Peacekeepers Threaten to Leave Bosnia

U.N. peacekeepers threatened to pull out of Sarajevo on Wednesday as Muslim and Serbian forces threw tanks, rockets and artillery into a fierce battle for the Bosnian capital.

“There comes a time when we have to assess the situation. I guess that time comes now,” U.N. spokesman Mik Magnusson said in Sarajevo after the heaviest fighting in two weeks forced the closure of the city’s airport for relief flights.

Also Wednesday, Israel offered to send humanitarian aid to Bosnia, breaking a silence on the ethnic war that is deeply entangled with the Jews’ own painful past.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ offer came after the United States on Tuesday told the U.N. Security Council of reports that Serbs are torturing and killing Croats and Muslim Slavs in concentration camps.

Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin said the charge “deserves every condemnation and nothing historical will stand in the way.”

Beilin’s comment broke Israel’s silence on the 6-month-old war in the former Yugoslav republic.

In other action, police in Serbian-controlled northern Bosnia arrested a paramilitary band of 74 Serbian ex-soldiers accused of looting and terror.

Police said the members of the “Yellow Wasp” paramilitary group were arrested Monday after promises by Bosnia’s Serbian leaders at peace talks in London to clamp down on bands of fighters that have lurched out of the control of the regular Serbian military.