In December 1941 he visited the NDH Minister of the Armed Forces, Marshal Slavko Kvaternik and requested permission to create a Croatian Home Guard (Domobran) formation that would consist of Bosnian Muslims from the Tuzla area.

Major Hadžiefendić restored discipline and order with a gun in his hand and the Home Guards returned to the fight, but he quickly realized that he could secure greater resolve from arming local people.

He surmised that these Croat conscripts did not have much motivation to fight so far from their homes and that the armed forces of the NDH were not able to provide effective protection of the Bosnian Muslim population from Chetnik attacks and massacres.

This was formally established two days later and initially consisted of a company deployed in the villages east of Tuzla and around Živinice, which were then directly threatened by Chetnik attacks.

He was also involved in recruiting local Muslim men into the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian).

In March 1943, SS Standartenführer Karl von Krempler travelled to Tuzla in central Bosnia and met with Hadžiefendić, and on 28 March Hadžiefendić escorted von Krempler to Sarajevo where he introduced him to the leader of the Islamic clergy in all Bosnia, reis-ul-ulema Hafiz Muhamed Pandža, and other leading Bosnian Muslim politicians not involved with the Ustaše.