Operation Storm
In the summer 1995, Croatia carried out a large scale military operation called Oluja -- Storm -- the objective of which was to reclaim areas of Croatia held by rebel Serb forces. The operation officially lasted four days and effectively eliminated the wartime "Republic of Serbian Krajina".After the final cease-fire of 1992, the Croatian army regrouped and entrenched. After Operation Medak pocket in September 1993, when they overran a small area in the mountainous region of Lika but caused an international incident in their retreat, they eventually started pursuing successful military advances against the Krajina Serbs.
The encroaching of the Serbian-held territory in Croatia and western Bosnia had begun in the mid 1994, with a series of dogged campaigns of the Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian Defense Council (HVO, in Bosnia and Herzegovina). NATO airstrikes in the area west of Brčko were, in effect, insignificant.
The incursion of Milošević's forces west of the Drina river was bound to collapse due to overtaxing the endurance capacity of his people when confronted with an organized and sustained ground troops' offensive. Exhausted by sanctions and overstretched, Serbian forces couldn't cover the majority of the front line, and their military defeat was only a matter of time.
Following an agreement with the Croatian government in November 1994, The Pentagon contracted Military Professional Resources, Inc (MPRI) to cooperate with the Croatian military, especially with regards to commissioned officers' training, modernization of information technology and integration of military with civil economy. On May 1st the following year, Croatia started "Operation Flash" in which they reclaimed a larger area in western Slavonia in just a few days.
A few months later, "Operation Storm" was in the making. In order to surround Knin, the capital of rebel Serbs in Croatia, HVO and HV first captured the crucial cities of Glamoč and Bosansko Grahovo in western Bosnia. Operation Storm begun in the early morning of August 4th. The Croatian 4th and 7th Guards Brigades broke through the lines of already demoralized Serb forces, advanced quickly and took over Knin and most of the Dalmatian hinterland on August 5th.
By August 6th, the 1st Guards Brigade penetrated Krajina territory near Slunj and reached the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they met with Bosniak forces of the enclave of western Bosnia. The only strong resistance was met in the town of Glina (south of Sisak).
On the evening of August 7th the operation was declared over, as most of the border with Bosnia was controlled by the Croats. The few remaining divisions of the Serbian army peacefully surrendered over the course of the next several days.
Almost the entire Serb population of the area fled during "Storm". Some Croatian sources cite around 90,000 civilians and up to 50,000 soldiers. Some Serbian sources cite a total of 250,000. The ICTY prosecution estimates 150,000 - 200,000. There are reports of war crimes being committed during the operation, and even one report of the shelling of a refugee column on the Glina-Dvor road at the end of August 1995. The Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights recorded 715 grave sites by November 1995. Veritas, a Serbian organization that collects information about the conflict, compiled a list of 1542 Serbian casualties of the operation in 1997.
The Croatian courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have both investigated the conduct of Croat army personnel during this and related operations. Several high-ranked officers, like generals Ante Gotovina and former chief of staff Janko Bobetko have been indicted by the ICTY for alleged breach of the Geneva Conventions. The charges related to the Medak pocket include planned mass murder as part of the operation; in "Flash" and "Storm" it's murders and destruction in the aftermath of each operation.
So far, the legitimacy of Operation Storm has not been questioned by any institution, although many think that crime prosecutions make it implicitly dubious. Only one of the more than ten Croatian generals who led the operation has been indicted by the ICTY: Ante Gotovina. The future relations between Croatia and the international community depend, to a great extent, on the handling of these indictments by the Hague prosecution and the Croatian government.