Bosnia and Herzegovina is located on the Balkan Peninsula in southeast Europe. Its population of approximately 4 million consists primarily of three major ethnic and religious groups: Bosniak Muslims (48%), Serb Orthodox (34%), and Croat Catholics (15%).

Bosnia was ruled by the Ottomans for four centuries (1463–1878), then becoming part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1878–1914). After World War II (1939–1945) Bosnia became a component of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the communist leader Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980). The rise to power of the nationalist Serb Slobodan Milosevic (b. 1941) in 1986 was a key factor leading to ethnic strife and the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. After the secession of Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnia held a referendum and declared its independence on April 5, 1992. However, Bosnian Serb leaders, desiring union with neighboring Serbia to create an ethnically pure territory, formed paramilitary groups to partition Bosnia and conducted what became known as ethnic...