Operation Deliberate Force: NATO's 1995 Air Campaign That Ended the Bosnian War

Launched on August 30, 1995, NATO's Operation Deliberate Force targeted Bosnian Serb military positions after the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre and the August 28, 1995 Sarajevo Markale market shelling, which killed 43 people and wounded 84. Between August 30 and September 20, NATO airmen flew 3,515 sorties and dropped 1,026 bombs, while the Anglo-French-Dutch Rapid Reaction Force fired more than 600 shells from Mount Igman at Serb positions around Sarajevo. Commanded by Admiral Leighton W. Smith Jr., the campaign followed the no-fly zone Operation Deny Flight and was pushed by President Bill Clinton, US Envoy Richard Holbrooke, French President Jacques Chirac and NATO secretary general Willy Claes, who sought to remove the dual-key approval mechanism. A French Mirage 2000N was shot down by a VRS anti-air launcher on the first day. Bosnian Serb losses in personnel were limited, but equipment losses and the threat of an Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina advance on Banja Luka forced General Ratko Mladić and leader Radovan Karadžić to accept a ceasefire. Negotiations at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, from November 1 to 21 produced the Dayton Accords, signed by Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman, splitting Bosnia into the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska. The Implementation Force (IFOR) replaced UNPROFOR.