Balkan Update

A Serb sniper killed a Muslim civilian in downtown SARAJEVO -- the first civilian slain in the city since the truce began last Thursday. Though the Bosnian capital has experienced a period of relative calm since the attack, fighting persists in other parts of the nation.

U.N. officials hope a successful cease-fire in Sarajevo will help bring peace elsewhere.

The United Nations said there was "insufficient physical evidence" to establish which side fired the mortar round that killed 68 people in a SARAJEVO market February 5 because it couldn't fix the precise location of the firing.

The United States effectively rejected a new U.N. request for troops to help reinforce peacekeepers in Bosnia by continuing to insist that strict conditions, including a peace settlement, be met first. Russia, fearing an angry backlash at home, refused a U.N. request to move some of its peacekeeping troops in Croatia to Bosnia.