Bosnian Serb Artillery May Be Test of Cease-Fire, U.N. Says

The United Nations confirmed Saturday that more Bosnian Serb artillery has been spotted around Sarajevo in what U.N. officials believe might be intended to test enforcement of the cease-fire.

“It is obvious that there still are some heavy weapons not under our control,” said Maj. Rob Annink, a spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers.

He was referring to disclosures that peacekeepers found six Serb 122-millimeter howitzers late Thursday just inside the NATO-mandated 12-mile exclusion zone around the Bosnian capital.

Annink said five of the howitzers had been pulled out of the zone and that the last was to be removed Saturday.

But the discovery of the artillery, along with gunfire and grenade exchanges between Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-led government troops defending Sarajevo, raised fears that the three-week cease-fire could be in trouble.

U.N. officials did not make clear whether Serbs recently had moved the six howitzers back into the zone or whether the guns simply were discovered belatedly.

NATO has threatened to bomb any heavy weapons not pulled back from Sarajevo or put under U.N. control.

U.N. officials say Bosnian Serbs have mostly complied, making NATO air strikes unnecessary.

But with major powers cool to a U.N. plea for thousands more troops to police the fragile cease-fire, there was concern that Serbs might be testing the international community’s resolve.