Special Police Units (Serbia)

The Special Police Units or Police Special Units (Serbian: Posebne jedinice policije, PJP) was a special police force unit of Serbia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP).^[1] It had several detachments and was part of the sector of the State Security Directorate.^[2] It was disbanded on 28 June 2001 when it was replaced by the re-establishment of the Gendarmery.^[3]

Special Police Units Посебне јединице полиције
Abbreviation	PJP
Agency overview
Formed	1994; 31 years ago (1994)
Dissolved	28 June 2001; 24 years ago (2001-06-28)
Superseding agency	Gendarmery
Employees	5,000 (1999)
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction	Serbia
Governing body	Ministry of Internal Affairs
Operational structure
Headquarters	Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Užice, Niš
Agency executive	Obrad Stevanović, Commander

Between 1994 and 1996 it was commanded by Obrad Stevanović.^[4] During the Kosovo War (1998–99), the force had an estimated 5,000^[5][6] or 7,000 men.^[6] The PJP detachments were based at Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Užice, Niš and Priština.^[5] It is believed that it was commanded by Obrad Stevanović, now the head of police.^[6] Its elite unit was the "Lightning" (Munje) unit, according to M. McAllester partly made up of "some of Yugoslavia's most dangerous criminals".^[7] Among other special units active in the war was the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ), a separate part of the MUP.^[8]