Ahmet S. PINTUL, national hero

AHMET* PINTUL, son of SELIM, born on June 23, 1922, in Mostar. After primary school, he learned the trade of locksmithing and in late 1940, he found employment at the Coal Mine in Mostar. Even while attending trade school, he joined the youth revolutionary movement, and later, when he started working, he also joined the workers’ movement. Member of the League of Communist Youth (SKOJ) since 1940 and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) since 1942. Football player for FC “Velež”.

After the occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941, together with his comrade Mladen Balorda, he formed the Strike Youth Group in Mostar. In July 1941, they carried out an operation in the Italian barracks of the Northern Camp. Exactly at midnight, after the passage of an Italian patrol, the group entered the barracks through a window. In addition to the sleeping Italians, the underground fighters took weapons out of the barracks and threw 60 complete uniforms out of the warehouse window. They hid everything in Skočajića’s haystack and later took this equipment to the partisan detachment. And when the wounded Esad Fejić was captured, he and Mladen Balorda pretended to be Ustasha members and “took over” Fejić, issuing a “receipt of takeover” to the Ustasha guards, after which they escaped (later, Mostar doctors treated Esad in a hidden location).

In November 1941, Ahmet Pintul left Mostar and joined the Konjic Partisan Battalion, participating in numerous battles in the Konjic region. Later, this battalion became part of the Tenth Herzegovinian Strike Brigade. One of the first battles where he distinguished himself was in November 1941 when he, along with around 40 partisans, ambushed a larger Ustasha force. Then, during the attack on Žepče at the end of 1942, Ahmet, together with the bombers, was among the first to enter the town and eliminate the crew operating a heavy machine gun mounted on an armored vehicle. While fighting for Prozor in February 1943, Ahmet once again entered the town among the first, but he was severely wounded. His comrades carried him out under a hail of bullets.

After recovering, he became the deputy commander of the Second Company of the Mostar Battalion in the Tenth Herzegovinian Brigade. His battalion, together with two other partisan battalions, engaged in fierce battles against Chetniks and Italians in Porime. During the Battle of the Sutjeska in June 1943, the Mostar Battalion was heavily decimated. Ahmet Pintul led a bombing group during the battle, successfully destroying three machine gun nests. After the Battle of the Sutjeska, Ahmet and the remaining fighters went to Boračko Lake near Mostar.

After a month, with the arrival of new fighters from Mostar, this partisan group grew, and a new Mostar Partisan Battalion was formed from it, with Ahmet appointed as its commander. In April 1944, while marching towards Konjic, his battalion stopped to rest near the village of Džepi, in the hamlet of Moslište, under the Grad Hill. Ahmet then decided to set up an ambush on the hill for the Domobrans, who were expected to pass through there at dawn on their way to Konjic. However, instead of the Domobrans, a column of the 29th Herzegovinian Strike Division arrived at dawn, leading to a brief battle in which several fighters, including Ahmet Pintul, were killed.

On December 20, 1951, Ahmet was declared a People’s Hero by the Presidium of the National Assembly of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1965, his remains were transferred and buried at the Partisan Cemetery in Mostar. In the Rudnik neighborhood of Mostar, there used to be a bust of Ahmet Pintul, which was removed after the war in 1992-1995, and the pedestal was taken down in 2016. A war memorial for the 1992-1995 conflict was erected in that location.

EXCERPT FROM LITERATURE:

“On April 13, near the village of Džepa, an unfortunate collision occurred between the main forces of the Mostar Battalion and the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 12th Herzegovinian Brigade, which, following the political officer of the 29th Division, was returning from the Bosnian Krajina region. At dawn, a column of 32 fighters stumbled into an ambush set by the Mostar Battalion. Deceived by their similar uniforms, the battalion mistook them for the enemy. A fierce firefight ensued, lasting for about half an hour until mutual recognition took place and the fighting ceased. During the incident, three fighters from the Mostar Battalion were killed, including the People’s Hero Ahmed Pintul, the battalion commander, a worker from Mostar (…)”

*In the book “Spomenica Mostara 1941-1945,” he is recorded as Ahmed.