Founded in 1992 from remnants of the old Communist Yugoslav People's Army and made up entirely of officers and recruits born on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, mostly of Serb Orthodox cadre but also including some some Muslims sympathetic to the Serb's cause, mostly from the area of Teslić and Derventa (major Ismet Đuherić and 'Meša Selimović' brigade) in the north of the country.
The army counted some 80,000 personnel during the Bosnian Civil War.
The military leader of BSA was Ratko Mladic, and its political leader was Radovan Karadzic, both indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes committed in the Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995.