National Support Element

Main entrance to the Nordic Support Group HQ in Camp Anneli, Pécs, Hungary

Danish NSE vehicles parked at Camp Anneli

National Support Elements (NSE) were part of the IFOR, and later the SFOR NATO forces, which was deployed in former Yugoslavia in 1996 and later. The NSE's were primarily deployed in Hungary because of the local stability, good infrastructure, access to local supply ordering and relatively short distance to the battalions in Bosnia.

Each of the contributing countries deployed its own NSE under the common name of Nordic Support Group (NSG), which were situated at the same location in Pécs, Hungary for the participating countries. A similar American unit were situated in Kaposvár some 40 km from Pécs, as well as a German in Split in southern Croatia, at the coast.

Each NSE had the responsibility of relaying supplies, money, ammunition, mail and food to the respective national IFOR units deployed in Croatia and Bosnia, as well as personnel transportation between Budapest and Croatia/Bosnia. Occasionally, small units were sent to both Croatia and Bosnia to perform different support tasks from there, primarily logistics operations from Slavonski Brod at the Sava river between Croatia and Bosnia.

The Nordic Support Group consisted of units from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Poland.

The NSE has become a commonly used unit, thus it has also been deployed in Macedonia as part of the Kosovo Force mission.