As the fighting progressed, the SDS and the Bosnian Serbs created the Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska (MUP RS), an independent Serb police force.[9] According to HRW, a pattern of violence, fueled by "the strive to create a Greater Serbia",[1] developed in Bijeljina that was later repeated in other municipalities in north-eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina by similar paramilitary groups from Serbia.[23] This pattern was described by the United Nations Commission of Experts in the following terms:[36]