Despite Allied Threat, Serbs Attack Beleaguered Enclaves : Bosnia: Four ‘safe areas’ come under attack. Zepa faces heavy mortar fire after negotiations for its surrender collapse.

While the West threatened to get tough, Bosnian Serbs on Friday renewed their heavy mortar fire on the U.N.-protected enclave of Zepa and attacked three other “safe areas,” U.N. and government sources said.

The Bosnian Serbs resumed their week-old offensive against Zepa after negotiations for the surrender of its Muslim defenders collapsed. Many of its 16,000 inhabitants, fearing mass expulsion, were reported to have fled deeper into the mountainous enclave after rebel Serbs surrounded the town itself.

Both the Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-led but secular Bosnian government claimed to have control of Zepa, but U.N. officials said its fall into nationalist Serb hands is only a matter of time.

The government sought to negotiate the evacuation of women, children and the elderly, but the rebel Serbs insisted that any deal include the surrender of all men between 18 and 55 as prisoners of war to be exchanged for Bosnian Serb prisoners held by the Bosnian government army.

Thousands of men similarly rounded up when the Bosnian Serbs captured the safe area of Srebrenica last week have not been seen or heard from since.

When the government balked at the demand, the Bosnian Serbs blocked a senior-level team of U.N. mediators who had been dispatched to oversee the evacuations, and the negotiations fell apart. “We are almost back to where we were before,” U.N. spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward said.

Two people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed and more than a dozen wounded in the Bosnian Serb shelling of downtown Sarajevo, the capital and also a so-called safe area. At the same time, Croatian Serbs, who are allied with their Bosnian Serb brethren, continued their advance on the strategic northwestern safe area of Bihac. And Gorazde, the eastern safe area that has become the focus of the West’s sudden resolve, also came under Bosnian Serb shelling, government radio reported.

*

Gorazde, Zepa and Srebrenica, which was the first enclave to be captured by the Serbs, as well as Bihac and Sarajevo were designated as safe areas by the United Nations in 1993, pockets where civilians were supposed to be protected from the ethnic warfare that has ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina for 39 months. The sixth safe area is Tuzla.

Bosnian government officials said Friday night that Western allies meeting in London erred by focusing on Gorazde and failing to include the other enclaves. The 16-nation conference threatened a “substantial and decisive response”--presumably aggressive air strikes--if the Bosnian Serbs cross the line at Gorazde.

“Another half-measure, another consensus, another collective fig leaf,” Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic told Reuters. “The other safe areas are safe only for Serb terrorist attack. I’m afraid this will be interpreted by the [Serbs] as a green light burning for them to attack Bihac, Sarajevo, Tuzla and go into Zepa and so on.”

In fact, rather than turn their force now on Gorazde, the Serbs may concentrate their energies on Bihac, Western military analysts say. The battle for Bihac has lasted for more than a year, with the Bosnian government army’s most professional troops, its 5th Corps, facing Croatian Serbs and a faction of renegade Muslims.

Taking Bihac would allow the Croatian Serbs on the west to link up with Bosnian Serbs to the east and would give the Serbs vital road and rail communications. But any serious advance on Bihac also risks bringing Croatia more directly into the Bosnian war.

The forces attacking Bihac claimed to have gained a 19-square-mile chunk of the enclave along its western border with Croatia. Four boys were killed and 30 other people were wounded in shelling on the town of Bihac, government radio said.

*

Also Friday, 310 Dutch U.N. peacekeepers who had been detained by the Bosnian Serbs when they overran Srebrenica were finally allowed to abandon their post and were transported to U.N. headquarters in Zagreb, the Croatian capital. There had been fears that as long as they remained in rebel Serb-held territory they risked becoming hostages in the event of North Atlantic Treaty Organization air strikes.

The Dutch were allowed to leave with their personal weapons, but the Bosnian Serbs kept other weapons and equipment that they had seized from U.N. observation posts around Srebrenica.