of all ethnicities suspected of collaboration with the Partisans, intimidating others to discourage Partisan support. A suspect's family was often tortured for collaboration with Partisans. In the summer of 1942, Montenegrin Chetniks, under the command of Blažo Đukanović, Bajo Stanišić and Pavle Đurišić (with the approval of Mihailović), cooperated fully with Italian forces during the period of anti-Partisan terror and reprisals against suspected collaborators, across large areas of occupied-Montenegro. As the Italian commanders were eager to reduce the commitment of their own forces, local Chetniks were given the authority to create what was essentially a parallel occupation and police force to supervise areas of the protectorate, independent of Italian control. To this end, Chetnik forces began a policy of "punishing" any civilian collaboration with Partisan forces. Chetniks set up detention camps to detain suspected Partisan supporters and in June, Stanišić gave orders to shoot any peasants found guilty of supplying Partisans with food. In Nikšić, captured Partisans and their sympathisers were handed over to the Italians, where they were immediately executed. In late December 1943, Draža Mihailović ordered an anti-communist operation south of Belgrade. Colonel Jevrem Simić (general inspector of the Chetnik Detachments) and Nikola Kalabić (commander of the Chetnik Hill Guard Corps) were the main coordinators. After they signed a ceasefire-and-cooperation agreement with the Nazis in the region on 26 November 1943, Chetniks brought their units and began to clear the area. Mihailović's operation lasted from 20 to 21 December 1943. Members of the Smederevo Corps under the command of Živan Lazović killed 72 civilians, nine of whom were children from nine months to 12 years old. This became known as the Vranić Massacre. After the operation, Mihailović reported: "Terrible inactivity of the elders of Aval Corps. Živan Lazović must come so he could show what could be done." In January 1943, under Komarčević's command, Chetniks killed 72 Partisan supporters in Posavina Srez. In December, Chetnik commander Živan Lazović killed 15 peasant Partisan supporters. That month, Chetniks under the command of Nikola Kalabić killed 21 peasants in Kopljare and, under the command of Vuk Kalaitović, shot 18 Partisan supporters in the town of Sjenica. Chetniks under the command of Sveto Bogičević entered Sepci, where they captured Sava Sremečević, Konstantin Vojinović, Ilija Radojević and Ilija Jovanović, in August 1944. After torturing them in an attempt to extract a confession of collaboration with Partisans, they killed all four. Crimes against Jews