SFOR was established in
Security Council Resolution 1088 on 12 December 1996. It succeeded the much larger
Implementation Force (IFOR) which was deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina on 20 December 1995 with a one-year mandate. The commanders of the SFOR, who each served one-year terms, were General
William W. Crouch, General
Eric Shinseki, General
Montgomery Meigs, Lt. General
Ronald Adams, Lt. General
Michael Dodson, Lt. General
John B. Sylvester, Lt. General
William E. Ward, Major General
Virgil Packett and Brigadier General
Steven P. Schook. The NATO designations for the overall Bosnia-Herzegovina operation were successively
Operation Joint Guard and
Operation Joint Forge. SFOR was divided into three zones of operation: •
Mostar Multi-National Division (South) – Italian, French, German, Spanish •
Banja Luka Multi-National Division (South West) and MND(W) – American, British, Canadian, Czech, Dutch. The British code name for their activities in IFOR was Operation Resolute and SFOR was Operation Lodestar (to June 1998) and Operation Palatine (from June 1998). The Canadian mission was named Operation Palladium (1996 to 2004). •
Tuzla MND(N) – American, Turkish, Polish, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish. (Some units had troops stationed outside the assigned zone) The three AOs were known collectively as Multi-National Divisions until the end of 2002 where they were reduced in scope to Multi-National Brigades. SFOR operated under
peace enforcement, not
peacekeeping,
rules of engagement. For example, it was cleared, in 1997, to neutralise Serb radio-television facilities. During its mandate, SFOR arrested 29 individuals who were charged with
war crimes. Those arrested were transferred to the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the
Netherlands. U.S. service members serving in SFOR were awarded the
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal and the
NATO Medal. As time progressed, the numbers of troops allotted to SFOR declined. Troop levels were reduced to approximately 12,000 by the close of 2002, and to approximately 7,000 by the close of 2004. During NATO's
2004 Istanbul Summit the end of the SFOR mission was announced. It was replaced by the
European Union's EUFOR Althea, on 2 December 2004 at NATO HQ, Camp Butmir, Sarajevo, B-H. It was succeeded by the EU's
Operation Althea. Its functions were assumed by military units from the
European Union organized as European Union Forces (
EUFOR).
Air operations Several sequential air operations supported the stabilization efforts. •
Operation Deny Flight (April 1993 – December 1996) •
Operation Decisive Edge (December 1995 – December 1996) •
Operation Decisive Guard (December 1996 – June 1998) •
Operation Deliberate Forge (June 1998 – September 2004) ==Member forces==