Topic: Bosnia sends new rotation of ordnance experts to Iraq

Team Infidel

Media: The Associated Press
Byline: n/a
Date: 24 October 2006

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - A fourth team of Bosnian ordnance experts
left for Iraq on Tuesday to replace soldiers serving with the U.S.-led force
there.

The 36 soldiers _ including three teams of 10 officers and a command team of
six _ were to replace the Bosnian contingent that had been in Iraq since
June.

They were being deployed in the West Zone near Fallujah, alongside U.S.
troops, to identify and destroy unexploded ordnance, but would not be
involved in demining. They would be replaced by another Bosnian team in six
months

They contingent includes soldiers from all three Bosnian ethnic groups _
Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs.

The opposition and human rights groups have criticized Bosnia's deployment
of troops to Iraq, saying it was "inappropriate" given the fact that
international peacekeepers were still serving in Bosnia.

A 7,500-strong European force monitors the peace agreement that ended the
1992-95 Bosnian war and left the country divided into a Bosnian Serb
ministate and a Bosniak-Croat federation.

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