Zagreb

Besieging Serbs dramatically reduced their rate of fire against SARAJEVO. U.N. observers recorded only 34 Serb artillery rounds into the city over the past 24 hours, a fraction of the normal rate, although Serb sniping was intense for part of the time.In ZAGREB, Croatian radio reported that the leader of the Bosnian Croats, Mate Boban, had resigned. Boban, whose forces have suffered severe setbacks recentlyin central Bosnia, already has been replaced as the Bosnian Croats' chief negotiator at peace talks in GENEVA.

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One of the key figures in an illegal effort to supply Iran with chemical weapons during the late 1980s has been arrested in Zagreb, Croatia, six years after he escaped from a halfway house in Washington.Dennis Bass, an investigator with the U.S. Customs Service, said yesterday that Peter Walaschek, a German national, was arrested by Zagreb officials Friday. He will now face extradition hearings to return him to the United States.In 1987 and 1988, Walaschek, claiming to represent a German export company, arranged with a Baltimore chemical manufacturer, Alcolac Inc., to ship the chemical, thiodiglycol, to Iran.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Despite a threatened European trade embargo, Yugoslavia's warfare intensified yesterday after Croatia ordered full mobilization against the advancing federal army and a top Serbian general accused the republic of "asking for total war."Serbian guerrillas backed by federal army troops, tanks and aircraft fired shells within 10 miles of Zagreb as they closed in on the Croatian capital.The Serbian forces also pressed their attack on the strategic city of Karlovac and reached the center of Vukovar, in eastern Croatia, one of the last Croatian strongholds in a region that has been pounded by artillery for weeks.

The "Scud Stud" fired his own missile at NBC News Monday.Dashing Rome-based correspondent Arthur Kent, suspended indefinitely without pay Aug. 12 for refusing an assignment in Croatia, stood outside NBC's New York headquarters Monday morning, leafletting colleagues with a diatribe against the network.In the handout, Mr. Kent accused NBC News boss Michael Gartner of churning out "naked lies" about him on management's "publicity machine." NBC's statements, Kent wrote, are evidence of management's "incivility, brute stupidity and unworthiness to command."

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon ordered a 20-member team of U.S. military communications experts to Croatia from bases in Western Europe yesterday to run a NATO communications network in case of an evacuation of United Nations forces.All but essential members of the U.S. Embassy staff were being evacuated from the Croatian capital, Zagreb, after Serbian forces shelled the city with artillery and rockets.But Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said that it was "premature" to talk of the withdrawal of U.N. forces, including 15,000 troops in Croatia and another 23,000 in Bosnia.

ZAGREB, Yugoslavia -- The latest unit to develop in Croatia's army may bring choreography to the battle strategy in the siege of the breakaway republic.It is the Croatian Art Force, and its members recently traded in their pens, paintbrushes and ballet slippers for assault rifles, hand grenades and army boots in a bid to help win independence for Croatia.The 88 men and two women of the new infantry unit, who in civilian life were writers, dancers, sculptors, painters and actors, recently finished two weeks of combat training and are waiting to be sent into the field.