Yugoslav Army

VINKOVCI, Yugoslavia -- The Yugoslav republic of Croatia prepared for war this weekend as pitched battles between Serbs and Croats intensified and Yugoslav army tanks and troops sat poised on the republic's northeastern border.Civil war in Yugoslavia has long been expected to begin in the ethnic enclaves of this region, Eastern Slavonia and Krajina, the country's most volatile ethnic flash point. Croatian officials said that in a 24-hour period, up to 83 people had been killed in intercommunal battles.

Dozens of Bosnians disabled in war receive wheelchairs SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Mirza Alihodzic was badly wounded in heavy machine-gun fire during one of the Bosnian war's scores of unsuccessful cease-fires in 1995. Buying his own wheelchair was out of the question - the cheapest models cost about $250, and he, his mother and sister barely get by on $300 a month. Yesterday, Alihodzic, 20, was one of dozens of disabled Bosnians who benefited from a shipment of 240 wheelchairs from the Wheelchairs for the World Foundation.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslav army and Croatian officials prepared for a voluntary evacuation of the besieged resort city of Dubrovnik yesterday, a day after fierce firefights brought army forces within a mile of the walled Old City, news reports said.Serbian officers of the Yugoslav army said yesterday that their units, which have had Dubrovnik in a choke hold for four weeks, had halted their advance toward the Old City. There have been reports of only scattered gunfire in the area sinceFriday evening.

DJAKOVICA, Yugoslavia -- In the two weeks since NATO forces arrived in Kosovo, alliance officials have scaled back their initial estimates of the damage inflicted by the 78-day air campaign on the Yugoslav army, which they concede remains a force capable of maintaining Slobodan Milosevic's hold on power.While NATO and Pentagon officials stand by their claims to have significantly damaged the Yugoslav army and special police, they acknowledge that the units that withdrew from Kosovo a week ago were clearly not as hobbled as they had believed.

LJUBLJANA, Yugoslavia -- Is the Yugoslav national army willing to fight, and if so, for whom?That question has hovered for months during the slow breakup of this patchwork country, and the answer is uncertain.The army mirrors the divisions within Yugoslavia.Its officer corps is mainly drawn from Serbia, the largest republic, but the conscripts fully represent the range of ethnic groups that joined to form this country in 1918.The national army totals 138,000 out of a total national military establishment of about 180,000, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

The Yugoslav army can beat any foe except itself.A Doubting Thomas is not the same thing as an Uncle Thomas.You know the recession is real when they call off Fourth of July fireworks.The Lebanese army is out to prove that Lebanon is not Palestinemight, however, be Syria.

WASHINGTON -- Even as the West courts Serbia's president in hopes of bringing peace to Bosnia and winning the release of the remaining United Nations hostages, his military is secretly continuing to deliver a range of assistance to the Bosnian Serbs, U.S. and European officials say.The Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, vowed last year to seal the border between Serbia and Bosnia and won an easing of U.N. sanctions. Mr. Milosevic insists that since then only nonlethal aid has been sent to the Bosnian Serbs.

Clarence Thomas will be grilled on whether his views are politically correct for a black man's -- by Democratic senators all of whom are white.George Bush could sail out of office next year. Clarence Thomas will be on the bench another 40.The Slovenian militia whipped the Yugoslav army -- but only because the army showed a decent restraint it will never permit itself again.State-of-the-art phone service is crashing everywhere. Bring back the operator!

DJAKOVICA, Yugoslavia -- In the two weeks since NATO forces arrived in Kosovo, alliance officials have scaled back their initial estimates of the damage inflicted by the 78-day air campaign on the Yugoslav army, which they concede remains a force capable of maintaining Slobodan Milosevic's hold on power.While NATO and Pentagon officials stand by their claims to have significantly damaged the Yugoslav army and special police, they acknowledge that the units that withdrew from Kosovo a week ago were clearly not as hobbled as they had believed.

MOSCOW -- Under pressure from Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic made modest concessions yesterday toward peace in Kosovo but flatly refused to agree to a cease-fire or the withdrawal of ground forces in the separatist province.The Russian and Yugoslav leaders signed a nine-point pact expressing Milosevic's willingness to resume talks with a moderate faction of Kosovo Albanians and to open the restive region to humanitarian groups and foreign diplomats.

WASHINGTON -- When troops from the Yugoslav 2nd Army left Montenegro and moved south last week to reinforce units in Kosovo, NATO tapped into the troops' communications and carefully plotted their every move, according to an alliance officer. High above the bloody Balkans, a surveillance aircraft, bulging with sophisticated high-tech wizardry, listened in. The crew pinpointed, recorded and analyzed every Yugoslav army radio dispatch. Chalk up another success for a little-known spy plane by the odd name "Rivet Joint" and nicknamed "the hog."

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A second day of daylight NATO attacks brought missiles in the afternoon, more explosions at night, and then a morale boost for the Serbs: TV images of a downed F-117A stealth fighter.The sounds of exploding missiles echoed in downtown Belgrade yesterday afternoon, and more detonations roared across the city at night, shaking windows and fueling a wave of panic.Preliminary reports indicated that no civilians were hurt.The primary target at night was Pancevo, a city 10 miles northeast of Belgrade with an aircraft factory and oil refinery, according to the Belgrade Center for Emergency Information.

MOSCOW -- Under pressure from Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic made modest concessions yesterday toward peace in Kosovo but flatly refused to agree to a cease-fire or the withdrawal of ground forces in the separatist province.The Russian and Yugoslav leaders signed a nine-point pact expressing Milosevic's willingness to resume talks with a moderate faction of Kosovo Albanians and to open the restive region to humanitarian groups and foreign diplomats.

WASHINGTON -- Even as the West courts Serbia's president in hopes of bringing peace to Bosnia and winning the release of the remaining United Nations hostages, his military is secretly continuing to deliver a range of assistance to the Bosnian Serbs, U.S. and European officials say.The Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, vowed last year to seal the border between Serbia and Bosnia and won an easing of U.N. sanctions. Mr. Milosevic insists that since then only nonlethal aid has been sent to the Bosnian Serbs.

PANCEVO, Yugoslavia -- Serbian-led Yugoslavia is flouting United Nations sanctions and deploying troops to neighboring Bosnia, U.N. officers said yesterday.Yugoslav army paratroop units are routinely engaged in hostilities in Bosnia, Capt. Jantora Strandas of Norway reported, denying contentions by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and other Belgrade officials that they have not supported Bosnian Serb forces.His comments also undermine demands put forward this week by Serbian leaders for lifting sanctions imposed on Belgrade 19 months ago for the violent partition of Bosnia.

THE tragedy in Bosnia is terrible now, the worst human disaster in Europe since the crimes of the Nazis. It is going to get a lot worse soon.The last Muslim enclaves in eastern Bosnia cannot hold out against Serbian attacks more than another two or three weeks, according to U.N. officials there. If and when the Serbs overrun them, 60,000 desperate civilians will try to find some way out through the mountains to join the already more than one million refugees.And then there will be Sarajevo, the besieged capital.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslav President Stipe Mesic said yesterday the army was out of control and the country had only one more chance to end the "dirty war" in Croatia.As the latest cease-fire broke down in a matter of hours, Croatia was gearing up for all-out war with Serbia.It has mobilized its population. Croatia's defense minister has told the public to prepare for what was likely to be a very long "defensive" war. Yesterday morning, Croatian television newscasts were broadcasting over a massive sign reading "War for Freedom."

ZAGREB, Yugoslavia -- Serbia, Yugoslavia's largest republic, decided yesterday to accept a European Community peace plan to send foreign observers to monitor a cease-fire in Croatia and set up a commission to resolve the Yugoslav crisis."

Belgrade, Yugoslavia -- THE Yugoslav war is not the inexplicable "quagmire" that it has so often been portrayed. Instead, the war has a key that could easily have unlocked all the tightly closed doors to a successful policy.That key is the Serbian gunmen who even at this moment burn and ravage Bosnia while Western "statesmen" ostentatiously fiddle in New York and London. That is the nature of this frightful war.From the very beginning of the war in June 1991, both European and American diplomats and officials have repeatedly refused even to send air cover for hundreds of thousands of innocents being slaughtered.

,TC The mighty Yugoslav army, which the United States helped to build into a counter-force to Soviet militarization of Eastern Europe, has found its true foe: Yugoslavians. The unending shelling of Sarajevo is one of the great atrocities of the age, ranking with Saddam Hussein's war on the Kurds.According to Borba, the independent newspaper in Serbian Belgrade, Serb militiamen allied to the Yugoslav army are "systematically murdering Sarajevo." This is the Muslim city from which Yugoslavia proudly hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics to symbolize peace and show off the mountains of Bosnia-Herzegovina.