Bihac Offensive - Outside the General Plan

During the offensive, Serb forces captured vital points in the town and the fall of Bihac seemed imminent. But two weeks after French peacekeepers took positions in Bihac in late February, Serb officers miscalculated that the artillery pounding of the town would scare UNPROFOR troops away.

The Serb offensive on Bihac, led by General Ratko Mladic, can be interpreted in three ways. The first - Mladic could not get over the withdrawal of his artillery from Sarajevo (the political decision was stronger than the military) and was "showing his muscles" in Bihac.

The second - the offensive was carried out on behalf of Fikret Abdic, who controls one-third of the Cazin Krajina and is aware of his inability to resist the Fifth Corps of the BiH Army if the Croat-Moslem federation lived. The defeat could be averted if the Serbs seized Bihac and Abdic in return "legalized" the Serb capture of the Una railroad section.

The third interpretation stems from the second and is based on the strategic importance of the area. With heavy fighting between the Croatian army and Krajina troops going on for days in Lika, and Croatian forces capturing the strategic hill of Trlo and advancing as close as ten km to Bihac, the Serbs are risking to have Krajina cut off and unified Croat-Moslem troops getting behind Banja Luka.

The offensive on Bihac, if not motivated solely by the prevention of this option, was certainly prompted by the developments in Lika which justified even the shelling of UNPROFOR positions.

On the other hand, Croatia's offensive in Lika was given minimum, if any, publicity in Serbia. In its wish not to disturb the normalization of relations with Zagreb, Belgrade said through its army spokesman Ljubodrag Sotjadinovic that the "RS and RSK are able to defend themselves from the enemy." Krajina officials on their part agreed to meet with Croatian representatives at the Russian embassy in Zagreb. The warlords seem to have decided to share the gain, and their local pawns - fearful of losing the power and influence - had no choice but to take the war initiative in their hands.

This might explain the motives for the Bihac offensive (together with the shelling of Novi Travnik), as well as the international community's readiness to sanction everything sliding outside the general plan.