2 Americans Injured in Bosnia; First U.S. Military Casualties

The United States suffered its first military casualties in Bosnia earlier this month as two Air Force commandos were wounded in a failed attempt by NATO to rescue two French pilots, NATO officials said Friday.

The Americans, whose names were withheld because they belong to an Air Force special operations team in the region, have been treated and returned to the United States. One received a knee wound; the other suffered a shrapnel wound in the back.

The two were part of a team of U.S. and allied commandos who took part in an attempted rescue of the French pilots Sept. 8.

The French Mirage 2000 fighter was shot down Aug. 30 over Pale, the Bosnian Serbs’ self-styled capital, after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign against Serbian targets began.

The rescue operation was the third that allied forces mounted since the French plane was shot down. The two French crew members, who have not been identified, are considered missing. Authorities said they can only presume the two pilots are still alive.

U.S. Navy Adm. Leighton W. Smith, commander of NATO forces in southern Europe, said Friday at a news conference at his headquarters in Naples, Italy, that rescuers went to a location that appeared to be the site where the pilots were hiding or being held.

The rescuers landed at the site near Pale, but came under heavy fire from Bosnian Serb automatic weapons and had to fight their way back to their helicopters. Although allied warplanes were providing cover, the two Americans were wounded in the escape.

Smith said the rescue efforts were launched after a German reconnaissance plane took photographs that showed a man pointing to a crude sign with letters and numbers that looked remarkably like the code-sign EBRO-33 that the French pilots were to have used.

During an earlier rescue operation, on Sept. 7, NATO sent in a team of U.S. Air Force and Army special forces and French commandos, but they apparently found no trace of the two pilots and decided not to land.

The first attempt, early in the morning of Sept. 6, also failed because the Pale area was shrouded by heavy fog.

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Bosnian Serb radio has reported that the French pilots were captured and being held, but Smith pointed out that the Serbs claimed to have nabbed downed U.S. Air Force pilot Capt. Scott F. O’Grady in June, and that proved untrue.

Officials said the allies had not given up on plans to stage another rescue attempt.

Smith called on the Bosnian Serb leadership to free the French pilots and return them to allied units.

“Clearly it would be a humanitarian gesture, and clearly it would be appropriate at this time,” he said.