Foreign fighters in the Bosnian War

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

Bosnian mujahideen

Arab volunteers came across Croatia into Bosnia to help the Bosnian Army fight in the war. The
number of the El-Mudžahid volunteers is still disputed, from around 300 to 6,000.

These caused particular controversy: foreign fighters, styling themselves mujahideen, turned
up in Bosnia around 1993 with Croatian identity documents, passports and IDs. They quickly
attracted heavy criticism, who considered their presence to be evidence of violent Islamic
fundamentalism at the heart of Europe. However, 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, but for arms. Many Bosnian Army officers and intellectuals
were suspicious regarding foreign volunteers arrival in 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. According to general Stjepan Šiber, the highest ranking
ethnic Croat in Bosnian Army, the key role in foreign volunteers arrival was played by Franjo
Tuđman and Croatian counter-intelligence underground with the aim to justify involvement of
Croatia in Bosnian War and mass crimes committed by Croat forces. Although 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.

On August 13, 1993, the Bosnian Army decided to form a unit, Kateebat al-Mujahideen
("Battalion of the Holy Warriors") or El Mudžahid to impose control over the foreign fighters
whose number increased. 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 (ABiH) and the Croat forces (HVO), the
Mujahideen also participated in battles against the HVO alongside Bosnian Army units.

According to the Arab fighters who testified as the prosecution witnesses at the trial of Bosnian
general Rasim Delić indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) on the basis of superior criminal responsibility, the El Mujahid Detachment was only
formally part of the Bosnian Army chain of command. All decisions were taken by the emir and
the shura, the Mujahideen commander and the Mujahideen supreme council respectively. This
was because the ‘Army couldn’t be trusted’.

It is alleged that mujahideen participated in some incidents considered to be war crimes

according to the international law. However no indictment was issued by the ICTY against them,
but a few Bosnian Army officers were indicted on the basis of superior criminal responsibility.
Amir Kubura and Enver Hadžihasanović were found not guilty on all counts related to the
incidents involving mujahideen. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber noted that the relationship
between the 3rd Corps of the Bosnian Army headed by Hadžihasanović and the El Mujahedin
detachment was not one of subordination but was instead close to overt hostility since the only
way to control the detachment was to attack them as if they were a distinct enemy force.

During and after the war, the government at the time, led by Alija Izetbegović, was thought to
have bent the law when granting citizenship to the mujahideen.As of 2007, the Bosnian
government says that a commission reviewed a list of more than 1,000 names and has revoked
citizenship for about 420 people so far.

The mujahideen units were disbanded and required to leave the Balkans under the terms of
the 1995 Dayton peace accord. Although the US State Department report suggested that the
number could be higher, a senior SFOR official said allied military intelligence estimated that no
more than 200 foreign-born militants actually live in Bosnia.

Role of the media in the Yugoslav wars

According to the ICTY verdicts, Serb propaganda constantly propagated false information about
the foreign fighters to inflame anti-Muslim hatred among Serbs. After the takeover of Prijedor
by Serb forces in 1992, Radio Prijedor propagated Serb nationalistic ideas characterising
prominent non-Serbs as criminals and extremists who should be punished for their behaviour.
One example of such propaganda was the derogatory language used for referring to non-Serbs
such as mujahideen, Ustaša or Green Berets. According to ICTY conclusion in Stakić verdict Mile
Mutić, the director of Kozarski Vjesnik and the journalist Rade Mutić regularly attended
meetings of Serb politicians (local authorities) to be informed of the next propaganda steps.

Another example of propaganda about Islamic holy warriors is presented in the ICTY Kordić and
Čerkez verdict for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Croatian Community
of Herzeg-Bosnia leadership on Bosniak civilians. It claimed that Gornji Vakuf was attacked by
the Croatian Army (HV) and the Croatian Defence Forces (HVO) in January 1993 followed by
heavy shelling of the town by Croat artillery. During cease-fire negotiations at the Britbat HQ in
Gornji Vakuf, colonel Andrić, representing the HVO, demanded that the Bosnian forces lay
down their arms and accept HVO control of the town, threatening that if they did not agree he
would flatten Gornji Vakuf to the ground. The HVO demands were not accepted by the Bosnian
Army and the attack continued, followed by massacres on Bosnian Muslim civilians in the
neighbouring villages of Bistrica, Uzričje, Duša, Ždrimci and Hrasnica.The shelling campaign and
attacks during the war resulted in houndreds of injured and killed, mostly Bosnian Muslim
civilians. Though Croats often cited it as a major reason for the attack on Gornji Vakuf to justify
the massacres of civilians, the commander of the British Britbat company claimed there were
no Muslim holy warriors in Gornji Vakuf.

For the Croats

The Croats received support from Croatia and the Croatian Army fought with the local Croatian
Defence Council (HVO) forces. Some external fighters included British volunteers as well as
other numerous individuals from the cultural area of Western Christianity, both Catholics and
Protestants fought as volunteers. Spanish, Dutch, American, Irish, Polish, Australian, New
Zealand, French, Swedish, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Canadian and Finnish volunteers
were organized into the Croatian 103rd (International) Infantry Brigade. There was also a
special Italian unit, the Garibaldi battalion.and one for the French, the groupe Jacques Doriot.

Volunteers from Germany and Austria were also present, fighting for the Croatian Defence
Forces (HOS) paramilitary group. This armed group was organized by the Croatian Party of
Rights (HSP), a right-wing party, and was disbanded by the legal Croatian authorities in late
1992. HSP's leader, Dobroslav Paraga was later charged with treason by the Croatian
authorities.

Swedish Jackie Arklöv fought in Bosnia and was later charged with war crimes upon his return
to Sweden. Later he confessed he committed war crimes on Bosniak civilians in the Croatian
camps Heliodrom and Dretelj as a member of Croat forces.

For the Serbs

The Serbs received support from Orthodox Christian countries, from countries including the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Greece, Russia, and Romania.

Primary Russian forces consisted of two organized units known as "РДО-1" and "РДО-2" (РДО
stands for "Русский Добровольческий Отряд", which means "Russian Volunteer Unit"),
commanded by Yuriy Belyayev and Alexander Zagrebov, respectively. РДО-2 was also known as
"Tsarist Wolves", because of the monarchic views of its fighters. There also was unit of Russian
cossacks, known as "Первая Казачья Сотня" (First Cossack Sotnia). All these units were
operating mainly in Eastern Bosnia along with Rebuplika Srpska forces from 1992 up to 1995.
In April 1995, the commander of the Russian contingent in UNPROFOR Sector East in Croatia,
Russian Major General Aleksandr Perelyakin, who had been dismissed for smuggling weapons
to Serbs, was appointed as adviser to the commander of a Serb division in the self-proclaimed
Republika Srpska Krajina in Croatia.

In May 1995, Serb Herzegovina Corps intended to organize an international brigade in eastern
Bosnia which gathered between 150 and 600 Greek and Russian mercenaries fighting for 200
German marks monthly.

Greek volunteers were also reported to have taken part in the Srebrenica Massacre, with the
Greek flag being hoisted in Srebrenica when the town fell to the Serbs. The Greeks were
organized in March as the Greek Volunteer Guard (GVG) and had around 100 soldiers. Some
Greek volunteers were members of a Greek nationalist party Golden Dawn