Role And Significance Of Mujahideen In Croat-Bosniak War (Part I) – OpEd

The outbreak of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 attracted a great deal of attention from the international community, as well as from the public in the Muslim world. This was not surprising since it was the bloodiest war in Europe after World War II.

After the victory of the Islamic guerrillas and the “holy warriors” of the Mujahideen in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, many radical Islamic fundamentalists from the Middle East, Africa and beyond wanted to come to Bosnia and Herzegovina and help their Muslim brothers in the fight against the infidels, first the Serbs and then Croats. For Islamic fundamentalists, nationality was never important, but religious affiliation.

The arrival of the Mujahideen in BIH

According to certain information, the first Mujahideen appeared in BIH as early as February 1992. They appeared in the Travnik area in April. The first organized groups were Hezbollah groups from Iran, which established a military camp on the Pogorelica mountain south of Fojnica. In November 1992, the arrival of 50 members of Hezbollah was registered with the intention of military and ideological training of Bosnian Muslims. Members of the Wahhabi and Salafi movements arrived in Bosnia, and it is interesting how Iran supported the arrival of foreign Sunni fighters despite the Sunni-Shia conflict. Although the majority of radical Muslims were Sunnis, they found inspiration in Shiite Iran because Islamic Republic was established in Iran. Islamic fundamentalists managed to establish an Islamic republic in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban, and they had similar intentions for Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the Iranians who most generously helped the jihad in Bosnia and Herzegovina: they sent the largest quantities of weapons and military equipment for the Mujahideen fighters.

The Mujahideen came at the invitation of certain political and religious circles from Sarajevo, precisely from Bosniak political party SDA and the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They arrived at the beginning of the war in two big waves in the summer and autumn of 1992. The majority came organized from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also from other countries such as Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, but also from Europe. Foreign volunteers came under the guise of humanitarian workers as members of Islamic humanitarian organizations. As many as 33 humanitarian Islamic organizations operated in the Republic of Croatia during the war, the most important of which are the Agency for Aid to the Third World, Takfir wal-Hijra, Al Kifah and Al Muwafaq. Many of these organizations had certain ties to Al-Qaeda. Mujahideen under the guise of humanitarians (even as members of the UNHCR) were transferred by humanitarian convoys mostly to Zenica and Travnik. 

Back in the spring of 1992, Sheikh Anwar Shaaban, former director of the Islamic Center in Milan, arrived in Bosnia. He promoted sahwa (world domination of Islam). The first emir of the Mujahideen in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the Saudi Abu Abdel Aziz, who arrived in August 1992. At that time, he organized “Muslim units” in Mehurići near Travnik, which were the forerunners of the “famous” 7th Muslim Brigade. Aziz briefly and accurately stated the goal of the foreign volunteers: jihad (“holy war”) and dawa (“teaching Islam”).

In the early 1990s, Vienna was a key place in the jihadist network where plans were made for the engagement of religious warriors in Bosnia as well as in Western Europe. According to the claims of certain reputable media such as the Wall Street Journal, the embassy of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued BiH citizenship to Osama Bin Laden in early 1993! Vienna was visited by many radical Islamists such as Bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, and many other jihadists lived there, such as members of the Al-Jihad Shura Council. Such a situation is not surprising since before the Taliban attack on New York on September 11, 2001, the Austrian authorities didn’t pay much attention to the secret jihadist network. However, after that attack, everything changed so that many radicals were arrested in a short time. The exact number of Mujahideen who participated in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not known, but the most realistic estimate is between two and four thousand fighters.

The strategic importance of Central Bosnia

Due to its unique geographical location (the center of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a large Muslim population), Central Bosnia was chosen as the future Mujahideen base. The area of Central Bosnia between Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla was to become the center from which the wars against the “infidels” Serbs and Croats in Bosnia would first be launched, and later the origin from which the world Islamist revolution would start (more precisely, terrorist attacks in Western Europe and beyond). Since the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia carried out armed aggression against Bosnia and controlled all Bosnian border crossings with Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia had only connection with the world through the Republic of Croatia. Thus, the international warriors of Islam could only arrive in central Bosnia from Croatia. 

Throughout most of 1992, the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina were in alliance with the Bosniaks, and the channels through which the Mujahideen moved were open and personnel, military equipment and weapons were transferred without any problems. However, in the fall of 1992, a change occurred, and the Croatian authorities in the Republic of Croatia and BIH began to restrict the movement of weapons and people through their territories. Bin Laden himself complained about this in an interview in 1993. He claimed that he had the same vision for BIH as for Afghanistan, but the situation in the Balkans “does not offer the same opportunities as Afghanistan. A small number of Mujahideen went to fight in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Croats do not let the Mujahideen pass through Croatia, unlike the Pakistanis in the case of Afghanistan.”

Worsening of Bosniak-Croat relations

The obvious change in Croatian policy towards the Mujahideen in the fall of 1992 was the result of worsening relations between Croats and Bosniaks due to disagreements over the political structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Unlike the Bosniak authorities in Sarajevo led by Alija Izetbegović who insisted on a unitary “civil state” (“one man, one vote”) without national cantons and regions, the Croat authorities in Mostar undoubtedly wanted to create their own autonomous political-territorial unit in BIH as an instrument to protect the political rights of the minority people. After all, this was quite legitimate political thinking, because many international peace plans for Bosnia proposed an internal division into three ethnic territorial units. On the one hand, there was a conflict between the formally civil, but in fact hidden nationalist-unitarian vision of Bosnia (one should look at the Islamic Declaration of A. Izetbegović), and on the other hand, the vision of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia.

A military clash between Croats and Bosniaks was being prepared in the fall of 1992. In September 1992, the authorities of the Republic of Croatia apparently lost confidence in political Sarajevo because they suddenly closed many (but not all) of the flows of smuggling and weapons to Bosnia through their territory. This change enraged the Mujahideen because, for example, the temporary route of weapons established by the Muslim Agency for Aid to the Third World via Croatian seaports has almost completely stopped. However, despite the closure of certain corridors for sending weapons and equipment, the remaining flows from Croatia to Central Bosnia were of crucial importance for foreign fighters, so the Mujahideen could not allow themselves to enter into open armed conflicts with HVO units. Thus, in September and October 1992, the Mujahideen remained restrained and did not respond to the “betrayal” of their Croatian “allies”.

However, the fall of Jajce to Serbian control at the end of October 1992 further worsened the mistrustful Croat-Bosniak relations. The Mujahideen undoubtedly blamed the fall of the medieval Bosnian city on the Croats, who didn’t want to go to war with them because they secretly collaborated with the Serbs. The real truth was different: Croatian reinforcements from Central Bosnia could not arrive at the Jajce battlefield because members of the Bosniak RBIH Army had set up a barricade in the village of Ahmići, near Vitez. In a similar way, Bosniak authorities in the surrounding southern municipalities blocked the passage of HVO and HOS forces from Herzegovina to the area of Jajce. The fall of Jajce into the hands of the Army of Republika Srpska resulted in the expulsion of about 20 thousand Bosniaks who came to other parts of Central Bosnia (mainly the valleys of Lašva and Lepenica) and thus changed the ethnic structure in favor of Bosniaks. Some authors, such as the American military historian Charles Schrader, call these exiles “armed refugees” since they possessed weapons and equipment that they would use in the war against the Croats.

During those days, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, a Bosniak soldier “prophetically” stated: “You see who the Croats believe. For now, they are fighting with us against the Serbs, but things can change. We may have to fight against Croats and Chetniks when they want to divide Bosnia among themselves”. Tensions between Bosniaks and Croats were very pronounced since both sides had their own armed forces (ARBIH and HVO), their own political structures (RBIH and HZHB) and their own transport corridors and communication channels. Each side accused the other of defeats by the Serbs, cowardice and double policy. Certainly, the arrival of foreign radical jihadists who insisted on a religious war further disrupted relations. The Croatian authorities in Croatia and Herzeg-Bosnia rightly saw the threat and started creating big problems for foreign Islamists passing through Croatian regions. Many did not get further than Zagreb. Arbitrary robberies of money and weapons, as well as deportations to third countries, were frequent.

The first war clashes between the Mujahideen and the Croats

When Croatian authorities found out that Arab soldiers were trying to pass through Croatian territory under the guise of humanitarians, they expanded investigations and arrests to include foreigners from Islamic countries who worked for various Middle Eastern humanitarian organizations. For example, on November 9, the HVO military police arrested nine mujahideen who were traveling by bus from Split to Kiseljak. Various weapons and leaflets calling for jihad were found with them. A similar situation occurred near Busovača on December 18, when the HVO military police arrested two foreigners from Pakistan and Sudan who were formally representatives of the World Islamic Humanitarian Organization.

The crisis in Mujahideen-Croat relations peaked in early 1993. Namely, at that time the leader of the Mujahideen in BIH, Emir Sheikh Abu Abdel Aziz, left BIH and the Egyptian Wahiudeen al-Masri took over the leadership. Apparently, the Croatian military and security services realized that the moment had come to “press” the foreign Islamists. Then, in January and February 1993, the Croatian supply channels used by the Islamists were completely stopped, and in some places the authorities introduced high bribes for their use. The Croatian authorities tried to disable the Mujahideen movement by arresting and imprisoning its numerous members.

In early 1993, a small group of jihadists (Abu Ali al-Kuwaiti, Abdul Wahid al-Qahtani, Abu Muaz al-Qatari and Abu Sahar al-Haili) clashed with Croats in the vicinity of Travnik in a real battle. After taking a wrong turn and encountering a Croatian checkpoint, they were initially unsure of what to do. Some were in favor of surrender, hoping that the Croats would quickly release them. But Abu Sahar felt that they had to fight and get out of the trap in an aggressive way. When Croatian soldiers saw that Abu Sahar was raising a Kalashnikov, they shot him five times and he died immediately. Croatian forces immediately disarmed the rest of the group but detained them for questioning. Surviving foreigners later complained about merciless treatment, and allegedly Croats used torture methods.

When the other Mujahideen found Abu Sahar’s lifeless body by the side of the road, they couldn’t control their anger and it became clear that they would launch a campaign of terror against the Croats. An Arab from Libya, Dr. Abul-Harith al-Liby, was appointed to replace Wahiudeen as the third emir of the Bosnian Mujahideen. Abul-Harith was appointed to this position because of his insight and passion while other radical leaders were abandoned elsewhere in the world. He soon became Bin Laden’s advisor (de facto governor) for BIH as Ayman al-Zawahiri was for Afghanistan. It was Abul-Harith who was the main creator of the revenge operation against the Croats. The Mujahideen urged the RBIH Army and the UN forces to release their captured comrades, but to no avail because none of them wanted to “get their hands dirty” rescuing jihad warriors.

Kidnappings and murders – the strategy of the Mujahideen

Abul-Harith and his comrades devised radical tactics to deal with the Croatian threat and free their comrades. They separated the fighters into three main groups: the Mehurići detachment near Travnik, the detachment in Bijelo Bučje near Travnik, and the detachment in Zenica. The detachment in Mehurići had the task of applying ambush and stalking tactics against HVO forces. The detachments in Bijelo Bučje and Zenica were in charge of “special operations”: killing and kidnapping leading Croatian political and military leaders. The idea of kidnappings and murders is not an original Mujahideen idea because already in January 1993 certain circles in the Bosniak Army planned to kill Dario Kordić, Tihomir Blaškić and Ignjac Koštroman in order to decapitate the Croatian leadership in Central Bosnia.

Mujahideen commander Moataz Billah assured his comrades that the easiest way to free the imprisoned foreign Islamists is to kidnap Croatian leaders. Other foreigners agreed with this and convinced certain local Bosniaks from Travnik to participate in these operations. Billah selected a number of Bosniaks who were then assigned to Mujahideen training camps in Zenica and Travnik to undergo a crash course in combat tactics. Experienced Arabs taught Bosnian soldiers about guerilla operations, urban warfare, reconnaissance, handling explosives, mines, heavy weapons, snipers, and of course they underwent ideological indoctrination. While Arab Islamists were teaching Bosnians, Bin Laden and his comrades in Afghanistan and Sudan were doing the same thing at the same time.

The outbreak of open war between Croats and Bosniaks and the terror of the Mujahideen

As the Mujahideen’s terror intensified in early 1993, the political and military situation in Central Bosnia worsened to the detriment of the Croatian side. In January, clashes broke out between ARBIH and HVO in Gornji Vakuf/Uskoplje, which is not surprising since it was a strategically important city that connected Herzegovina and Central Bosnia, specifically the Vrbas valley. Bosniaks had the majority of the population in the city, which increased with the arrival of refugees. War operations spread to the rest of Central Bosnia. On January 19, members of the Bosniak army set up a barricade in the town of Kaćuni on the road between Busovača and Kiseljak, cutting off HVO positions. More precisely, the Croats in these central Bosnian areas were forced into two enclaves: one in Lašva and the other in Lepenica dolina.

At the end of January, the Bosniak Army attacked the village of Dusina in the municipality of Zenica. The village is busy. Although the attack was not committed by the Mujahideen, it was in the spirit of radical Islam because it was carried out by local members of the 7th Muslim Brigade. Three HVO soldiers died in the battle and seven were shot. That the crimes were committed in the spirit of Islamic fundamentalism is also indicated by the fact that the local HVO commander Zvonko Rajić had his heart removed, and according to witnesses, the commander of the 7th Muslim Brigade, Šerif Patković, did it. About 40 civilians were captured and taken to the prison in Zenica.

According to Croatian sources, around 20,000 Croatian civilians fled central Bosnia already in the spring due to constant internal conflicts and unrest. According to HVO data in March 1993, it is stated that there are about 250 mujahideen in the areas of Zenica, Novi Travnik, Travnik, Bugojno and Vitez who participated in attacks on HVO where they “proved to be extremely extreme”. On March 16, Mujahideen killed two Croatian policemen from Travnik, and the same thing happened again on March 28 at a checkpoint near Zenica.

On April 13, the elite “special forces” of the Mujahideen kidnapped four HVO members Stjepan Tomašević, the next day they blocked the road Novi Travnik – Gornji Vakuf/Uskoplje. A day later, on April 15, they kidnapped Živko Totić, the commander of the Zenica HVO. Four HVO soldiers and one civilian who happened to be there were killed in the cruel attack of the Mujahideen on Totić. According to Al-Qaeda sources, the operation to capture Totić was “one of the most impressive operations carried out by the Mujahideen in Bosnia”. Totić was a target of fundamentalists because already in August 1992 he openly criticized the presence of foreign fighters in Bosnia: “The local Croats are outraged by all this. We are capable of defending ourselves. We don’t need Arab soldiers here who will want to create a fundamentalist country after the war.” On April 16, Arab guerrillas attacked HVO positions in Vitez and managed to capture ten more Croatian soldiers with the intention of exchanging them for their comrades.

In those April days, the Croat-Bosniak war flared up, especially in the area of Vitez, Busovača and Zenica. The UN has publicly warned that the “growing conflicts” between Croats and Muslims reflect the “Lebanonization” of the war in BIH. In the spring of 1993, Western journalists described Central Bosnia, especially the area around the Lašva basin, as a scene of “lawlessness” and “murderous chaos”. “Armed groups of Muslims and Croats go through forested hills and valleys, attack villages and burn houses. Roadblocks and battlefronts are getting closer to each other, so one village often clashes with another, and sniper fire is present everywhere”.

War crimes in Miletići

The greatest military success during the April offensive of the Bosniak Army was achieved by the Islamists in the village of Miletići. On April 24, the Mujahideen and members of the 7th Muslim Brigade of the ARBiH invaded the Croatian part of the village. More precisely, Miletići was attacked by a group of 17 armed persons, 12 foreign citizens (Arabs) and 5 Bosniaks. When they arrived, the jihadists declared that one of their lives was worth five Croats. 83-year-old civilian Marko Pavolić claims that the locals knew they were foreigners because they did not understand their language. Mysterious strangers gathered all the villagers and forced them to enter a house with guns. In the end, they took four young men out, tortured them cruelly and finally cut their throats. Pavolić remembers a strange circumstance: “while their blood was dripping, they collected it in a bowl and poured it on their heads as they died.”

UNHCR High Commissioner Margaret Green saw the bodies of those killed and described them as atrocious: “One man’s face had been cut off. Another’s head was almost severed. Two others had their throats cut. I saw the house where they must have killed those people. The living room floor was covered in pools of congealed blood and pieces of bone and tissue. A trail of dry blood led from the door, down the stairs, to the center of the village.” The Mujahideen took the other prisoners, about 30 locals (mostly women, children and the elderly) to their base in Mehurići.

Exchange of prisoners in May 

Finally, on May 17, an agreement was reached between Croats, Mujahideen and UN representatives on a large exchange of prisoners in Zenica (7 Croats and 11 Mujahideen). One western foreign journalist described the exchange like this: “The parking lot is surrounded by dozens of armed men in camouflage uniforms, with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers that they defiantly hung around the dogs, while their faces are hidden by green cloth. They are led by a group of serious young Arabs, three of whom have war uniforms, and one of whom is tall, has a sparse black beard and a loose brown robe, and holds a walkie-talkie and speaks in Arabic. Negotiations with the Croats drag on, in the background of a British armored personnel carrier, and gunmen tell a lone TV cameraman to leave or they will shoot him.” The brown-robed Arab leader was Abu el-Ma’ali, who oversaw the operation. When the Arab soldiers emerged from the darkness of the UN transport vehicle, chaos reigned and an amateur victory celebration began. The UN mediator present was pleased that the exchange went well and offered one of them, Wahiudeen al-Masri, a handshake as a sign of goodwill, which he arrogantly refused with the sentence: “I do not shake hands with infidels.” Although many local Bosniaks watched the exchange and the Mujahideen’s unusual celebration while shouting “Allahu Akbar”, few responded to their calls for holy war. Two days later, prominent Kuwaiti sheikh Kulaib al-Matuairi was also released from Croatian captivity.

Continuation of the war between Croats and Bosniaks

After the uneasy exchange of prisoners in mid-May 1993, the war between Croats and Bosniaks flared up further, and it seemed that the reconciliation of the ex-allies would not follow soon. Both sides, the HVO and the ARBIH and the Mujahideen, tried to outwit the other with the aim of capturing as much territory as possible. At that time, the current peace plan of the international community for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Vance-Owen plan, envisaged the organization of BIH into 9 provinces (3 ethnic provinces) and the District of Sarajevo. According to this plan, the largest part of multi-ethnic Central Bosnia belonged to the Croatian province 10 with its center in Travnik. It was planned that there would be the center of the Croatian province, which would be presided over by a Croatian governor. Of course, such a plan was not liked at all by the Bosniak Government in Sarajevo, and even less so by the Mujahideen. Both of them actually wanted a revision of the plan according to which Central Bosnia would belong to an autonomous Bosniak province. Undoubtedly, the goal of the Mujahideen was the establishment of an autonomous Muslim entity that would become the nucleus for the spread of Islamic fundamentalism throughout Europe.

The HVO then detected the Mujahideen as an existential threat that further turned local Muslims against the HVO and the Croatian people. The HVO planned to eliminate the Islamist threat by capturing the mountains above Travnik, the Mehurići camp and blocking the roads between the Mujahideen bases between Travnik and Zenica. That idea was good because the Mujahideen were in crisis. And their sources confirm that in the spring of 1993 they were in a difficult period. However, Croatian plans to eliminate the Mujahideen threat did not materialize because the numerically stronger RBIH Army launched a major offensive in June in the entire Lašva Valley with an emphasis on the Travnik area. Mujahideen forces played a major role in the Bosniak attack, and they focused their efforts on opening a new road between Travnik and Zenica. Foreign Islamists fought with the 7th Muslim Brigade from Zenica and the Krajina Brigade from Zenica. Mujahideen units are often seen as the forerunners of the RBIH Army.

Massacre in Bikoši-Maljine

On June 8, units of the 7th Muslim Brigade, the 306th Brigade of the RBIH Army and the Mujahideen attacked the Croatian village of Maljine, where there were hundreds of civilians and about 50 soldiers. HVO forces surrendered as they were outnumbered and surrounded. Croatian civilians claimed that they saw “dark-skinned Mujahideen who spoke Arabic, had long beards and bands around their foreheads”. The military police of the 306th brigade started to evacuate captured civilians and soldiers to the camp in Mehurići, but they were soon intercepted by a group of jihadists who singled out some men and a girl, Ana Pranješ, who was in a Red Cross uniform, and took them to the hamlet of Bikoši. At least 39 captured civilians and soldiers were liquidated there by burst fire. The youngest victim was 17, and the oldest 53.

British Major Kent-Payne and another British soldier arrived later in the village of Maljine-Bikoši, since the Croats reported that a massacre of 40 Croatian soldiers had taken place. The British saw Islamist slogans written on the spot, and despite the famine, all the pigs were slaughtered. Local children were ordered to constantly shout “Allahu Akbar”. Afterwards, the Islamists transported an unknown number of women and children as hostages to the camp in Mehurići, where they were subjected to unprecedented torture.