 Bihać was seen as a strategic area by the international community.It was thought that its capture by Serb forces would intensify the war, widening the division between the United States on one side and France and the United Kingdom on the other (advocating different approaches to the area's preservation), and feared that Bihać would become the worst humanitarian disaster of the war.Furthermore, denying Bihać to the Serbs was strategically important to Croatia.