Before The Battle
The Bihać pocket was an area of northwest Bosnia centered around the city of Bihać, where Bosnian forces (ABiH's Fifth Corps, five brigades strong) were surrounded and besieged by Serb forces since the war begun in 1992. In mid-1995, joint Croatian Serb and Bosnian Serb forces, aided by Fikret Abdić's secessionists, launched an offensive to take the area, but were repulsed. Still the pocket was in danger of falling and the international community feared a repeat of the Srebrenica massacre there. This was one of the reasons the Croatian Army was given a green light to retake Serb areas in Croatia in Operation Storm, in which the Fifth Corps participated. Once Storm was completed, the Bihać pocket was relieved from the west and the north and the Bosnian forces there could start their own counteroffensives aimed eastwards over the Sana River.
Read more about this topic: Operation Sana
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“That we can come here today and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant army of Northern Virginia and their descendants, establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections, and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured to the common benefit of all.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)