At dusk on the evening of September 13, 1995, an unusual religious service was held in the chapel of the UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) base at Divilji Barracks, in Split, Croatia. Operation Deliberate Force, the UN’s belated response to the siege of Sarajevo and the atrocities being committed by Serb forces in Bosnia, was two days old.
Gathered in the chapel were a dozen men and women from as many nations; the Catholic priest now blessing them had heard their confessions and was now saying Mass for the group who, to any outsider, might have looked like Special Forces operatives or private security contractors. They had no definitive uniform, other than that they all wore black and crucifixes hung around their necks. Piled by the door were their UN-issue blue helmets and their weapons: automatic shotguns and high-powered assault rifles, all low-velocity types. Clearly, whatever ammunition they fired was intended to stay in the target. Each gun carried a torch, at first glance apparently white light or infrared, but all actually ultra-violet.
Closer inspection would also have revealed that the body armor they wore was acid-etched with Biblical inscriptions in Latin and Serbo-Croat, and religious iconography was subtly worked into the metal and ceramics. Their weapons also held unusual ammunition. The shotgun rounds fired flechettes of consecrated, carbonized wood or ball-bearings of silver, also blessed. The assault rifles, all 7.62mm caliber, used silver or carbon graphite slugs converted to illegal dum-dums.
Just after midnight, the team of the innocuously named First Special Action Unit climbed aboard two British Army Lynx helicopters, part of the Heli Ops flight based at Split. It could have been carrying an SAS unit out on a night insertion, and was a pretty regular sight at Split. The blue UN helmets were still in the chapel when the Lynx took off and headed off into the dark. Air attacks were under way across Bosnia, and the Lynx flight was just two aircraft amongst dozens on the move that night.
They headed towards the Dinaric Alps that ran next to the Adriatic Sea, along the Croatian coast. Flying just above the treetops, the Lynx flight was heading towards a hidden cave deep within the rugged mountain chain.
The 1st SAU’s (nicknamed “saw”) mission had begun the week before – the actual dates and times remain largely classified. The unit had inserted itself into the UNPROFOR base with ease. Many nations had contingents at the base and new faces came and went with monotonous frequency. There was a veritable bazar of uniform types. It was easy for those on missions of questionable veracity to come and go. The SAU’s mission was one known to very few select members of the UN mission and NATO high command, and a few government officials. The unit received the most classified intelligence but also had access to the very latest reconnaissance imagery from across the war-torn region. But it also drew information from all manner of sources. The unit looked at raw news footage and reports from journalists throughout the war zone, from Special Forces patrols, UN inspectors and aerial reconnaissance interpretation units. They even interviewed prisoners of war and defectors. And if anyone asked why – and they rarely did – they were gathering evidence for war crimes tribunals.
This shot of unmarked Black Hawk helicopters is thought to be the only photographic evidence of SAU activity in Bosnia. (US Department of Defense)
But their real target was something far more deadly, the Strigoi.
Centuries of hunters had made the Strigoi rare in their home territories. However, the breakup of Yugoslavia changed that. As Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia fractured and the specter of ethnic cleansing fell upon the region, reports began to emerge of renewed activity by the Strigoi. No longer capable of lording it over terrified peasantry, their castles had long since fallen to ruin and their mausoleums had been destroyed by terrified locals. Their lairs remained undetected, but as the situation in the Balkans degenerated, rumors began to circulate that not all of the killing could be attributed to the work of frenzied paramilitaries or genocidal militias killing unfortunate Muslims. It seems the Strigoi initially tried to cover up their activities by burning their victims, but UN pathologists exhuming a grave in northern Bosnia found the dead to be exsanguinated. The report was initially attributed to some kind of ritualistic behavior by a guerrilla unit and largely ignored, but it piqued the interest of regional vampire hunters. Word spread throughout the hunting community and officials at the UN began investigating in earnest.
As the situation around Sarajevo worsened in the summer of 1995, the first real signs of Strigoi activity appeared (and were subsequently classified and obfuscated). Mass killings hinted that the vampires, after decades – even centuries – of isolation and near-extinction, and with so much real killing going on to hide their own appetites, found themselves like foxes in a hencoop. They killed without restraint. A UN vehicle patrol near Tuzla in August 1995 found a busload of women and children killed. There was no attempt to hide the bodies, which had clearly been exsanguinated. There was nothing organized in the butchery, nothing to suggest an execution. It was enough to bring real fear to the locals, while the UN troops (from Holland) were immediately transferred out of the region to stop any rumors spreading. UN special pathologists arrived on the scene the following night and treated the bodies of the dead (using decapitation and cardiac puncture), which were then cremated.
The Strigoi’s lack of finesse eventually gave them away. A shepherd boy had discovered what appeared to be a new cave system high in the Dinaric Alps. He also reported seeing large, red-furred bats. A UNESCO science team, ignoring the situation in the region, decided to investigate, hoping the boy might have discovered caves similar to the Movile system in Romania, with its unique groundwater ecosystem.
A photographic reconstruction of one of the Strigoi encountered by SAU agents during their mission of September 13, 1995.
Two days after arriving at the caves, and after some exciting initial finds, the team reported seeing a beautiful, red-haired woman watching them from the cave. That night, the boy guide vanished. By the following day, contact with the team had ceased. The general conclusion was that they had been kidnapped, or worse.
In Split, the SAU followed the reports with interest. Under the guise of investigating the disappearance, the SAU launched their mission of September 13.
After rappelling into the ravine from the helicopters, the team used night-vision goggles (NVGs) to negotiate their way to the cave entrance. There was a strong smell of ammonia. Prepared for such an eventuality, they put on gas masks and entered the cave.
Deep inside, they discovered a massive bat colony. The conditions could only be described as hellish. Huge dunes of guano (which rained down constantly from the roosting bats in the cave roof) were covered in a seething mass of cockroaches and other bugs. The smell was appalling and the constant flittering of the bats cluttered the NVGs, drawing light from the bioluminescence emanating from the rotting dung.
Struggling up the guano dunes and further into the caves, the SAU had their first inclination of something amiss when one of the team spotted a large, red-furred bat overhead. When it was hit by a beam of UV torchlight, it emitted an incredibly high-pitched scream.
Shortly after, the SAU was attacked.
Corroborated reports tell us what happened in those caves. Harpy-like Strigoaică (female Strogoi) descended out of nowhere, and in seconds at least two SAU members were dead. The roar of gunfire echoing around the caves stirred up the bats, who took to the air in a whirlwind of wings. Chaos ensued and the team were forced to retire, but not before at least two Strigoaică were hit by fire. One lay screaming and flapping, her wing shredded by a flechette round. One of the team shot her in the chest and throat with silver shotgun rounds. A second was blasted out of the air by a shot to the chest, which vaporized under a storm of wooden darts.
In disarray, the team made it out of the cave, but five were dead and three were injured – one by friendly fire, hit in the shoulder by silver shotgun pellets. The others were scratched but none bitten.
Evacuated by the helicopters, the survivors called down fire from an orbiting AC-130H Spectre gunship operating with the 16th Special Operations Group out of Brindisi. Cannon fire collapsed the entrance of the cave but it remains unknown if any of the Strigoi escaped. To be certain that the entrance remained properly sealed, two Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from the guided-missile cruiser, the USS Normandy, into the cave entrance, their huge 1,000lb warheads bringing the cave and surrounding ravine crashing down.
The hunt was now on for any Strigoi who may have fled the battle, while the SAU retired to lick its wounds.
The USS Normandy, which fired the final shots (a pair of Tomahawk cruise missiles) during the September 13, 1995 mission. (US Department of Defense)