b The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was significant for the conflict only in 1995. In 1995, after the Washington Agreement, the state was de facto representative of the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina itself. Not to be confused with Bosnia and Herzegovina, which encompasses all three Bosnian ethnic groups.
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Map of the strategic offensive plan of the
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in Croatia, 1991. The JNA was unable to advance as far as planned due to Croatian resistance and mobilization problems.
The Croatian War of Independence was a war fought in Croatia from 1991 to 1995. It was fought between the Croatian government, having declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and both the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb forces, who established the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) within Croatia.
Initially, the war was waged between Croatian police forces and Serbs living in the Yugoslav Republic of Croatia. As the JNA came under increasing Serbian influence in Belgrade, its units began assisting the Serbs fighting in Croatia. The Croatian side aimed to establish a sovereign country outside Yugoslavia, and the Serbs, supported from Serbia,[11] opposed the secession and wanted to remain a part of Yugoslavia, effectively seeking new boundaries in Croatia with a Serb majority or significant minority[12] or by conquering as much of Croatia as possible.[13] The goal was primarily to remain in the same state with the rest of the Serbian nation, which was interpreted as an attempt to form a "Greater Serbia" by Croats (and Bosniaks). At the beginning of the war, the JNA tried to forcefully keep Croatia in Yugoslavia by occupying the whole of Croatia.[14]
In Croatia, the war is referred to as the Homeland War (Croatian: Domovinski rat). In the Serbian language, the phrase War in Croatia (Serbian: Rat u Hrvatskoj) is the most common name.
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