Army Surplus

At certain villa 20 kilometers out of Fojnica. The men are three Iranians, eight Bosnian Moslems and several hundred NATO troops. The whole thing happened on February 16 when NATO surrounded and arrested the Iranians and Bosnians in the villa. TV pictures showed what they found there: 60 automatic weapons, silencers, sniper rifles, dum-dum ammunition, explosives. They also found hand made bombs in detergent bottles and children's toys.

"This place was used to train people to catch war criminals," Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic said. His pictures were all over the villa along with pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Admiral Leighton Smith said the villa his soldiers captured was used to "train terrorists and that is a threat to us all". State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said there are alarming indications that some Bosnian officials might have been involved.

All that happened just prior to the Rome summit on Bosnia and after Izetbegovic promised that the Mujaheddin had left Bosnia. There are indications that Washington-Sarajevo relations have grown tense and that this is a serious warning but the prevailing opinion is that all this won't affect military cooperation. The assessment is that NATO demonstrated its readiness, decisiveness and lack of bias especially after the extradition of Bosnian Serb General Djordje Djukic and Colonel Aleksa Krsmanovic to the Hague.

The Sarajevo authorities never hid the fact that volunteers from Islamic countries (Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria) were fighting on its side. They stressed that these weren't mercenaries, which sounds convincing since the Bosnians had a problem with weapons not manpower, and it probably wouldn't pay foreigners to fight. The exception could have been instructors (the Iranians in Fojnica were instructors) but Sarajevo stressed that they are being paid by sponsors from the Middle East.

Informed sources said the Bosnian army does not really need instructors. Former JNA officers in its ranks are much greater experts. Those sources said the Bosnian authorities need the Iranians and others for different reasons; the first among them is arms supplies. Most Islamic countries don't produce weapons but have good connections with international arms dealers. The second reason is intelligence. Sarajevo has developed links with Islamic intelligence services.

The interest of the Bosnian Moslems is clear. Saudi Arabia is generous in terms of money and Iran provides men and services.

The number of Mujaheddin in Bosnia is estimated never to have been over 1,000. The most famous unit was the El Mujahid in Podbrezje village near Zenica. Foreign Moslem volunteers accounted for 70% of its manpower with the remaining 30% made up of locals. That unit waged war under strict Islamic rules.

El Mujahid was reported disbanded after the Dayton agreement. Some of the foreign nationals left Bosnia and some took citizenship and stayed.

The number of Mujaheddin in Bosnia was often overrated because of the number of purely Moslem brigades in the BiH army. They also lived under Islamic laws, carried insignia in Arabic and a green crescent flag.

From the start of the Bosnia war, Sarajevo media used the phrase "Serb-Montenegrin aggressors and mercenaries from Orthodox countries".

There were some, but the Bosnian Serbs never said exactly how many. Sarajevo claims there were 5,000 mercenaries in the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) and adds that there were more Romanians than Russians.

In any case, the Russians were the most popular. Most of them were in the Drina river area and in Herzegovina. in mid-February 1993, VREME contacted six Cossacks in Skelani. They were dressed in camouflage not traditional uniforms. Unlike the BSA soldiers they were obviously calm; they didn't brag.

An American reporter asked them how many Cossacks there were in the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS). "As many as are needed." Over 1,000?" "More than that." The report she filed said 2,500. They would probably have said they had aircraft if she asked.

One thing we know for sure is that the BSA included a unit called the White Wolves. They numbered 42 volunteers from the Orthodox east. They were formed in the summer of 1992 and, as an elite force, they enjoyed a great reputation. When the September 1993 BSA rebellion happened in Banja Luka, some of them lent support to the rebels. Then the BSA chiefs grew radically cool towards them as did the RS political leaders.

The Bosnian Serbs proved not to be very generous towards foreigners in their own ranks and their opponents agree. Reports are that foreigners were paid between 150 and 1,500 DEM depending on the risks they took and their abilities.

Since the RS leaders didn't lack the weapons or the men for special missions their presence was mainly for propaganda to show that the Bosnian Serbs aren't alone against the world and for the purposes of the radical organizations that sent them to Bosnia.

But, a Greek BSA volunteer said, there also the business side. He said Greeks, alleged humanitarian workers, come to Pale without a penny. They make deals and six months later come back in a new Mercedes.

The Croats also had mercenaries, from the West. True, former Krajina President Milan Martic claimed his army included the Italian Guisepe Garibaldi brigade but no one heard much about them. In any case, the first mercenaries in the former Yugoslavia appeared in Croatia in 1991.

An international brigade operated in Osijek in 1991 as part of the Croatian National Guard. It had less than 100 men including many Croats from abroad.

The Croats mainly denied their mercenaries. But those mercenaries got the most money: their salaries ranged from 500 to 5,000 DEM. The German media (most of the Croat mercenaries are Germans) occasionally report something about them. They are all right wingers, many hope for privileges after the war in the form of houses on the coast and similar.

The role of the mercenaries on the Croat side is not essential different to the roles they played on the other two sides. All the mercenaries on the ground, regardless of their specialty, are military dropouts. Adventurers who adore uniforms and weapons, criminals, former convicts. Many aren't interested in pay but they like robbing. They're a feature of every war.

But the mercenaries should not be underestimated as an influential element of this war. Besides the small fry there are big sharks working in various services and as consultants at state level. Their interests and goals have to do with the global balance of power.