Bosnian Army

Fighting intensified throughout Bosnia, including on a key supply route. Serb troops were reported advancing toward the protected Muslim enclave of SREBRENICA.A cease-fire has taken effect in BIHAC, scene of intra-Muslim fighting.Bosnian Croat military forces and the Muslim-led Bosnian army agreed to exchange more than 5,000 prisoners between Oct. 11 and Oct. 19.The Bosnian army said that three mass graves containing 575 bodies of civilians had been found near MOSTAR. The army said most of the bodies were believed to be Muslims from areas controlled by Bosnian Croat forces.

VOGOSCA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Convinced that Serbs who remain in Sarajevo's suburbs are determined to flee rather than submit to the Muslim-dominated government, NATO yesterday agreed to allow the Bosnian Serb army to send trucks to transport them to Serb-controlled areas.Relief agencies, including the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, had refused to help Serbs leave, saying doing so would be tacit support for a form of "ethnic cleansing." But NATO's commander in Bosnia, Adm. Leighton Smith, said after touring Vogosca and other suburbs that because Serbs are leaving anyway, their flight should be made as painless as possible.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Bosnian Serb militiamen stepped up the pace of "ethnic cleansing" in Bijeljina yesterday, driving about 800 Muslims, mostly women, children, and elderly persons, across a battlefront, a Red Cross spokeswoman said."

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to swing Republican support behind the deployment of 20,000 U.S. ground troops to Bosnia, President Clinton agreed yesterday to take "a leadership role" in "expeditiously" arming and training the Bosnian Muslims.The White House had limited its role to "coordinating" the arming and training effort, a provision in the peace agreement reached last month in Dayton, Ohio, and designed to strike a military balance between the Bosnian government and the stronger Bosnian Serbs.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Serbian nationalist fighters poured through breaches in the Bosnian army defense lines around the United Nations-declared "safe area" of Gorazde Monday night and yesterday, setting fire to a dozen villages and forcing more than a thousand Muslims to flee, U.N. officials said."

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The fighting in northwestern Bosnia appeared to subside yesterday, lifting hopes that a cease-fire that was supposed to take effect three days ago under a U.S.-brokered peace plan may finally be taking hold in the region, according to U.N. and NATO officials."

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The Dubrovnik area came under artillery fire today as Croats tried to push Serb guns out of range of the medieval walled city on Croatia's coast.The Muslim-led Bosnian army was carrying out its own offensive in central Bosnia and appeared to meet stiff Serb resistance.As allied Croatian and Bosnian government troops moved to capitalize on recent gains over the Serbs, the United States and Russia were struggling to find new ways to end the war in Bosnia.U.S.

GENEVA -- The Bosnian government appeared yesterday to be pressing for war rather than peace after once again rejecting the U.N.-sponsored cease-fire talks here.After a fourth day of fruitless attempts to end the boycott by the Muslim-led government, Yasushi Akashi, the top U.N. official in the Balkans, first declared the talks canceled, then said he would make one last effort to convene them today.Although Bosnian negotiators have justified their boycott by pointing to the Serbs' continuing violation of a NATO order to leave the Muslim enclave of Gorazde, their position is clearly linked to deeper, tactical considerations.

WE HAVE been down this road before. If the events in Bihac demonstrate anything, it is that the Bosnian Serbs understand the Western powers, NATO and the United Nations better than these nations and entities understand themselves.At least at the siege of Srebrenica, U.N. officials could assert that they were moving in uncharted territory. By the time of Gorazde, a year later, that excuse was hardly sustainable. As for Bihac, its transformation from a relatively viable economic and social entity into a Muslim Bantustan literally recapitulates what happened to the main government-controlled enclaves in eastern Bosnia.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The fighting in northwestern Bosnia appeared to subside yesterday, lifting hopes that a cease-fire that was supposed to take effect three days ago under a U.S.-brokered peace plan may finally be taking hold in the region, according to U.N. and NATO officials."

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The Dubrovnik area came under artillery fire today as Croats tried to push Serb guns out of range of the medieval walled city on Croatia's coast.The Muslim-led Bosnian army was carrying out its own offensive in central Bosnia and appeared to meet stiff Serb resistance.As allied Croatian and Bosnian government troops moved to capitalize on recent gains over the Serbs, the United States and Russia were struggling to find new ways to end the war in Bosnia.U.S.

BERLIN -- The vehemence of the Bosnian Serb response to the latest NATO airstrikes indicates how fearful the Serbs have become that the war is at long last turning against them, analysts say.Faced with dwindling supplies of arms and fuel and a rejuvenated opponent, the Bosnian Serbs had reason to be anxious even before the last week's NATO air attacks, which destroyed about 10 percent of the Serbs' ammunition reserves."

WE HAVE been down this road before. If the events in Bihac demonstrate anything, it is that the Bosnian Serbs understand the Western powers, NATO and the United Nations better than these nations and entities understand themselves.At least at the siege of Srebrenica, U.N. officials could assert that they were moving in uncharted territory. By the time of Gorazde, a year later, that excuse was hardly sustainable. As for Bihac, its transformation from a relatively viable economic and social entity into a Muslim Bantustan literally recapitulates what happened to the main government-controlled enclaves in eastern Bosnia.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Bosnian Serb militiamen stepped up the pace of "ethnic cleansing" in Bijeljina yesterday, driving about 800 Muslims, mostly women, children, and elderly persons, across a battlefront, a Red Cross spokeswoman said."

GENEVA -- The Bosnian government appeared yesterday to be pressing for war rather than peace after once again rejecting the U.N.-sponsored cease-fire talks here.After a fourth day of fruitless attempts to end the boycott by the Muslim-led government, Yasushi Akashi, the top U.N. official in the Balkans, first declared the talks canceled, then said he would make one last effort to convene them today.Although Bosnian negotiators have justified their boycott by pointing to the Serbs' continuing violation of a NATO order to leave the Muslim enclave of Gorazde, their position is clearly linked to deeper, tactical considerations.

SARAJEVO -- Not long after the guns of Sarajevo fell silent in February, people 35 miles away in the city of Gorazde noticed an ominous change. The sporadic Serbian shelling they'd grown used to became more frequent and forceful, and by the end of March they'd been driven to their cellars. It was the beginning of a four-week bombardment."They had used some heavy artillery before, but never in these amounts," said Nazif Dzenelovic, wounded in the chest and brought here in the evacuation of the wounded.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Serbian nationalist fighters poured through breaches in the Bosnian army defense lines around the United Nations-declared "safe area" of Gorazde Monday night and yesterday, setting fire to a dozen villages and forcing more than a thousand Muslims to flee, U.N. officials said."