7 Killed, 27 Hurt as Rebel Serbs Shell Garrison Town in Croatia

Serbian rebels Friday launched their fiercest attack on the garrison town of Karlovac since fighting began in Croatia more than two years ago, killing at least seven people and wounding 27, Croatian officials said.

Police in Karlovac, 30 miles southwest of the capital of Zagreb, said several hundred mortar and artillery rounds began falling on the town around noon, scattering crowds into shelters.

U.N. peacekeepers were barred from entering the combat zone, a rebel statement said.

U.N. aid officials immediately suspended all relief convoys passing through Karlovac. A spokesman in Zagreb said, “Our colleagues in Karlovac are all in shelters.”

In neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, troops in the northern Serb nationalist stronghold of Banja Luka ringed key buildings with tanks and armored cars and demanded the punishment of war racketeers.

The shelling in Karlovac came a day after Croatian troops crossed the U.N. demarcation line for the first time in eight months and captured the villages of Divoselo, Citluk and Poctelj in the Gospic area in southern Croatia.

In Banja Luka, the Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency reported that the protesting Serbian soldiers took control of the town during the night and announced that a list of profiteers and criminal activities by political authorities, police and army would be made public shortly.

Meanwhile, in the south-central Bosnian city of Mostar, U.N. peacekeepers evacuated 10 wounded Croats held by Muslim-led government forces. Ten Muslim prisoners were to be evacuated from the Croatian-held district of the divided city.

The Croats also reportedly released 350 Muslim prisoners from a detention center at Dretelj, south of Mostar.

That possibly was a response to international outrage that erupted after some prisoners released last week reported torture and brutal conditions at the camp.