Bosnia Herzegovina Revolts

The Islamic world, split by lingering wounds from the Gulf War and mounting tension in the Persian Gulf, is attempting to unite behind a major new push for military aid to the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina in what many officials see as a new testing ground for Islam and the West.

A Bosnian Serb army officer surrendered to a U.N. war crimes tribunal Wednesday to face charges of murder and persecution of Muslims while serving near the eastern town of Srebrenica in 1995. Lt. Col. Dragan Jokic turned himself in at the court's office in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka and was flown to the Netherlands, where he has been accused of four counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war during Bosnia-Herzegovina's 3 1/2-year war.

Rebel Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina finished capturing the strategic northern town of Bosanski Brod on Wednesday, giving them an unimpeded corridor to Serb-held territory in Croatia and most of the land they need to build a Greater Serbia from Yugoslavia's ruins. The conquest of Bosanski Brod and destruction of the last Bosnian bridge across the Sava River leave the few remaining Muslim and Croatian defenders of the city with no escape route or channel for reinforcements.

A Bosnian Serb who nicknamed himself "Adolf" and allegedly boasted of killing up to a score of Muslims each day before his morning coffee was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years in prison, the harshest punishment yet handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Thirty-one-year-old Goran Jelisic stood impassively before the United Nations tribunal in The Hague as the sentence against him was read.

Crouched in the bushes on the side of a road in southern Mogadishu, Dr. Broderick Franklin prepared to face death. * Months before, Franklin had left the comfort of his home in Washington, D.C., and headed for Somalia, where he treated the victims of war and famine, sometimes seeing up to 60 patients a day at Mogadishu's Digfer Hospital.

A Bosnian Serb who nicknamed himself "Adolf" and allegedly boasted of killing up to a score of Muslims each day before his morning coffee was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years in prison, the harshest punishment yet handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Thirty-one-year-old Goran Jelisic stood impassively before the United Nations tribunal in The Hague as the sentence against him was read.

World leaders unanimously condemned Serbs for ethnic slaughter in the ruins of Yugoslavia on Wednesday, but their reluctance to order outside military intervention was denounced as "shameful" by the leaders of embattled Bosnia-Herzegovina. While Acting U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence S.

The world's Islamic community, seeking to force a showdown on aid to the besieged Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina, early today demanded immediate military intervention by peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslav republic and an end to the international arms embargo against it. Muslim foreign ministers meeting here held out the possibility that Muslim nations will ignore the weapons ban if the United Nations does not act by Jan. 15.

The United Nations has paid $49,000 in cash to Serbian rebels in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina in an unsuccessful attempt to remove barriers to deployment of peacekeeping troops to the volatile area, U.N. sources disclosed Friday. Despite the payment to Banja Luka officials, the 1,000-strong Canadian battalion has not been able to relocate to the Serb-held city from its base in the central Croatian town of Lipik.

Rival commanders in Bosnia-Herzegovina announced agreement on a cease-fire Tuesday, raising hopes that on the cusp of winter this latest truce will take hold where numerous others have failed. The decision to halt hostilities was reported by both the Bosnian Serb news agency, SRNA, and an independent Sarajevo radio station loyal to the ravaged republic's Muslim-led government.

The highest-ranking Bosnian Croat war crimes suspect in U.N. custody went on trial at The Hague for allegedly leading what prosecutors called a "monstrous" purge of Muslims from central Bosnia in 1992 and 1993. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia charged that Dario Kordic, 38, killed at least 100 civilians.

Sabira Pazarac's strength and persistence went a long way in keeping her family together. The Muslim seamstress opened her store almost every day of Bosnia-Herzegovina's 3 1/2-year war and furiously sewed clothes custom-ordered by the wives of the men who were, essentially, her Serbian captors. "People were saying: 'How can you work? They are rounding people up and shooting them, and you just sit behind your sewing machine,' " she said. "That is what sustained me.

Two Bosnian Serbs pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges but openly thanked U.S. diplomats and NATO troops to whom they surrendered Saturday. Miroslav Tadic, 61, and Milan Simic, 40, are the first Bosnian Serbs to turn themselves over voluntarily to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In a brief initial appearance before the U.N.

Signaling a far-reaching shift of U.S. policy, President Clinton on Thursday declined to set a date for withdrawal of American forces in Bosnia and conceded that it had been a mistake to pledge that the troops would be home by June. Rather than set a new exit date, Clinton said it would be more "honest" to list some of the conditions he seeks in Bosnia-Herzegovina before a permanent withdrawal occurs.

In the latest American attempt to salvage the Bosnian peace accords, trouble-shooter Richard Holbrooke on Wednesday secured new promises from two Balkan presidents to live up to their end of the bargain. Holbrooke, the architect of the plan that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Robert Gelbard, President Clinton's special Bosnia coordinator, extracted the promises in more than eight hours of negotiations at a seaside villa in this Adriatic port.

Bosnian Muslims produced chemical weapons during the 3 1/2-year Bosnian war but stopped making them early this year after the fighting ended, Jane's Intelligence Review reports. In the January issue of the Review, a Bosnian Muslim journalist writing under the pseudonym Enis Dzanic said Muslims produced 120-millimeter chlorine-filled mortar rounds in the city of Tuzla, now headquarters for U.S. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Troops of Bosnia's Muslim-led government were blockading a key lifeline to Sarajevo on Friday, saying rebel Serbs tried to advance along the road by using U.N. aid convoys as cover. U.N. officials said the closing of the airport road violated an agreement by Bosnia's warring ethnic factions to allow emergency food into the besieged capital. A Muslim general warned that his soldiers would fire on any U.N. troops who tried to clear the road.

Bosnia's rebel Serbs backed off from a no-win confrontation with the United Nations by agreeing to allow their air force to be removed from Bosnia-Herzegovina, diplomats said Wednesday. After a blunt warning from international mediator Lord Owen that the United Nations was ready to enforce its new "no-fly" zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina, insurgent leader Radovan Karadzic agreed Tuesday night to fly all Serbian combat aircraft to Serbia.

Hoping to rekindle its battered Olympic spirit, this capital celebrated postwar recovery Monday with an international track meet in the newly repaired stadium that was the site of the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Winter Olympics. Workers installed shiny Kelly green bleacher seats, filled bullet holes and removed shattered glass to refurbish Kosevo Stadium, a sports venue that symbolizes both the hope and pain of the war's aftermath.

Crouched in the bushes on the side of a road in southern Mogadishu, Dr. Broderick Franklin prepared to face death. * Months before, Franklin had left the comfort of his home in Washington, D.C., and headed for Somalia, where he treated the victims of war and famine, sometimes seeing up to 60 patients a day at Mogadishu's Digfer Hospital.