Operation Medak Pocket (, ), officially called by Croatians Operation Pocket-93 (Operacija Džep-93) was a military operation undertaken by the Croatian Army between 9 – 17 September 1993, in which a salient reaching the south suburbs of Gospić, in the south-central Lika region of Croatia then under the control of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, was attacked by Croatian forces. The pocket was named after the village of Medak.
The Croatian offensive temporarily succeeded in expelling rebel Serb forces from the pocket after several days of fighting. However, the operation ended in controversy due to a confrontation between the Croatian Army and United Nations peacekeepers as well as accusations of serious Croatian war crimes against local Serb civilians. Although the outcome of the battle against the Serbs was a tactical victory for the Croatians, it became a serious political liability for the Croatian government and international political pressure forced a withdrawal to the previous ceasefire lines. The area was eventually secured by UN troops.
According to UN and Canadian sources, UNPROFOR personnel and Croatian troops exchanged heavy fire, eventually resulting in the Canadian troops driving off a Croatian assault. In Canada, the battle was considered to be one of the most severe battles fought by the Canadian Forces since the Korean War.
Background
Much of the interior of the Lika region of southern Croatia was captured by the forces of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK) and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) during 1991. In Lika, almost all of the Croatian population in the Serb-held area was killed, expelled or forced to seek refuge in government-held areas, while the Serbs continued shelling of the Croatian city of Gospić throughout the year from their positions, killing hundreds of civilians. A ceasefire was agreed in the January 1992 Sarajevo Agreement and a United Nations peacekeeping force UNPROFOR was installed to police the armistice lines and act as negotiators, aid-workers, and combat soldiers.
Despite this, sporadic sniping and shelling continued to take place between the two sides. Gospić, which was close to the front lines, was repeatedly subjected to shellfire from the Serbian Army of Krajina (SVK). The town was of great importance in securing lines of communication between Zagreb, Dalmatia and Rijeka. Much of the shelling took place from the Serb-controlled Medak Pocket, an area of high ground near Medak, Croatia approximately four to five kilometres wide and five to six kilometres long which consisted of the localities of Divoselo, Čitluk and part of Počitelj plus numerous small hamlets. The pocket was primarily a rural area with a combination of forest and open fields. It was fairly lightly inhabited before the attack, with about 400 Serb civilians residing in the area and was held by units of the SVK's 15th Lika Corps.
The pocket adjoined Sector South, one of the four United Nations Protected Areas (UNPAs) in Croatia. It was not actually in the UNPA but lay just outside in a so-called "pink zone"—RSK held territory outside the UNPAs, patrolled by UNPROFOR peacekeepers. Prior to the Medak Pocket offensive, Croatian government forces had launched several relatively small-scale attacks to retake rebel Serb-held territory in "pink zones" in the Miljevci plateau incident in June 1992 and the area of the Maslenica bridge in northern Dalmatia in January 1993—the Operation Maslenica. It has been alleged that the timing of the Maslenica and Medak offensives was owed to the political imperatives of Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, who was facing political difficulties following Croatia's intervention in the war in Bosnia.
During Croatian chief of staff Janko Bobetko's visit to Gospić area, he and his team concluded that the situation on that area of the front was unsatisfactory. It was especially critical on Velebit mountain which was held by the members of Special police of the Croatian Ministry of Interior. In case that these positions become overrun, the city of Gospić would become semi-surrounded. Croatian lines were also harassed by constant intrusions of smaller recon-sabotage groups that operated behind enemy lines. On 4 September one such group attacked Croatian positions on Velebit which resulted in two Croatian policemen being killed.