Victory by Serb-Croat Force Leaves a Major Muslim Stronghold Vulnerable

In the most significant battle in weeks, a coordinated Serb-Croat force wrested key territory from government troops Friday and left a major Muslim stronghold open to attack.

Thousands of refugees were reported streaming from the battle zone in north-central Bosnia. Soldiers of Bosnia’s lightly armed Muslim-led army wept as they described their inability to combat the tanks of their Serbian enemy.

U.N. officials in Vitez said a twin-pronged attack by Bosnian Croats and Serbs overran Zepce to the northeast. The fall of Zepce opened the way for Serbs and Croats to advance on the city of Zenica, 20 miles to the south.

Zenica is one of the few major towns in Bosnia still under government control and is flooded with refugees from previous fighting in central Bosnia in recent months.

The fall of Zepce also threatened to cut off Tesanj and Maglaj to the north, which would trap Muslims in two new pockets.

The effectiveness of the new Serb-Croat alliance in central Bosnia underlined the precarious position of government troops. A U.N. embargo has banned arms sales to all the combatants, but the army of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia gave Bosnian Serbs heavy weapons after Bosnia seceded 16 months ago.

About 10,000 refugees were streaming southward from the fighting, said Maj. Jose Gallegos, a U.N. spokesman in Sarajevo.

Peter Kessler, a U.N. aid official, said he does not know where the refugees could be taken in. “There is no place for them in Zenica,” he said. “Zenica is bursting at the seams.”

Kessler said 35,000 people, both Muslims and Croats, had been forced from their homes in central Bosnia because of fighting in recent weeks. Both sides have accused the other of “ethnic cleansing,” using murder and other violent means to remove unwanted people from an area.

An alliance between Bosnian government and Croatian forces at the start of the war has been crumbling since they started fighting each other over territory in central Bosnia several months ago.