U.N. Strike Force Approved; Clinton Clarifies U.S. Policy : Bosnia: 4,000 troops would protect Balkans peacekeeping mission. Washington to provide air support, equipment. Missing American pilot’s fate still unknown.

In an unprecedented effort to reduce the vulnerability of U.N. peacekeepers, Western defense chiefs agreed Saturday to form a 4,000-troop, multinational quick reaction force for the former Yugoslav federation and accepted a U.S. offer of substantial air and logistics support.

The strike force, made up primarily of soldiers from France and Britain, will be under direct operational control of the commander of the U.N. force in all the former Yugoslav republics, French Gen. Bernard Janvier. Its members will wear their own national uniforms but fly a U.N. flag.

“This force will obviously enhance our ability to react and give us better flexibility,” said Janvier, who attended Saturday’s meeting of defense ministers from 15 countries. The general added that “at this stage, there seems to no longer be any trust whatsoever between the Bosnian Serbs and the peacekeepers.”

Defense Secretary William J. Perry said the United States “strongly supports the objectives” of the force, though it will not provide any ground troops for it.

The United States has agreed to provide close air support, including AC-130 gunships flown by Americans, as well as a strategic airlift of forces and equipment into the theater of operations. In addition, Perry said, the United States will transfer or lend attack helicopters, communications gear and night-vision equipment and help set up an intelligence coordination unit for the new force.

In other Balkans-related developments Saturday:

* President Clinton qualified his offer of ground troops in the Bosnian conflict, saying they would only be offered “if a U.N. unit needs an emergency extraction,” and then only after he had consulted with Congress.

“This would be a limited, temporary operation,” he said. And he noted that no request for such an operation has been made.

* More than 120 U.N. peacekeepers enjoyed their first day of freedom after their release from Bosnian Serb captors. But Serb infighting posed obstacles to the release of more than 250 others still held hostage.

* U.S. officials gave dramatic details of the downing of an American F-16C last week. The pilot’s fate remains unknown.

Quick Reaction Force

The quick reaction force, which French officials said could be operating within a month, is a first for the United Nations, which has been sharply criticized by France and Britain for not giving peacekeepers in Bosnia the means, or the rules of engagement, necessary to protect themselves.

It will give Janvier, the U.N. commander, and Gen. Rupert Smith, the British general who heads the U.N. forces assigned to Bosnia-Herzegovina, greater authority and firepower to protect their troops. And, as envisioned by the defense ministers meeting in Paris, the commanders would be able to call on the force without going through the United Nations’ civilian chain of command.

Defense ministers stressed, though, that the reaction force would operate strictly within the U.N. mandate and would not, under any circumstances, be used to militarily enforce a solution to the Bosnian crisis.

The goal, they said, is to improve the ability of U.N. troops to defend themselves and carry out their mission.

“This will give very significant, enhanced protection, allowing the United Nations to carry out its peacekeeping task,” British Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind said. “The U.N. is no closer to becoming a combatant in that war than it was before.”

Asked if the force might be used to rescue hostages still held by Bosnian Serbs, French Defense Minister Charles Millon responded sharply: “This is not a warfare operation. This is a peacekeeping operation.”

Rather, the defense ministers said they hoped that U.N. commanders would use the force to make U.N. troops less vulnerable to attacks and hostage-takings. They also said it could be used to help maintain U.N. forces deployed in Bosnian government-held enclaves; to regroup U.N. peacekeeping units in isolated areas, and to help troops withdraw heavy weapons from “exclusion zones.”

The defense ministers said they plan to send a delegation to brief U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali early this week.

The creation of the new force seems to resolve, for now at least, the European diplomatic crisis that arose when Bosnian Serbs took several hundred U.N. troops hostage. Many of those soldiers were French or British, the two countries with the most troops in the 22,000-member U.N. Protection Force.

Saying it was tired of U.N. forces being humiliated in Bosnia, the French threatened to pull out of the U.N. operation unless their troops were given better protection.

But Millon said Saturday that the subject of a withdrawal was not even discussed at the meeting, which included defense officials from countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union as well as a representative of Russia.

Perry and Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represented the United States.

“The results of this meeting are a strong and unambiguous indication of the resolve of the international community and its unity concerning protecting and strengthening” the U.N. force in the Balkans, Perry told a news conference.

At the beginning, the quick reaction force will include 1,500 to 2,000 French; 1,500 British, including members of the 19th Field Regiment who were sent to Bosnia last week, and 200 to 300 Dutch soldiers, the ministers said.

In addition, France has put an additional 4,000 troops on standby.

Four other countries--Italy, Spain, Norway and Turkey--would provide logistics support or equipment. Germany and Canada have also offered to provide unspecified support.

A British air mobile brigade, which numbers 4,000 troops, will operate as a separate entity, Rifkind said, but could carry out missions with the quick reaction force as well.

Other details of the unit remain undecided, however.

Millon, the French defense minister, said it might operate from two bases, one in Croatia and another near Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The U.N. Hostages

Freed hours earlier from Bosnian Serb captivity, more than 120 U.N. peacekeepers headed for their regional headquarters Saturday, but negotiations to release more than 250 other hostages ran into trouble, officials said.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, onetime patron of the Bosnian Serbs, issued a statement in Belgrade on Saturday announcing that all hostages would be freed soon.

He earlier forced the release of the first group, saying the Serbian separatists, who are headquartered in the Bosnian village of Pale, had responded to his pressure.

But a senior Bosnian Serb official Saturday contradicted Milosevic and reiterated demands that the West promise not to launch additional air strikes before other hostages can go free.

Jovan Zametica, a spokesman for Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, said the first group was liberated as a gesture of goodwill.

He also dismissed Milosevic’s role in the negotiations: “Serbia is not in charge of releasing the prisoners,” he said.

Milosevic took the initiative in the hostage crisis in an effort to prove that he still has influence over his former disciples and to win international acclaim, strengthening his hand as he attempts to bargain for the removal of economic sanctions imposed against Yugoslavia for its role in fomenting the war in Bosnia.

Divisions within the leadership, however, have made the Bosnian Serbs unreliable partners in negotiations.

Milosevic’s powerful head of state security, a shadowy figure rarely seen in public, continued to pressure the Bosnian Serbs but said he was meeting with “resistance.”

Jovica Stanisic spoke to reporters as he emerged from the Sajam Hotel in Novi Sad, a city 40 miles north of Belgrade, where the peacekeepers--mainly French but also Canadians, Britons, Danes, a Nepalese, a Finn and a Swede--were transported overnight after their release. They spent most of the day at the hotel, eating French fries and other food, knocking back a few beers and resting, according to diplomats who visited the 120 men and one woman.

“They are all in good spirits,” British Embassy political officer George Busby said. “The main thing is they are out and well.”

At nearly 6 p.m., the peacekeepers, wearing their blue berets and hauling knapsacks, boarded three buses for the Belgrade airport, where they boarded two U.N. airplanes for transport to Zagreb, Croatia, headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force. There they were greeted by U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi.

“We were treated very well,” French Lt. Alain Grandjean said. “I am thinking of my comrades who are still behind.”

The future of those peacekeepers remained unclear. Even as the first group rode to freedom on Friday, 16 French peacekeepers were taken hostage, and on Saturday 12 Dutch peacekeepers had to fight their way out of the Bosnian “safe area” of Srebrenica.

The flip-flops indicated a clear division within the Bosnian Serb leadership, one that Milosevic appears eager to exploit.

His rivalry with Karadzic runs deep, and Milosevic is believed to be dealing more directly with Gen. Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army, over whom he has more control because of Mladic’s ties to the Yugoslav military, diplomats said.

American Pilot’s Fate

Pentagon officials said Saturday that they still had not determined the fate of the F-16 pilot who was shot down over Bosnian Serb-held territory a day earlier. They declined to identify him until his whereabouts could be learned and his family notified. Although rebel sources said they had captured the pilot, the Pentagon countered that it had no confirmation of that.

En route to Paris late Friday night, Shalikashvili provided dramatic details of the downing of the plane.

He said the jet fighter was one of a pair of F-16Cs that took off from the U.S. Air Force base in Aviano, Italy, as part of NATO’s Deny Flight operation.

Their mission was to patrol a “no fly” zone, so called because aircraft are restricted in the area under a U.N. directive.

He said the two jets were flying at 21,000 feet when two missiles broke through the clouds, both in view of the pilot in the lead plane.

“The first missile detonated at about halfway between the two F-16s. The second missile hit the underbelly of the wingman’s aircraft,” the general said.

Shalikashvili said the lead pilot could not determine whether his companion had managed to eject from the plane.

Rather than head for cover or return to safety at Aviano, the lead pilot searched the area for his colleague for more than an hour and attempted to direct other aircraft in the search-and-rescue operation--until his dwindling fuel supply forced him to return to base, Shalikashvili said.

“The latest status is that we so far don’t have any contact with the pilot,” the general said of the downed wingman. “We believe we heard one transmission, a short transmission, from what could have been [his] emergency beacon. But we’re not sure of that.”

Television footage broadcast Saturday claiming to show the wreckage offered no insights because it did not show the front section, where the pilot would have been, U.S. officials said.

Shalikashvili added that the pilot’s name cannot yet be released “because not all the next of kin have been notified.”

Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson in Belgrade and Rick Serrano in Washington contributed to this report.