31 YEARS SINCE NATO BOMBING OF KRALJICA TOWER

PETROVO, SEPTEMBER 7 /SRNA/ – Today marks 31 years since NATO aircraft destroyed the Kraljica telecommunications tower on Mount Ozren, killing five communications personnel of the Republika Srpska Army.

On September 7, 1995, those killed were Slobodan Milotić from Kaluđerica, Mirko Trivunović from Osinja, Dragan Savanović from Doboj, Sveto Kaišarević from Kožuhe, and Željko Lukić from Čečava near Teslić. Zoran Blagojević, former Chief of Staff of the Fourth Ozren Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, told SRNA that the destruction of the telecommunications tower at Kraljica by NATO aircraft was a prerequisite for the launch, three days later, of the Muslim offensive against Vozuća and the entire Ozren area, as well as for the completion of the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the Zenica region that had begun in 1992. He explained that by destroying the telecommunications tower, NATO forces disabled the communications system used by the Serb defenders, while at the same time providing the artillery units of the so-called Army of BiH with coordinates showing the movements and positions of the Republika Srpska Army. According to the testimony of Mirko Aleksić, the first NATO bomber attack on Kraljica took place on August 29. Six missiles were fired, none of which hit the tower. In the second criminal attack on September 7, 1995, the facility was hit by three missiles and completely destroyed. “The NATO attack on the tower at Kraljica took place at around 5:20 p.m. Six comrades were inside the facility, one of whom was fortunate enough to survive, along with three others who were outside the building,” recalled Aleksić, one of the survivors.