U.N. Convoy Is Attacked Outside Bosnian Capital

A United Nations convoy was attacked on the outskirts of the embattled Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on Wednesday even as other U.N. peacekeeping officers arrived there to look for a way to open the city’s airport, local journalists said.

Sarajevo Radio said one person was injured as the U.N. convoy was fired on after it left central Sarajevo to meet another U.N. convoy arriving on a peacekeeping mission after a daylong drive through Bosnia-Herzegovina’s war zone.

The radio, quoting correspondents of the republic’s B-H Press news agency at the scene, said the tires of all of the U.N. vehicles were punctured in the assault. It did not identify the attackers.

Serb irregular forces, which have besieged Sarajevo for two months, have repeatedly assaulted or harassed U.N. missions in the area.

In Brussels, the United States told its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies that Serbia should be further isolated by being prevented from replacing Yugoslavia in international organizations.

NATO sources said the plan was aimed at exerting more pressure on Serbia to rein in Bosnian Serbs who have persisted with heavy fighting despite U.N. sanctions.

In Helsinki, the 52-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe resolved to review Yugoslavia’s participation in the forum.

And in Washington, Sen. Richard G. Lugar, an influential member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on President Bush to apply the lessons of Operation Desert Storm to the strife in Yugoslavia, saying that only a credible threat of international military force can end the vicious ethnic fighting.

The Indiana Republican said that the violence, including withering shelling of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, has gone far past the point where either economic sanctions or U.N. observers alone can be effective.

Lugar said the Bush Administration should lead the United Nations and the NATO alliance in drawing up military plans.

Sarajevo Radio said the U.N. vehicles were attacked as the incoming U.N. convoy, led by senior peacekeeper Gen. Lewis Mackenzie, neared Sarajevo’s city limits.

Col. John Wilson, head of the 100-strong U.N. monitor team that remained in Sarajevo after U.N. refugee agency staff members were evacuated for safety’s sake a few weeks ago, set out to receive Mackenzie “but did not get far,” the radio reported.