Once a year, on August 5, the small sleepy town of Knin in Northern Dalmatia becomes the heart of Croatia'spolitical life. The country's political and military elite gather under the flag on the castle ruins above the town, and there are patriotic speeches with pathos galore.

It's the "Day of Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving" and the "Day of Croatian Defenders," commemorating the military operation "Oluja" (Storm) carried out from August 4 to 7, 1995.

The raising of the oversized flag above Knin Fortress remains to this day a symbol of Croatian troops victory over Serbia during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. At that time, the Croatian army and police units recaptured the entire Krajina region on the border with Bosnia in a large-scale offensive within 85 hours — thus capturing the largest part of the third of Croatia's territory that had been occupied by Serbs since 1991.

Operation Storm also brought about a military turning point in the neighboring war in Bosnia and Herzegovina: In a coordinated action by Croatian and Bosnian-Herzegovinian armies — with limited NATO air support — the long-standing Serbian siege of the western Bosnian city of Bihac was broken and all of Western Bosnia was recaptured. Shortly afterwards, Croatian-Bosnian forces also brought other parts of Bosnia under their control. Serbian-controlled territory shrank from 70% to........

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