahideen actively recruited young local men, offering them military training, uniforms and weapons. As a result, some local Bosniaks joined the foreign mujahideen and in the process became local mujahideen. They imitated the foreigners in both the way they dressed and behaved, to such an extent that it was sometimes, according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) documentation in subsequent war crimes trials, "difficult to distinguish between the two groups". For that reason, the ICTY has used the term "Mujahideen" (which they spell Mujahedin) to designate foreigners from Arab countries, but also local Muslims (i.e. Bosniaks) who joined the mujahideen units.

They quickly attracted heavy criticism from people who claimed their presence was evidence of violent Islamic fundamentalism in Europe. The foreign volunteers became unpopular even with many of the Bosniak population, because the Bosnian army had thousands of troops and had no need for more soldiers (especially controversial ones who could undermine their reputation as a defending army), but for arms. Many Bosnian Army officers and intellectuals were suspicious regarding foreign volunteers arrival in the central part of the country, because they came from Split and Zagreb in Croatia, and were passed through the self-proclaimed Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia without problems, unlike Bosnian Army soldiers who were regularly arrested by Croat forces.

The first mujahideen training camp was located in Poljanice next to the village of Mehurici, in the Bila valley, Travnik municipality. The mujahideen group established there included mujahideen from Arab countries as well as some Bosniaks. The mujahideen from Poljanice camp were also established in the towns of Zenica and Travnik and, from the second half of 1993 onwards, in the village of Orasac, also located in the Bila valley.

The military effectiveness of the mujahideen is disputed. However, former U.S. Balkans peace negotiator Richard Holbrooke said in an interview that he thought "the Muslims wouldn't have survived without this" help, as at the time a U.N. arms embargo diminished the Bosnian government's fighting capabilities. In 2001, Holbrooke called the arrival of the mujahideen "a pact with the devil" from which Bosnia still is recovering. On the other hand, according to general Stjepan Šiber, the highest ranking ethnic Croat in Bosnian Army, the key role in foreign volunteers arrival was played by Tuđman and Croatian counter-intelligence with the aim to justify the involvement of Croatia in the Bosnian War and the crimes committed by Croat forces. Although the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović regarded them as symbolically valuable as a sign of the Muslim world's support for Bosnia, they appear to have made little military difference and became a major political liability.