Serbs Pound Sarajevo as Peace Meeting Opens
Serbian militiamen pounded Sarajevo with rockets and mortars Wednesday, hitting the besieged city with the heaviest bombardment in weeks even as peace talks opened in London.
The city’s main library was set ablaze along with the medieval Turkish baths in the Muslim quarter and a street of 17th-Century row houses. Troops loyal to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Muslim-dominated government were reported fighting Serbs to the north, south and west of the capital and around a bridge within the city.
Croatian radio said fighting also continued around Mostar, the capital of the southern region of Herzegovina. Serbian aircraft attacked Novi Travnik, 50 miles northwest of Sarajevo, the radio said.
As the peace conference opened in London, Western leaders demanded an end to the ethnic bloodshed in the former Yugoslav lands and warned that parties hindering a settlement faced international isolation and war crimes trials.
But Radovan Karadzic, leader of Bosnia’s rebel Serbs, was uncompromising about the Serbs’ intention to create their own state from Bosnian territory.
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