U.S. Soldiers Clash With Irate Bosnian Serbs

The power struggle dividing Bosnian Serbs exploded into violence Thursday as U.S. troops came under attack from angry mobs and rival police disputed control of this strategic northeastern city.

Crowds demanding the expulsion of Western peacekeepers siding with Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic roamed Brcko throughout the day, hurling stones and firebombs. NATO rescued 50 besieged United Nations police monitors, and numerous international officials fled to a nearby U.S. military base.

One Bosnian youth, a relative of the mayor of Brcko, was shot in the leg after U.S. troops fired to disperse crowds; at least two American military personnel were also wounded.

In Washington, the White House warned that it would not tolerate such attacks on NATO peacekeeping forces.

The clashes marked the first organized popular resistance to Plavsic’s U.S.-backed challenge to war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic and his hard-line supporters. And they showed how volatile the region remains 20 months after the end of Bosnia’s war. Demonstrators were reportedly throwing rocks and erecting barricades in other cities in the U.S.-patrolled sector of northeastern Bosnia on Thursday as well.

As some of the most violent episodes to confront peacekeepers since the war’s end, Thursday’s clashes also underscored the repercussions when NATO is seen to be taking sides. “It’s plenty serious,” said U.S. Army Col. Steve Rausch, senior spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission in Bosnia.

From her headquarters in the northwestern city of Banja Luka, Plavsic has been bringing key instruments of power to her side, starting with parts of the police, state media and military. But Plavsic, who formed her own political party Thursday to challenge former ally Karadzic, must extend her influence into the eastern half of the Bosnian Serb republic to sustain the fight to prevail over the influential Karadzic and prevent a permanent territorial split.

Brcko on Thursday proved the most brutal testing ground yet.

Before dawn, NATO moved into Brcko and three other cities, saying it wanted to prevent violence after receiving intelligence that Plavsic’s police were going to attempt to take over additional police stations.

Plavsic’s officers entered the Brcko police station but were not able to force out their hard-line rivals, according to international officials. NATO troops arrived--and so did a hostile crowd, summoned from their beds by air-raid sirens and urgent calls to action on Karadzic-controlled radio.

Throughout the day, radio broadcasts whipped up anti-West fury and urged people to “eject the enemy.” Wartime songs were played, and people who called in vowed to “defend” Brcko.

Gojko Klickovic, the prime minister of Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb republic, and an ally of Karadzic, rushed to Brcko to congratulate people. “We will tell the international community they are persona non grata,” he told an emotional crowd that gathered.

Youths shouting “Long live Karadzic!” careened through the streets and were joined by elderly women for a face-off with U.S. troops guarding the bridge that spans the Sava River to Croatia. The soldiers stood behind sandbags and barbed wire while the crowd taunted them, tossed dirt into their faces and erected a huge Bosnian Serb flag.

U.S. patrols fired more than 50 rounds into the air to disperse crowds, Rausch said, and used tear gas for the first time. Helicopter gunships crossed the skies, and U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles roared around the city.

Hostile demonstrators again massed near the bridge late Thursday. Lt. Col. Jim Cronin, spokesman for the U.S. army base that is the headquarters for the military personnel under attack in Brcko, said about 350 troops were patrolling the city.

“We are not ran out of Brcko,” he declared, referring to radio reports that the Serbs had forced the Americans to flee. Unarmed U.N. police monitors were evacuated, however.

Competing Bosnian Serb police commanders were in negotiations late into the day with senior international officials over who would get the Brcko police stations, said a spokesman for the Office of the High Representative, which coordinates execution of the peace accords.

Although NATO officials sought to portray their actions as an attempt to prevent violence between rival Serbs, there were indications that their presence may have been a deliberate operation to ease the takeover by Plavsic forces.

Police loyal to Plavsic had informed Western officials of their plans to occupy the police stations and received tacit approval from the officials, according to a diplomatic source familiar with the planning.

The U.S. and its European allies have openly supported Plavsic’s move against Karadzic. Last week NATO secured police stations in Banja Luka, allowing Plavsic to replace pro-Karadzic police with forces loyal to her.