Bosnia Herzegovina Military Assaults

Invading its breakaway Krajina region in an all-out assault, Croatia triggered international protest and stiff resistance from rebel Serbs on Friday in what is shaping up to be the biggest land battle in Europe since World War II. The Croats, attacking with tanks and mechanized vehicles behind artillery barrages, reported major gains. The Serbs, however, denied them. The United Nations reported "cautious ground advances" but said it did not have enough information to confirm the Croatian claims.

Several rocket-propelled grenades were fired at two houses occupied by NATO-led peacekeeping troops in the Serbian part of Bosnia early Wednesday but there were no casualties, the peacekeepers said. Dave Scanlon, spokesman for the Stabilization Force, or SFOR, said the 2 a.m. attack in the northeastern town of Zvornik on the border with Yugoslavia was "very serious." About half a dozen grenades were fired at the two houses, he said. The attack occurred in a sector patrolled by U.S.

Bosnian government troops swept through the northwestern town of Velika Kladusa on Sunday, crushing the revolt of Muslim renegade Fikret Abdic and apparently driving him into exile. The victory after nearly a year of Muslim-against-Muslim fighting in what is known as the Bihac pocket concludes a divisive and debilitating internal conflict and could signify a turning point in the fortunes of the Bosnian army.

Wailing air-raid sirens and airborne confrontations between NATO and Yugoslav forces have spilled over into northeastern Bosnia, resurrecting the shrill noises of war after three years of peace and stirring fears among U.S. peacekeepers that they are handy targets for retaliation. NATO pilots enforcing a "no-fly" zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina have swiftly shot down or chased away intruding Yugoslav aircraft, but U.S.

As Bosnian Serb police stood by, fellow Serbs on Thursday attacked a U.N. police truck and journalists who were accompanying Muslims visiting former homes and relatives' graves. Two shots were fired by one Serb, but no one was hit in this town about 50 miles north of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The four attackers smashed a Bosnian television camera and stomped on an Associated Press camera and three lenses.

As the clock ticked toward the deadline for halting the siege of Sarajevo, residents of this withered capital crept out from their cellars into snowy silence and dared believe 22 months of bombardment might truly have come to an end.

Angered by Western indifference to the biggest Serb rebel offensive in months, the Muslim-led government refused Thursday to discuss a proposed U.N. cease-fire with its enemies while they continued attacking the threatened eastern enclave of Gorazde. But the Bosnian government did announce a 24-hour unilateral cease-fire as a "goodwill gesture," according to local media. U.N. sources cautioned that a lasting truce would only come out of negotiations between the two sides' military leaders.

The Clinton Administration said Thursday that it would not be willing to use U.S. air power to stop Serbian attacks on Gorazde before U.N. peacekeeping troops reach that city in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But officials suggested that some U.N. forces might arrive there soon.

The commander of U.N. troops in Sarajevo accused Bosnian forces Wednesday of attacking a U.N. convoy and said it was part of a plan to discredit the United Nations. In Paris, French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas called the assault, which killed two French soldiers and wounded five, "a veritable act of war against members of a humanitarian operation." "The light was clear enough to see the U.N. insignia," U.N. Brig. Gen. Hussein Aly Abdulrazek said. "These irresponsible elements . . .

Serbian gunners pounded the eastern Muslim enclave of Gorazde and stepped up shelling of Sarajevo on Monday as the commander of U.N. peacekeepers arrived here in the capital hoping to arrange a truce. Fighting between Bosnian Croats and Muslim-led government forces also moved closer to Sarajevo, with the onetime allies battling along the road to Kiseljak west of the capital. "This is the first time we've seen this kind of shelling concentrated in this area," said Cmdr.

As Bosnian Serb police stood by, fellow Serbs on Thursday attacked a U.N. police truck and journalists who were accompanying Muslims visiting former homes and relatives' graves. Two shots were fired by one Serb, but no one was hit in this town about 50 miles north of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The four attackers smashed a Bosnian television camera and stomped on an Associated Press camera and three lenses.

Invading its breakaway Krajina region in an all-out assault, Croatia triggered international protest and stiff resistance from rebel Serbs on Friday in what is shaping up to be the biggest land battle in Europe since World War II. The Croats, attacking with tanks and mechanized vehicles behind artillery barrages, reported major gains. The Serbs, however, denied them. The United Nations reported "cautious ground advances" but said it did not have enough information to confirm the Croatian claims.

A powerful Croatian army force seized key crossroads towns from rebel Serbs on Friday in cross-border fighting that the United Nations and NATO experts warned could ignite a wider war in the Balkans. The Croats, who went into Bosnia-Herzegovina earlier this week, captured the Bosnian town of Bosansko Grahovo.

Nine people, including four children who had ventured outdoors to play, were killed Sunday in mortar and sniper attacks on a city desperate to free itself from 38 months of Bosnian Serb siege. Six people were killed when a shell slammed into a downtown neighborhood near the central market, which had been crowded earlier in the day with shoppers enjoying a respite from fighting and rainstorms. Among the dead there were three children, including two little girls in summer dresses.

A recent Bosnian Serb artillery attack left 73 dead in Tuzla, an industrial city in Bosnia that the United Nations had designated a safe haven. Most of the dead were teenagers or persons in their 20s, and "many lie in a new cemetery above the town," reporter Alex Thompson said in a story from Independent Television News that aired Monday on PBS' "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour."

A U.S. relief plane was hit by Serb gunfire Saturday, and all aid flights to Sarajevo were canceled. The gunfire underscored the mounting tensions between U.N. peacekeepers and Bosnia's warring sides, which have resumed fighting in recent weeks despite an ostensible cease-fire. The 10 bullets that hit the C-130 transport plane during takeoff came from rebel Serb positions northwest of the airport, a U.N. spokesman said. The plane's hydraulic system was damaged and the cockpit windshield hit, U.

As Serbian shells slammed into Bosnian cities and Croatian troops pressed an assault on U.N.-protected territory, leaders of the warring factions in former Yugoslav republics assured Western mediators Saturday of their heartfelt commitment to peace. The escalating bloodshed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia has highlighted a flaw in the rationale of U.N.

Serbs blocked a U.N. aid convoy with a log barricade Saturday from reaching a besieged Muslim town where scores are reportedly dying from cold and hunger, relief officials said. Fighting between Bosnian government forces and Bosnian Serb rebels, meanwhile, spilled over into Serbia, one of two republics left in what remains of Yugoslavia.

In a pessimistic assessment of the Bosnian conflict, Defense Secretary William J. Perry said Sunday that heavily armed Serbian rebels advancing on the teetering city of Bihac are unstoppable and that further NATO air strikes would be useless. Perry's comments came as Serbian gunmen continued to shell and burn their way across the 32-square-mile "safe area" of Bihac, prompting beleaguered U.N. peacekeeping troops to begin moves toward withdrawal from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Bosnian government troops swept through the northwestern town of Velika Kladusa on Sunday, crushing the revolt of Muslim renegade Fikret Abdic and apparently driving him into exile. The victory after nearly a year of Muslim-against-Muslim fighting in what is known as the Bihac pocket concludes a divisive and debilitating internal conflict and could signify a turning point in the fortunes of the Bosnian army.