Željko Ražnatović ("Arkan"), leader of the Serb Volunteer Guard (SDG), spent a month in Bijeljina devising battle plans prior to the attack.[17] On 30 March 1992, Blagoje Adžić, Bosnian Serb chief-of-staff of the JNA, announced that the army was "ready to protect Serbs from open aggression".[18] Fighting broke out in Bijeljina on 1 April, after local Serbs and SDG personnel threw grenades into shops,[19] including a Bosniak-owned cafe,[17] provoking the poorly organized Patriotic League into an armed conflict.[9][20][21] About a thousand[17][20] SDG members and Mirko's Chetniks,[22] a paramilitary formation commanded by Mirko Blagojević, were involved and captured important structures in the town.[23] According to journalist and political analyst Miloš Vasić, Bijeljina was defended by 35 or 38 Bosnian policemen.[24] According to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Bijeljina was the "first municipality of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be taken over by the Bosnian Serbs in 1992".[23] Despite the pro-Serb activities of the JNA during the Croatian War of Independence, the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegović apparently believed that the JNA would act differently in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and asked the JNA to defend Bijeljina against the SDG.[25]