Flashback to Valuable French Allies in Kosovo

LA Times ^ | Friday, October 22, 1999 | PAUL RICHTER

[Sarajevo]

If you are a US soldier then you weren't there DURING the war.

Yes, I was, and actually, there were a few of us there.

Those there DURING the war know that the Serbs controlled some suburbs in the city which were taking fire from the Muslims intent to provoke.

?????

Let me see....The Serbian army was shelling the city from the surrounding mountains, Serbian snipers were shooting anyone they saw (hence the name of the main thoroughfare "Sniper Alley"), and the inhabitants were starving and freezing due to the lack af basic necessisities. The Muslim defenders would return mortar fire......

This is from someone who was there WHEN the war happened.

I've heard that one before. Did he also tell you that the second in command of the Sarajevo defenders was a Serb?

You are only going by media propaganda and then "Muslim stories" as you stayed in the now fully dominated Muslim cities of Sarajevo and Tuzla where the Serbia population is very small:

As I stated in the original post, I worked with and supervised Serb, Croat, and Muslim workers in Tuzla and Sarajevo. They all related the same stories to me at different times (I couldn't have them get together to make up some propoganda to feed me now, could I?)

Face it Joan, this was a civil war which divided along ethnic lines. It was a hateful war. One which saw ethnic cleansing on all sides. I am not taking sides, for I cannot tell a Serb from a Croat from a Bosnian Muslim. I saw for myself what happened in those terrible circumstances.

On the other hand, you may wish to take a trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina and see for yourself instead of taking the word of "someone who was there".

[Sarajevo]

You're right! This is a lively one!

[joan]

The soldier heard OUTGOING mortar fire from right next to the Tito barracks were they were stationed. The Muslim military contolled those grounds.

Were you in Sarajevo in 1992-1995? Did you do any ballistics test? Have you heard of the group Seve/Sevas? They were a Muslim sniper group that operated in Sarajevo and took practice shots on Serb women in Grbavica.

[joan]

How about any books by American soldiers who were there and witnesses? The Canadian soldiers speak of the Muslims continually staging incidents for PR purposes:

page 158 (about Dobrinja Olympic village)

....While all this was going on, a sniper was harassing Serb troops on the ridge to the south. The sniper was holed up in a building across the street from us. Eventually, the Serbs tired of this annoyance and mortared Olympic village. One lucky hit landed in a TDF (Bosnian Muslim army) ammo bunker in the basement of a two-storey building. The place exploded into a huge fireball and flames roared several hundred metres into the sky.....

Page 173:

..."On 17 July, we were tasked to provide VIP security for a meeting between all the factions and Sir Douglas Hurd, the British Foreign Secretary....

We spent the day moving the foreign Secretary around and dodging well-staged incidents the locals (Muslims) put on for his benefit. At the Bosnian Presidency the TDF (Territorial Defense Forces) mortared their own people again as Hurd arrived. He had just dismounted from Kevin's track when several mortars slammed into the square across the road, killing several civilians. It had been staged by the Muslims to impress Hurd. They told him the Serbs did this to them everyday, when in fact they killed their own people again for political reasons. Animals."

Page 167-168: ... "That evening there were some kids hanging around on a patio at the base of the building. The guys had thrown them some candy until I told them to stop. I didn't want every kid in the city coming to hang out beneath our windows. Also on the patio was an attractive teenage girl. She spoke some English and was having a conversation with some of our guys who were hanging out the window.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, one of the troops saw... a mortarbomb. In the moment before it detonated, he realized it was heading right for the kids. Before he could shout a warning, the bomb exploded. The impact threw our guys back out of the window and onto the floor. Immediately, more rounds followed and the building rocked. ..Warrant Sullivan... rushed outside...

What he found shocked him to the core. There were little pieces of children everywhere. Arms, legs and blood covered the patio. The teenage girl had died instantly. The other kids were badly wounded. Brit medics showed up and tried to sort out the mess... They got the kids on street chars and tried to match the arms and legs with the proper child. It was horrible.

...

Later that night, the platoon area was pretty subdued. Some of the guys blamed themselves for talking to the kids and throwing them candy, but we all knew- we hadn't launched those bombs.

The next morning, a report came in from the observers that no Serb mortars had fired that they were aware of. The trajectory was calculated and it was determined that the Bosnians had mortared their own children. For public relations purposes. Sure enough, the morning news in the city reported that the UN and their Serb allies had killed these children. We could not believe it. I can't speak for the others, but that morning I would have happily killed any TDF (Muslim) troops I saw. I was growing tired of the whole mess. These people did not care. They were animals.

Still, it was my job. We were still a platoon with a job to do. I tucked all my feelings away and tried to be my normal, carefree self. It wasn't the last time the Bosnians murdered their own people in well-staged attacks for PR reasons."...

http://www.balkanpeace.org/wcs/wct/wctu/wctu02.shtml

[Sarajevo]

Yes, Grbavica is the site of the stadium where we were to evacuate the embassy personnel from if the call to do so came.

Were you in Sarajevo in 1992-1995?

1993

[Sarajevo]

GRBAVICA ONE YEAR LATER: COMING BACK TO LIFE. "A year ago, the Sarajevo district of Grbavica was a torched, derelict area ransacked by angry Serbs who fled the Bosnian capital rather than live under Muslim-Croat rule," Reuters reports. "Today, Grbavica and other parts of Sarajevo offer a different picture.

"What was a dingy, half-burned line of shops in Grbavica is now a freshly painted market place with shops full of brisk trading and housewives arguing with shopkeepers over vegetable prices."

About 2,100 people were living in Grbavica a year ago when it reverted to Bosnian government control. Now, more than 18,000 live in the suburb, which housed 25,000 people before the war.

"Grbavica's skyscrapers, feared during the war for sheltering deadly Serb snipers, now have fresh laundry to display from their windows," according to Reuters. The district was relatively undamaged by fighting, but Serbs looted and burned the area before they were forced to pull back under the Dayton accords.

http://www.applicom.com/twibih/twib0324.html

Have you heard of the group Seve/Sevas? They were a Muslim sniper group that operated in Sarajevo and took practice shots on Serb women in Grbavica.

I guess everyone was shooting at someone. That's why its called a "Civil War".

[Sarajevo]

The tunnel was for ARMS smuggling for their army.

UNPROFOR troops patrolling the area were determined to upkeep UN impartiality, often at a terrible expense, as the engineer of the tunnel Nedzad Brancovic recalls: "As we ran across the airport the UN troops tried to stop us. They would chase us and shine big lights in our direction. The (Serb) snipers would lie in wait and shoot many of those left defenceless in the glare of the spotlights…"

An estimated 250 people were killed trying to leave Sarajevo via this route.

As supplies ran low and as levels of aid were barely sufficient to feed the people; desperate measures needed to be taken. It was at this time that Brancovic was summoned by the hierarchy of the army and given the task of building a tunnel that would offer a safe route to Mt Igman.

Work began in March 1993 and took 3 months to complete. For 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, teams of soldiers and former miners would dig from either end of the UN controlled airport using little or no real tools.

Co-ordinating the efforts of the 120 men involved became a logistical nightmare, particularly as the engineers on both sides never actually met during the dig, and were only able to communicate with each other by running across the airstrip, as Brancovic recalls: “ I was very scared every time I had to run across the strip but there was no other way. I myself crossed over 20 times to see how the digging was progressing at the other side. Once I was caught by French troops and had my ribs broken.”

Despite such setbacks and the constant shelling by the Serbs they were eventually able to open up the tunnel that was to help feed the city and keep it alive for the remainder of the war. Measuring 770 meters it was a truly remarkable feat, and apart from providing an essential supply line to the soldiers on Mt Igman and a supply line for food into the city, the tunnel gave many the psychological boost that they so desperately needed. It came to be seen as proof that the Bosnians could organise and would eventually free themselves. At its peak the tunnel would see between 4,000 – 5,000 people going through it daily.

As the only safe land route into and out of the city, control of the tunnel ensured control of what left and what entered the city. Some saw the tunnel as an opportunity to profit personally and stories of corruption go hand in hand with stories of true heroism.

The ‘secret tunnel’ of Sarajevo provided food, electricity, gas and communications to the starved city and undoubtedly saved the city. How it was subsequently used and misused, highlight the conflicting sides of human nature, which come to light during wartime.

http://www.hadzic.org/secret%2Dtunnel/tunnel.htm

-I visited the tunnel during my tenure in Sarajevo. It's wery interesting. It was also used to bring Izetbegovic into the city.

[Nov3]

Prepare to be flamed. I have said the same since the war and I have been ruthlessly flamed for pointing out we were fighting for terrorists.

[ehoxha]

Bosnian Mujhadeen treachery exposed - by British General M. Rose
/focus/fr/643661/posts

BOSNIA,THE GLOBAL TAMMANY HALL
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3b87521d2e94.htm

Canadian Soldier says"NATO sleeping with the enemy" in Balkans
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3b87e065149b.htm

Clinton's Allies in Bosnia - The 7th Mujahedeen Brigade
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3b98db631779.htm

Fikret Abdic legally elected President of BiH
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3b1f0cd017e5.htm

Nasir Oric goes on a killing spree and shows tapes to US reporters
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/810565/posts

Nasir Oric goes hunting around Srebenica
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a622d9a4135.htm

UN Commander "Bosnians..caught red-handed" using civilainsas targets
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a92dfcc7bdd.htm

UN Soldier "Bosnians murdered their own people for PR"
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a8d701908d0.htm

.................read all about your Bosnian Jihadist buddies and how they held their own civilians hostage, shot them in PR stunts, trained thousands of OBL followers, and generally behvaed like Islamonazi's everywhere

[ehoxha]

don't worry about Joan - truth is on her side.

how did you ultimately end up concludeing that We supported the wrong side in Bosnia ? What series of events helped make you see beyond Clinton's lies ?

[Nov3]

The mess in Bosnia was a classic example of the need for a real UN. The press took it and turned on the Serbs (for winning) when both sides committed atrocities originally initiated by the Croats and Muslims in an attempt to purge the Orthodox people resettled during the Tito admin. There were atrocities there. During the Kosovo incident I read an article on FR about the genesis of the incident. The al-Banians invaded their country and was taking it over through the womb. Once the numbers were great enough they started violence. Serbia stepped in. The press started LYING that the al-Banians were being slaughtered and ignoring their ties to wahhabism and al-Quaeda. It stunk to high heaven.

[Sarajevo]

read all about your Bosnian Jihadist buddies

Let us not forget my communist Serb buddies, or my nationalist Croat buddies. I wouldn't want them to feel left out.

[GeraldP]

>>>Let us not forget my communist Serb buddies, or my nationalist Croat buddies. I wouldn't want them to feel left out.

What? No mafiosi Albanian buddies? ... I feel left out.

[Nov3]

What? No mafiosi Albanian buddies?... I feel left out.

No mafiosi Wahhabi, White Slaving, drug dealing, Saudi supported, al-Banian buddies?

[GeraldP]

While the mafiosi comment, is a reasonable description of a certain small segment of Albanian society and diaspora, the rest is quite off mark, and rather goes to show that your tact matches quite well the level of insight into the Balkans you have so far displayed.

[Hoplite]

Aw, you've got a fan.

How nice for you.

Pay me off or I'll tell him you're really an eskimo.

[GeraldP]

>>>Pay me off or I'll tell him you're really an eskimo.

Ahh, therein lies the dilemma. If everyone finds out I'm really an eskimo posing as an Albanian, then I lose my main source of enjoyment as the Arctic night drags by outside my humble igloo.

[Nov3]

Gerry get a clue or go join your raghead friends. The true "crimes" in Kosovo are occurring now under the ragheads.

[Sarajevo]

Sorry about that Gerald! I have two, but I met them in Afghanistan.

[ma bell]

hey buddy, i am in Tuzla this evening! there is not a Serb Church, only a hollowed out one. i will show you pictures when i return to BG.

yes, i am in Tuzla now. i was hanging out with SFOR US Soldiers in Doboj during lunch this afternoon.

what do you need to know about the bosnian war?

it is not Bosnian muslims...it is Bosnian Serbian muslims. they are former Serbs or originated from Turks. if you know yur not direct descendant of a Turk,..you are a BosSerbmuslim