On 10 January 1993, just before the outbreak of hostilities in Gornji Vakuf, the HVO commander Luka Šekerija, sent a "Military – Top Secret" request to Colonel Blaškić and Dario Kordić for rounds of mortar shells available at the ammunition factory in Vitez. Fighting then broke out in Gornji Vakuf on 11 January 1993, sparked by a bomb which had been placed by Croats in a Bosniak-owned hotel that had been used as a military headquarters. A general outbreak of fighting followed and there was heavy shelling of the town that night by Croat artillery.