Serbs Pound ‘Safe Area,’ Battle Dutch

Defying threats of NATO bombardment, Bosnian Serb infantry attacked the southern edge of the U.N.-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica on Monday and fought with Dutch peacekeepers deployed as the town’s last line of defense.

The rebel Serbs, who have been advancing steadily on the U.N.-protected Muslim enclave for five days, issued an ultimatum warning that Srebrenica must be cleared of all people within 48 hours.

The ultimatum applies to more than 40,000 mostly Muslim refugees, government army troops and all U.N. peacekeepers, said U.N. spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward, who termed the nationalist Serb challenge “completely unacceptable.”

If Srebrenica falls to the Bosnian Serbs, it will mark the first loss of one of six government-held pockets created to give refuge to tens of thousands of Muslims driven from their homes in the brutal ethnic warfare that has ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina for more than three years. It will represent another blow to U.N. credibility and promises to unleash a humanitarian disaster.

U.N. officials said they considered calling in warplanes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to back up the Dutch peacekeepers in their clash with Bosnian Serb troops but declined to do so.

On Sunday, the top U.N. officials in the Balkans, in a letter to Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, warned that air strikes would be called if the rebels attacked the Dutch force, an elite team positioned along the southern perimeter of Srebrenica to block the rebel offensive.

Whether the United Nations can stop the Bosnian Serbs from overrunning the U.N.-designated safe areas has become the latest test of the beleaguered, crippled peacekeeping mission, whose future is under debate now in the world’s capitals.

“The U.N. is determined to protect the enclave,” Coward said.

But the mission has seen its ability to fulfill any of its mandate--from guarding safe areas to delivering humanitarian aid--eroded steadily by Bosnian Serb defiance and instructions from the U.N. political leadership to calm and not inflame the tense situation.

Throughout much of Monday, Bosnian Serbs fought with government troops near the southeast corner of the Srebrenica enclave and pounded the town with artillery and tank fire, U.N. officials said. They also battered Zepa, a second U.N.-protected enclave, with heavy machine-gun and mortar fire. A U.N. observation post staffed by Ukrainians was attacked.

Bosnian government forces have also fired on U.N. troops in recent days and blocked them from leaving their posts, U.N. officials said. Early Monday, the government army attacked a Dutch armored personnel carrier with small arms and grenades, forcing it off the road. The vehicle was badly damaged, but its peacekeeper occupants were unharmed.

The Bosnian Serb offensive on Srebrenica began Thursday. After overrunning several U.N. observation posts over the weekend and detaining 30 Dutch peacekeepers, the Bosnian Serb army halted its tanks within half a mile of Srebrenica and kept them there for most of Monday. But Monday evening, a rebel Serb infantry company of about 80 men began its advance.

The special Dutch rapid-reaction team that was deployed Sunday night opened fire on the advancing troops, U.N. and Dutch Defense Ministry officials said. After a firefight, the Bosnian Serbs were stopped, the officials said.

There were no Dutch casualties.

Meanwhile, the 30 Dutch peacekeepers taken captive remained in Bosnian Serb custody. U.N. officials said they were in occasional radio contact with the men, who indicated they were being treated reasonably and had not yet had their weapons taken from them.

Srebrenica was the first of six safe areas established by the United Nations in 1993 to protect concentrations of Bosnian Muslims from the Bosnian Serbs. Many of those who crowded into the enclaves were refugees escaping Bosnian Serb campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” that drove non-Serbs from their homes throughout much of Bosnia.

The Muslim-led government of Bosnia initially opposed the idea of safe areas, fearing that the enclaves would become besieged ghettos surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces. And so they did. Nationalist Serbs controlled and often blocked the entrance of food, medical supplies and other humanitarian aid, then shelled the civilians in the enclaves with what independent observers have said is nothing less than impunity.

Srebrenica, Gorazde and Zepa are the three most isolated, vulnerable enclaves, areas in which what is left of eastern Bosnia’s Muslims have been squeezed. A town of 4,000 before the war, Srebrenica has swollen to about 30,000 hungry, desperate people, mostly refugees, with an additional 12,000 or so in surrounding villages. It is horribly overcrowded, a condition that will be made only worse as more refugees seek cover.

The streets of Srebrenica were reported nearly deserted Monday as people hid in basements to escape a steady barrage of shelling. Scores of wounded were being rushed to the town’s hospital, aid workers said, and at least 10 people were killed. The windows of the hospital were blown out when a shell landed nearby.

“There has been a lot of shelling all around, all day,” said Benedicte Foucart, an official with the aid agency Doctors Without Borders.

The Bosnian Serbs said they are attacking Srebrenica to stop government forces from conducting commando raids out of the enclave and into Serb-held territory. They have asserted that government forces fire at them from Srebrenica.

At this point in their offensive, the Bosnian Serbs appear to have taken enough high ground in the southeast corner to control an east-west supply road and to block the government army incursions.

Another motive for going on the offensive now may be to take advantage of the U.N. vacuum before its rapid-reaction force is ready. One of the force’s three brigades is well into training in central Bosnia, while the 24th Air Mobile Brigade is scheduled to begin arriving in Bosnia on Wednesday. Although protecting safe areas is ostensibly part of the force’s mandate, it is unclear what role it would have in a situation like the Srebrenica battle.

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler in Washington contributed to this report.