Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Artillery bombardment threatens cease-fire in Sarajevo Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 15:07:21 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Artillery bombardment threatens cease-fire in Sarajevo \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - A once-promising cease-fire virtually collapsed yesterday in the heaviest artillery bombardment of Sarajevo since the truce went into effect 11 days ago. Bosnian authorities also accused Serbian forces of deploying Scud missiles in positions that threaten two northern towns. A Serbian military spokesman denied the charge. United Nations peacekeeping troops from Britain moved yesterday to protect U.N. relief warehouses in Travnik, a town 45 miles northwest of Sarajevo clogged with refugees fleeing approaching Serbian forces. [The Reuters news agency quoted U.N. peacekeeping sources in Sarajevo as saying the World Health Organization had confirmed cases of typhoid fever in several towns, including Travnik. [The number of cases was not immediately known, but the disease is very contagious and could ravage the thousands of war refugees living in unsanitary conditions as winter sets in, Reuters said.] NATO warships began stopping and searching vessels entering Yugoslav territorial waters in line with a U.N. decision Friday to toughen economic sanctions against Yugoslavia, which now consists of Serbia and Montenegro. Airborne radar and maritime patrol aircraft will assist seven NATO ships in coordination with the Western European Union, NATO officials said in Naples, Italy. The NATO ships include five destroyers from Italy, Germany, Greece, Turkey and Britain, plus a Dutch and an American frigate, the USS Halyburton. The NATO and European forces have been monitoring the embargo in the Adriatic since July, but they have not had the authority to stop and board ships. Most goods reaching Yugoslavia come overland or along the Danube River. The embargo was imposed in May to punish Serbia for fomenting the Bosnian war, which erupted after the republic's Muslims and Croats voted in February for independence from Yugoslavia. The republic's Serbs, roughly a third of the population, objected and boycotted the voting. More than 14,000 people have died in the ensuing civil war. Serbian rebels have since captured more than 70 percent of the republic, and Croatian forces hold much of the rest. The Muslims hold Sarajevo and little else. In Belgrade, the Yugoslav federal and Serbian capital, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church said yesterday that Serbia, too, might become engulfed in war. Patriarch Pavle told the biweekly Duga he feared Serbia might be bombed or civil war might break out in regions with large Albanian, Hungarian or Muslim populations. A U.N.-brokered cease-fire that took effect Nov. 12 in Bosnia had been violated in some areas but had brought the capital, Sarajevo, one of its quietest interludes in an 8-month-old siege by Serbian militias. Yesterday, however, heavy artillery shelling struck many parts of the city. U.N. officials said about 120 artillery and mortar shells had crashed down by mid-afternoon. Bosnia's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, appealed to the United Nations to halt the alleged Serbian missile deployments. He accused the Serbs of using continuing peace talks as a cover for reorganizing their forces. A senior Bosnian army officer claimed as many as 12 Scud surface-to-surface missiles were moved out of the Serbian-controlled northwestern city of Banja Luka in a convoy on Wednesday. He said the missiles had been driven eastward and installed in the towns of Modrica and Odzak. There was concern they might threaten the government-controlled town of Gradacac, which was under heavy assault Saturday, as well as Muslim forces surrounding the Serbian-held town of Brcko. Both towns are about 100 miles north of Sarajevo. Maj. Milan Pantovic, an information officer reached by telephone at the Bosnian Serbian air force command in Banja Luka, denied the presence of Scud missiles in Bosnia. The Scud is a Soviet-designed tactical missile with a range of about 175 miles. A type of Scud was used by Iraq against Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Serbs so far are not believed to have used any Scuds in Bosnia. Maj. David Pinder Kohnk, a spokesman for the British peacekeepers, said Travnik was tense but calm yesterday after a British armored platoon deployed to protect U.N. food depots. Bosnian army headquarters said Travnik and the nearby village of Turbe had come under heavy Serbian shelling late Saturday. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM