Foreign fighters in the Bosnian War
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Bosnian War attracted large numbers of foreign fighters and mercenaries from various countries. Volunteers came to fight for a variety of reasons including religious or ethnic loyalties, but mostly for the money. In this sense, Bosniaks received support mostly from so-called "Islamic countries", Serbs from "Eastern Orthodox countries", and Croats from "Catholic countries". The presence of foreign fighters is documented, although numbers, activities and significance are often described and presented in manner which range from objective point of view, without cultural or religious prejudices, and/or without ideological and political bias, to subjective and distorted perspectives which depended on affiliations, to outright misrepresentation that in certain cases took form of conspiracy theories. However, none of these groups constituted more than five percent of any of the respective armies' total manpower strength.
Notable people
- Abdelkader Mokhtari, Algerian, mujahideen
- Karim Said Atmani, Moroccan, mujahideen
- Yuriy Belyayev, Russian commander
- Alexander Zagrebov, Russian commander
- Abu Khayr al-Masri, Egyptian, mujahideen
- Khalid al-Mihdhar, Saudi, mujahideen
- Jackie Arklöv, Swedish, HVO
- Roland Bartetzko, German, HVO
- Thomas Crowley, Irish, HOS
- Igor Strelkov, Russian, VRS
See also
