text: operation stinger operation stinger ( croatian : operacija ; serbian : operacija ) was an offensive undertaken by the forces of the sao krajina , an unrecognized croatian serb region opposing the republic of croatia , against positions held by the croatian police in the region of banovina on 26 – 27 july 1991 , during the croatian war of independence . it was primarily aimed at police stations in glina and kozibrod , as well as police - held positions in a string of villages between the town of dvor and kozibrod . in addition to glina and kozibrod , heavy fighting took place in the village of struga , north of dvor , where croatian serb forces employed a human shield consisting of croat civilians taken from their homes in struga and the nearby village of zamlača . the croatian serb rebels captured the police station in glina , but were stopped in struga before the yugoslav people 's army ( jna ) arrived there to create a buffer zone and , according to the jna , assist the croatian police to evacuate . on 29 july , as the non - serb civilian population left kozibrod and the villages to the south of it , the police station in kozibrod was evacuated as well . the fighting resulted the bulk of the region being transferred to croatian serb and jna control . in the aftermath of the fighting , a number of croatian serb troops threatened the regional commander in dvor , blaming him for the deaths of members of their unit in the fighting . afterwards , they killed several croat civilians who were undergoing treatment at the dvor medical centre . croatian authorities filed war crime charges against dragan vasiljković , specifically for leading the attack in glina which resulted in civilian deaths , as well as injuring and killing prisoners of war . vasiljković was arrested in australia in 2006 , and as of january 2015 he is awaiting extradition to croatia . background in 1990 , ethnic tensions between serbs and croats worsened after the electoral defeat of the government of the socialist republic of croatia by the croatian democratic union ( croatian : hrvatska demokratska zajednica – hdz ) . the yugoslav people 's army ( serbian latin : jugoslovenska narodna armija – jna ) confiscated croatia 's territorial defence ( croatian : teritorijalna obrana – to ) weapons to minimize resistance . on 17 august , the tensions escalated into an open revolt of the croatian serbs , centred on the predominantly serb - populated areas of the dalmatian hinterland around knin ( approximately 60 kilometres ( 37 miles ) north - east of split ) , parts of the lika , kordun , banovina and eastern croatia . in january 1991 , serbia , supported by montenegro and serbia 's provinces of vojvodina and kosovo , unsuccessfully tried to obtain the yugoslav presidency 's approval for a jna operation to disarm croatian security forces . the request was denied and a bloodless skirmish between serb insurgents and croatian special police in march prompted the jna itself to ask the federal presidency to give it wartime authority and declare a state of emergency . even though the request was backed by serbia and its allies , the jna request was refused on 15 march . serbian president slobodan milošević , preferring a campaign to expand serbia rather than to preserve yugoslavia with croatia as a federal unit , publicly threatened to replace the jna with a serbian army and declared that he no longer recognized the authority of the federal presidency . the threat caused the jna to abandon plans to preserve yugoslavia in favour of expansion of serbia as the jna came under milošević 's control . by the end of march , the conflict had escalated with the first fatalities . in early april , leaders of the serb revolt in croatia declared their intention to amalgamate the areas under their control with serbia . these were viewed by the government of croatia as breakaway regions . at the beginning of 1991 , croatia had no regular army . to bolster its defence , croatia doubled its police numbers to about 20 , 000 . the most effective part of the croatian police force was 3 , 000 - strong special police comprising twelve battalions organised along military lines . there were also 9 , 000 – 10 , 000 regionally organised reserve police in 16 battalions and 10 companies , but they lacked weapons . in response to the deteriorating situation , the croatian government established the croatian national guard ( croatian : zbor narodne garde – zng ) in may by expanding the special police battalions into four all - professional guards brigades . under ministry of defence control and commanded by retired jna general martin špegelj , the four guards brigades comprised approximately 8 , 000 troops . the reserve police , also expanded to 40 , 000 , was attached to the zng and reorganised into 19 brigades and 14 independent battalions . the guards brigades were the only units of the zng that were fully equipped with small arms ; throughout the zng there was a lack of heavier weapons and there was poor command and control structure above the brigade level . the shortage of heavy weapons was so severe that the zng resorted to using world war ii weapons taken from museums and film studios . at the time , the croatian weapon stockpile consisted of 30 , 000 small arms purchased abroad and 15 , 000 previously owned by the police . to replace the personnel lost to the guards brigades , a new 10 , 000 - strong special police was established . prelude in june , the conflict escalated in the region of banovina , which had been declared a part of the serbian autonomous oblast krajina ( sao krajina ) by that time . three municipalities in the region — dvor , glina and hrvatska kostajnica — had predominantly serb populations , although all of them were inhabited by a substantial number of non - serbs as well . on 24 june , the sisak police administration set up a new police station in the village of kozibrod in the una river valley , along the dvor – hrvatska kostajnica road . it was manned by two platoons of police and zng troops drawn from the sisak company of the 2nd guards brigade . the new station drew a strong reaction from the sao krajina authorities , who issued an ultimatum on the same day the police station was set up , demanded its removal and threatened to remove it by force unless croatia complied with their ultimatum . on the night of 25 / 26 june , sao krajina forces took control of the police station in dvor and attacked the police station in glina . the rebels managed to capture the police station in glina for less than an hour before they were pushed back by the lučko anti - terrorist unit and police reinforcements deployed from sisak . croatian police casualties amounted to one killed and six wounded . even though the attack in glina did not leave sao krajina in control of the police station in glina , 16 croatian policemen were captured and held hostage . the prisoners were taken to the knin camp and a detention facility in golubić . in response to the fighting , the jna deployed its troops to the two towns . new fighting erupted the same day near hrvatska kostajnica . in the final days of june , many serb civilians , especially from dvor , fled to the area of bosanski novi for safety . by 28 june , only a few women , children and the elderly remained in glina . the town 's shops were closed and its streets were patrolled by jna armoured vehicles . after the fighting , the jna positioned its troops around the police station , while the croatian serb rebels controlled the rest of the town . in mid - july , dragan vasiljković was deployed from the croatian serb capital knin to banovina to coordinate rebel forces there . by 21 july , his work was commended by local commanders , and two days later , a regional command of croatian serb forces was announced at a meeting in dvor attended by milan martić , one of the most prominent sao krajina leaders . on 24 july , one day after the regional command was established , the serb rebels adopted a military plan , presented by vasiljković , aimed at removing croatian forces from banovina . on 25 july , 14 mortar rounds were fired at the kozibrod police station . nobody was injured in the attack , and in its aftermath , sao krajina authorities requested a ceasefire until 10 august because of the harvest . timeline the offensive , codenamed operation stinger ( serbian latin : operacija ) was primarily aimed at the croat - populated villages between dvor and hrvatska kostajnica , and the police station in the town of glina . the forces earmarked for the offensive were elements of the 7th banija division of the sao krajina to , spearheaded by special police deployed from knin and commanded by vasiljković . the operation commenced on 26 july at 10 : 00 with an hour - long mortar bombardment of glina , kostajnica and topusko . vasiljković set up his headquarters in the area of zrinska gora , situated between glina , dvor , hrvatska kostajnica and petrinja . glina the ground offensive in glina commenced with a single sao krajina soldier tasked with firing on a jna armoured vehicle from an area close to the police station . this attempted false flag attack was designed to make the vehicle crew believe that they were being fired on by the croatian police , inducing them to fire at the police station . the original shooter was observed by the police and shot at from the station , which was in turn fired upon by the jna . a jna colonel at the scene then threatened to use force against the serb rebels unless they left the scene . following consultations with vasiljković , the sao krajina forces moved on towards , where they shot at a number of civilian buildings including a school and a church , before turning to approach the police station from a different direction . the assault , supported by mortar fire , continued until the following day . the police station was captured on 27 july at 11 : 08 . according to sao krajina military reports , 27 croatian military and police personnel were killed in the fighting . croatian sources reported the deaths of two policemen and the wounding of two others , as well as the deaths of two civilians , including a german journalist killed by sniper fire . the killed journalist , egon scotland , a reporter of the süddeutsche zeitung , was leaving glina with a fellow reporter in a clearly marked car , when he was fatally wounded . the same source indicates that the remaining croatian police officers managed to pull out of glina to . una river valley the advance against croat - held villages along the una was also preceded by an hour - long mortar bombardment of the area . more than 250 rounds were fired , commencing on 26 july at 10 : 00 , after which the infantry was ordered to advance . the attacking force consisted of 50 sao krajina special forces troops drawn from knin , 50 policemen and 700 conscripts . the jna estimated that there were about 240 – 280 croatian police and zng personnel deployed in the area from struga to kozibrod . the sao krajina plan saw a battalion led by braco orlović advancing north from dvor through the village of zamlača to approach the village of struga . once there , it was to maintain its position and advance gradually if possible . additional forces were meant to outflank and pin down the croatian defending force : a platoon of special forces led by nikola sundać , reinforced by a platoon of conscripts , was tasked with bypassing struga and interdicting traffic along the road between the village of and struga , preventing any access from the direction of kozibrod . another special forces platoon led by željko sanader was tasked with seizing the villages of and before advancing towards kozibrod , while the second battalion attached to the attacking force — led by mićo popović — engaged croatian troops near , and kozibrod . after orlović 's battalion entered the undefended village of zamlača , the serb rebels moved from one house to the next , ransacking homes and forcing any civilians they found to move to the main road . approximately 50 civilians were captured in the village , they were then forced to walk in front of an armed vehicle towards struga , forming a human shield . by 13 : 00 , all the units earmarked for the advance between dvor and kozibrod had achieved their initial objectives , except for the platoon commanded by sundać . by 14 : 30 , struga was under attack . the defending force in struga was first engaged by the outflanking force and had no knowledge of what had happened in zamlača . as the human shield and the sao krajina force reached struga , the defending troops were reluctant to fire against them . as a consequence , three croatian policemen deployed in one house were surrounded and subsequently surrendered . their captors stripped them , ordered them to run and then killed them . unsure how to deal with the situation , the croatian forces withdrew from the southern part of the village . the unit protected by the human shield moved very slowly and took six hours to move from zamlača to the centre of struga . the armed vehicle and the soldiers following the human shield were ambushed in the centre of struga by a single policeman and a civilian who threw a hand grenade and ran towards the vehicle , carrying three more hand grenades strapped to his waist . as the hand grenades exploded , gunfire erupted allowing the civilians held as human shields to run away . the policeman and civilian who carried out the ambush were both killed ; sources identify the two as reserve policeman mile blažević and traffic policeman željko filipović . shortly before 16 : 00 , the croatian forces counterattacked , causing the bulk of popović 's troops to flee . popović and his remaining five or six soldiers retreated . at least five sao krajina troops were killed and twenty wounded in fighting in struga . by 18 : 00 , the battalion led by orlović had lost 80 percent of its personnel to desertion . prompted by the desertions and heavy shooting in struga at 19 : 00 , bogdan , the commanding officer of the sao krajina units subordinated to the dvor headquarters , requested that the jna intervene . the jna informed that a unit was dispatched from petrinja , allowing him to break off further fighting with the croatian police and send two platoons as reinforcements to glina as reinforcements at vasiljković 's request . jna tanks reached struga at 19 : 50 to establish a buffer zone . croatian forces there offered to leave the village if the jna provided them with one armoured personnel carrier and escorted them to hrvatska kostajnica . the jna complied with the request . during the fighting , 12 croatian policemen were killed , along with 20 civilians . aftermath fighting continued around topusko , which was besieged by the serb rebels on 28 july . the same day , heavy fighting also erupted near hrvatska kostajnica and hrvatska dubica . in dvor , sundać and several soldiers from his platoon arrived at the regional sao krajina military headquarters threatening the commanding officer , holding him responsible for losses the platoon had suffered in the fighting . the group also demanded that the authorities turn any prisoners over to them , but the demand was refused . finally , they went to the medical centre in dvor , where they forced eight wounded croat civilians and two policemen , out of the building and beat them in front of 100 onlookers . there are conflicting reports that all ten were killed , or that only an unspecified number of female patients were killed . on 29 july , the remaining croatian civilian population in struga , , and accepted an offer made by the jna to evacuate them to hrvatska kostajnica . when the column of evacuating civilians reached kozibrod , the population of that village also joined them , followed by the police and zng troops stationed in kozibrod . the move left the sao krajina and the jna in control of the bulk of banovina . further combat fighting in the region flared once more on 7 august , with new clashes around hrvatska kostajnica and an artillery bombardment of topusko . on 14 august , the policemen captured in the first attack against the police station in glina in june were released in a prisoner exchange . croatian troops and positions held in hrvatska kostajnica , as well as in petrinja and sisak , were inspected by croatian president franjo tuđman on 25 august . the croatian position in the region deteriorated further on 9 september when hrvatska kostajnica was besieged . three days later , sao krajina forces captured the hill that commanded the town , and the croatian forces started a breakout from hrvatska kostajnica . on 13 september , hrvatska kostajnica was captured by sao krajina forces , after heavy attacks supported by jna artillery and tanks forced approximately 300 croatian troops to retreat or surrender . the capture of the town was followed by killings , looting and torching of buildings in the town and the surrounding villages . a total of 67 croatian troops were captured in the town and shipped to the jail in glina , but none arrived . the sao krajina forces captured hrvatska dubica the same day , and of topusko on 14 september . on 21 september , petrinja was captured by sao krajina forces and the jna , denying croatia an important bridgehead on the south ( right ) bank of the kupa river . the town 's capture came approximately one month after martić announced sao krajina 's plans to control it . by the end of the month , the serb rebels and the jna controlled nearly all of the southern bank of the river , and the lines of control in the region largely stabilised . before the ceasefire of 3 january 1992 , which implemented the vance plan , the serb rebels and the jna made two more unsuccessful attempts to push back the croatian forces in the region . these attacks comprised the autumn campaign undertaken by the jna — in the area of and novi farkašić on 17 – 18 october and in the area of sunja on 2 november . in the same period , the zng launched an unsuccessful offensive codenamed operation whirlwind to recapture glina on 11 – 13 december . the 120 croats who remained in the area of dubica faced persecution , culminating in the baćin massacre of more than 50 croats on 21 october , and the rounding up and expulsion of the remainder on 20 november . charges of war crimes according to australian court documents , on 10 january 2006 , the šibenik county court ordered that a warrant be issued for vasiljković 's arrest . the offences listed were two alleged war crimes against prisoners of war , and one alleged war crime against the civilian population . the latter are related to his role in the attack on glina which caused civilian deaths and injuries . he was arrested in australia in 2006 , but as an australian national , he appealed against extradition to croatia claiming that he would not get a fair trial there . the appeal was granted by the federal court in 2009 , and vasiljković was released . however , the high court of australia overturned the decision and vasiljković was arrested after a 43 - day search for him by the police . subsequently , vasiljković appealed against his extradition citing other grounds . his extradition was approved by the minister for home affairs jason clare in november 2012 , however vasiljković appealed that decision as well . in december 2014 , the federal court upheld clare 's decision . in 1994 , croatian authorities tried đuro đurić , a former sao krajina policeman , in absentia on charges of war crimes committed in struga , zamlača and kozibrod . he was convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison . đurić surrendered to the croatian police at the border crossing in dvor in 2001 . after two months in custody , he was released and left the country . đurić returned to croatia in february 2009 , when he was arrested once again on identical charges . one month later , he was released after witnesses were questioned and failed to link him to the war crimes of which he was accused . war reporting legacy scotland travelled to the region to investigate the disappearance of a fellow journalist who was thought to have been detained by croatian serb forces and assist her . his death in the line of duty , while seeking to help a fellow reporter , had a significant impact on the german media and german public opinion . scotland 's death reinforced the image of the conflict as a real war where no rules were obeyed . spurred on by his death , munich - based journalists established the " journalists help journalists " ( german : journalisten journalisten ) association in 1993 to help reporters the way scotland had intended when he was killed . scotland 's death also provided the impetus to establish german section of reporters without borders in 1994 .