The following newspaper report was published by
The Evening Independent on 13 May 1944.
15,000 Moslems Fight With Tito against Nazis
Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) Share Supplies and Equipment with Partisans
By JOE MORTON — Bari, Italy, May 8 1944 — Nearly 15,000 Moslems [Bosnian Muslim / Bosniaks] now are fighting in the ranks of the [anti-fascist] Yugoslavian Liberation army, a spokesman for the Partisan mission in Italy reported today.
Streaming into liberated territories from the occupied sections of Bosnia and Macedonia they have been placed in two all-Moslem brigades and in some smaller detachments assigned to the various corps of Marshal Tito’s armies.
Share Supplies
They share supplies and equipment on an equal basis with other Partisan outfits, and their ability to travel swiftly and lightly has made them invaluable to the guerilla warfare being waged in many sections of the Yugoslav hinterland.
The firms Moslem brigade was formed four months ago and it has particularly distinguished itself in the Velika Kladusha section of western Bosnia, the spokesman said.
One Muslim leader, Sulleyman Filipovic [Sulejman Filipovic], of Tuzla, Bosnia, holds the portfolio of minister of forests in the Partisan Provisional government, and another, Avdo Humo, son-in-law of a prominent member of the Royal Yugoslav government in exile, is serving as vice-president of the Bosnia Liberation committee.
A third, Nuriya Pozderac [Nurija Pozderac], a senator under the late King Alexander of Yugoslavia, was killed in June, 1943, while alongside the Partisans.
