C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

158allow him (as one of the SDA confidants) to keep an eye on Vladimir Soljic (Croat and Minister ofDefence). The Americans (and Croats) agitated against the lack of cooperation in the creation of aFederal Army and Cengic’s contacts with Islamic countries. In protest, Washington refused to continuearms supplies and demanded his resignation. 774 He was dismissed on 6 November 1996 and was givenanother post.Cengic was a personal confidant of Izetbegovic and had fairly radical views. For instance, hestated that a Muslim may never receive blood from a non-Muslim and that a Muslim may also nevergive blood for a non-Muslim. He was also said to have insisted on striking a deal between the BosnianMuslims on the one hand and the Serbs and Bosnian Serbs on the other, and fighting out the war withthe Croats. This was consistent with the prevailing view of the rulers in Teheran. It was in the jointinterest of Islam and the orthodox faith to fight the Catholics together.In September 1997, it was reported that Cengic had been involved since 1993 in building anairfield in Visoko, which was intended for arms supplies. He was said to have invested a total of $ 5million in this project. According to British sources, this airfield was built by the Americans. It wassituated in a valley to the northwest of Sarajevo. The runway was long enough to handle C-130s orlarger transport aircraft. However, Visoko was within VRS artillery range. The airfield was managed in1995 by Hasan’s father, Halid Cengic; many arms were said to have been brought via Visoko, and theflights would not be observed by NATO and UNPROFOR. This was because the arms flights wouldalways arrive in Visoko when there were no NATO AWACS aircraft in the air, or only AWACS with apurely American crew. 775These assertions are incorrect, however. UNPROFOR certainly did report on flights to Visoko.For instance, in March 1995, Force Commander Janvier reported to Kofi Annan that Visoko was inuse. 776 Bosnian intelligence officers, incidentally, dispute that Visoko was important for arms supplies;according to them, arms arrived via convoys from Croatia, and not via Visoko. The airfield wasallegedly never finished and the meteorological conditions were said to be too poor; the reason for itsexistence was simply that the SDA wanted to build an airfield no matter what. 777Hasan Cengic also dominated the Bosnian military intelligence services, which were closelyinvolved in the arms supplies. In 1995 there were two military intelligence and security services, theVOS and Vojna KOS. The Vojna KOS was the counterespionage service of the Ministry of Defence,which collaborated closely with the military police. In December 1996, the former Chief of Staff of theABiH, Safet Halilovic, was head of the Vojna KOS. The Vojna Obavjestajna Sluzba (VOS) was theintelligence service of the ABiH. This was led by Brigadier Mustafa Hajrulahovic, alias Talijan (theItalian). He had worked for a long time for the pre war Yugoslav secret service, the KOS, and had beenstationed in Italy. The most important task of the VOS in other countries was to arrange logistics forthe ABiH. The service occupied itself with arms deals and raising funds. This was carried out viaumbrella firms and Islamic humanitarian organizations. The Cengic family was involved in many ofthese logistics activities: for instance, the arms imports from Iran ran mainly via the Cengic family’slogistics network. Iran supported the ABiH not only with arms, but also with advisers, though therewere never very many of them. In addition, the ABiH obtained its arms via the VOS from Austria,Germany, Turkey, Argentina and Czechoslovakia. 778 British services also came into the possession ofevidence that Iran supplied military equipment and arms directly to the ABiH. The supplies consistedof anti-tank weapons of the Red Arrow type (a Chinese variant of the Russian AT-3 Sagger) anddetonators for artillery and mortar ammunition. 779774 Christine Spolar, ‘US-Bosnian Dispute Delays Major Arms Delivery’, Washington Post, 27/10/96.775 Charlotte Eagar, ‘Invisible US Army defeats Serbs’, The Observer, 05/11/95.776 UNGE, UNPROFOR, Box 139. Janvier to Annan, Z-350, 02/03/95. Further: Confidential collection (4), G-2 Air Deskto COS, Visoko Airfield, 28/06/95.777 Confidential interview (5).778 Bulatovic, General Mladic, p. 192.779 Confidential information (31).