U.S. Relief Plane Lands in Sarajevo After a Monthlong Halt in Airlift

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — An American plane landed here Saturday bringing badly needed food and the promise that a full-fledged international airlift would resume after a monthlong suspension.

Bad weather, however, forced a second U.S. aircraft to divert to the Croatian capital, Zagreb, on two separate, unsuccessful attempts to deliver supplies, U.N. officials at Zagreb airport said.

Relief officials fear that Bosnia’s normally harsh winter could claim hundreds of thousands of lives in the absence of adequate supplies of food, fuel and materials to repair war-damaged homes.

Meanwhile, the commander of the Bosnian Serbs’ air force said he would be “capitulating” if he were to accept a flight ban over the republic, as suggested by the West.

Almost daily reports of Serbian air raids have led the Western allies to urge the United Nations to set up a “no-fly” zone for combat flights over Bosnia. President Bush said Friday that he backed the proposal and promised to enforce it with military action if necessary.

The growing support for a flight ban is a departure from the West’s earlier reluctance to authorize military force for anything but the protection of relief supplies.

Bosnian Serb officials vehemently rejected the proposed flight prohibition. “Whoever accepts the airspace ban would actually be signing a capitulation,” said Maj. Gen. Zivomir Ninkovic, commander of the Bosnian Serb air force.