Operation Stinger

Operation Stinger
Part of the Croatian War of Independence
Glina Struga Location of Glina and Struga in Croatia
Date 26–27 July 1991 Location Banovina, Croatia Result SAO Krajina victory
Belligerents
SAO Krajina	Croatia
Commanders and leaders
Dragan Vasiljković Bogdan Vajagić	unknown
Casualties and losses
2 killed 1 wounded (Dragan Vasiljkovic claim)	14–39 killed
22 civilians killed

Operation Stinger (Croatian: Operacija Žalac; Serbian: Operacija Žaoka) was an offensive undertaken by the forces of the SAO Krajina, an unrecognized Croatian Serb region opposing the Republic of Croatia, against positions held by the Croatian police in the region of Banovina on 26–27 July 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence. It was primarily aimed at police stations in Glina and Kozibrod, as well as police-held positions in a string of villages between the town of Dvor and Kozibrod. In addition to Glina and Kozibrod, heavy fighting took place in the village of Struga, north of Dvor, where Croatian Serb forces employed a human shield consisting of Croat civilians taken from their homes in Struga and the nearby village of Zamlača.

The Croatian Serb rebels captured the police station in Glina, but were stopped in Struga before the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) arrived there to create a buffer zone and, according to the JNA, assist the Croatian police to evacuate. On 29 July, as the non-Serb civilian population left Kozibrod and the villages to the south of it, the police station in Kozibrod was evacuated as well. The fighting resulted the bulk of the region being transferred to Croatian Serb and JNA control.

In the aftermath of the fighting, a number of Croatian Serb troops threatened the regional commander in Dvor, blaming him for the deaths of members of their unit in the fighting. Afterwards, they killed several Croat civilians who were undergoing treatment at the Dvor medical centre. Croatian authorities filed war crime charges against Dragan Vasiljković, specifically for leading the attack in Glina which resulted in civilian deaths, as well as injuring and killing prisoners of war. Vasiljković was arrested in Australia in 2006, and was extradited to Croatia on 8 July 2015 after losing his thirteenth appeal and sentenced to 15 years in prison on 26 September 2017 by the County Court in the city of Split.^[1] He was released from prison in March 2020.