U.N. Commander Furious at Attack by Bosnia Troops

Bosnian government soldiers attacked U.N. peacekeepers with machine guns, grenades and remote-controlled mines Monday, provoking a furious response from the U.N. commander.

No casualties were reported, but the attacks on Mt. Igman, overlooking Sarajevo, worsened the U.N. force’s already strained relations with the Muslim-led government.

After a harsh protest from Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, the peacekeeping commander for Bosnia, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic said he would order his troops to “desist from this sort of firing,” a U.N. spokesman said.

Rose called the attacks “exceptionally dangerous and potentially catastrophic,” said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Tim Spicer.

The attacks occurred as Bosnian troops reluctantly began withdrawing Monday afternoon from a U.N.-patrolled demilitarized zone.

Spicer said a French army bulldozer was targeted with machine-gun fire and a rocket-propelled grenade. French soldiers in a nearby armored personnel carrier returned fire with a heavy machine gun, he said.

The Bosnians then detonated two remote-controlled mines in the path of a French platoon coming to support the soldiers, Spicer said.

“As a result, President Izetbegovic will issue the orders to his commanders to desist from this sort of firing and to comply fully with already agreed-to decision to withdraw from the DMZ,” Spicer said.

Spicer said it was the worst Bosnian attack on peacekeepers near Sarajevo in months.

U.N. officials had demanded the withdrawal of an estimated 500 Bosnian troops, whose presence in the demilitarized zone was jeopardizing a local cease-fire with the Bosnian Serbs.

Under heavy pressure from the United Nations, about 100 government troops in the zone destroyed their bunkers and trenches and began withdrawing about noon.

At the same time, the Serbs accused government forces of a new provocation: firing on a military vehicle in the zone and killing 11 Serb soldiers. The Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA called the attack Sunday “brutal, unprovoked and double-crossing conduct of Muslim extremists.”

The United Nations also criticized the Serbs for continuing Monday to block U.N. fuel convoys despite a promise to let them pass.