Battle of Kusonje
Part of the Croatian War of Independence / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Battle of Kusonje?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The Battle of Kusonje was a two-day clash fought in the village of Kusonje near the town of Pakrac on 8–9 September 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence. The battle was initiated when a platoon of the Croatian National Guard (Croatian: Zbor narodne garde – ZNG) was ambushed by Croatian Serb forces while conducting a reconnaissance patrol. The ZNG deployed reinforcements to extract the ambushed platoon, but failed to reach them. The surviving members of the platoon held out until they ran out of ammunition and surrendered only to be killed by their captors and buried in a mass grave.
Battle of Kusonje | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Croatian War of Independence | |||||||
Members of the Croatian Army and Police in the part of Pakrac called Pilana during an attempt to extract comrades from an ambush in Kusonje. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Croatia |
SAO Western Slavonia Support by: Yugoslavia | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Stjepan Ivanić † | Nikola Uzelac | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Company "A" 1st Battalion of the 105th Brigade[1] Omega SPU |
Yugoslav People's Army SAO Krajina Infantry Battalion | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
All 20 soldiers killed (including 7 executed after the battle) | Dozens dead and wounded |
The fate of the reconnaissance platoon was not known to Croatian authorities for months, adding fuel to an already volatile atmosphere in the city of Bjelovar, where the ambushed unit was originally based. This tension erupted a week later with the blockade and capture of the Yugoslav People's Army (Serbian: Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – JNA) barracks in Bjelovar.
During a commemoration service held two years later, a landmine exploded killing three and wounding others. The Croatian authorities declared the incident to be a terrorist attack, and it contributed to Croatian government's decision to launch Operation Medak Pocket the next day.