Muslim Forces Keep Up Attacks Against Former Croat Allies in Bosnia

Muslim forces pounded Croats in Novi Travnik with artillery shells as a brush-fire war between the former allies in central Bosnia grew Wednesday.

The town is only four miles south of Travnik, which Muslims captured from Croats last weekend in a rout that cost hundreds of lives and triggered an exodus of terrified civilians.

The Bosnian Croat leader, Mate Boban, accused Muslims of killing or expelling thousands of Croats during the fighting and appealed to nearby Croatia for help.

President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia angrily demanded that Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic call off his forces and warned that future relations between the two states depended on an immediate cease-fire.

The new commander of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Muslim-led army, Rasim Delic, ordered his forces to immediately stop fighting Croats in the Travnik region, Sarajevo Radio said Wednesday.

At the same time, Delic called on Croatian forces in the town of Novi Travnik, where fighting erupted Wednesday, to issue a similar cease-fire order, the radio said.

Tudjman said the Muslim onslaught has caused “unprecedented ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the complete destruction of Croat villages around Travnik.”

Travnik was quiet Wednesday while the Muslims focused on Novi Travnik and the nearby village of Senkovci.

Efforts to halt the conflict gathered pace with the announcement of plans for Izetbegovic and Boban to discuss it with international mediators in Geneva next weekend.