NATO Action Won’t Stop His Forces, Serb General Says : Bosnia: As alliance planes prepare to enforce ‘no-fly’ zone today, the rebel leader is defiant.

As NATO warplanes prepared Sunday to patrol Bosnian skies, the defiant commander of rebel Serbs said the Western Alliance has “no chance” of stopping his forces.

Gen. Ratko Mladic, his troops poised to grab more Muslim territory, branded NATO’s plan to enforce a U.N.-imposed “no-fly” zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina a prelude for the use of Western airpower against the Serbs.

But he said that the enforcement of the flight ban, to begin today, will have little immediate military effect.

Most of the Serbian military campaign has been fought by ground troops.

Angered by the planned NATO patrols and last week’s discovery of ammunition hidden aboard a U.N. aid convoy, Serbs have shown increasing disdain for international peace efforts.

President Clinton’s envoy to the former Yugoslav federation, Reginald Bartholomew, is scheduled to fly today to Sarajevo, where the U.N. humanitarian airlift to besieged residents remained suspended after Serbian fighters moved antiaircraft artillery near the airport.

As tensions continued to rise, U.N. officials canceled an aid convoy scheduled for today to Muslims in Srebrenica, an eastern Bosnian town that is ringed by Mladic’s troops.

Eight people were killed and 24 wounded across Bosnia during a 24-hour period ending at midday, Bosnian officials said Sunday.

Citing the continuing clashes, a Bosnian government statement said military commander Gen. Sefer Halilovic will not attend talks today at Sarajevo airport with Mladic, as the Serbian general had requested.

Nearly 60 Dutch, French and U.S. warplanes at an Italian base and on aircraft carriers in the Adriatic Sea are to start enforcing the flight ban today at 2 p.m. Bosnian time (5 a.m. PDT).

The operation is the first time the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has projected military might outside alliance territory since its founding in 1949.

Mladic, in a telephone interview from his base in Pale, east of Sarajevo, said NATO has identified Serbian ground positions as potential targets.