Serb Jets Raid ‘Safe Area’ in Bosnia; Rebels Use Napalm

Jets apparently flying from a Serb-held base in Croatia raided a “safe area” of northwest Bosnia on Friday in defiance of U.N. warnings. The United Nations said napalm was used.

Meanwhile in the Bosnian capital, Serbs besieging Sarajevo killed a 7-year-old boy with sniper fire and launched two more antitank missiles, one of which carried handwritten warnings of further attacks.

U.N. reports of an air attack on the government-held town of Bihac in northwest Bosnia were the first confirmation of napalm use in the 2 1/2-year war. There have been past allegations of such antipersonnel weapons being used, but none confirmed by the United Nations.

U.N. spokesman Paul Risley in Zagreb, Croatia, said U.N. military observers in Bihac saw two planes fly low over the town.

“After they arrived, two loud explosions were heard,” Risley said. Another team of observers reported seeing one missile being launched, he said.

Risley said U.N. monitors “found fragments of napalm and cluster bombs. This is evidence that napalm and cluster bombs were used in the air attack.”

However, Maj. Koos Sol, another U.N. spokesman, said two cluster bombs and a napalm bomb hit the center of Bihac, but the napalm bomb didn’t explode.

No one was hurt in the bombings.

In Sarajevo, Serbs fired two wire-guided missiles Friday, and one hit the temporary Parliament of a federation of Bosnian Croats and the Sarajevo government. A woman was wounded in the attack.

Missile fragments, shown to reporters by U.N. officials, carried a handwritten message in the Cyrillic alphabet used by Serbs: “Many hot greetings. HOT. This is the beginning.”