Bosnian Snipers Pull Back To Honor Cease-Fire

Bosnian government soldiers in winter-white camouflage made good on their side of the bargain Wednesday by withdrawing from their mountaintop sniper nests outside Sarajevo.

But continued fighting in the north demonstrated the fragility of the four-month Bosnian truce. U.N. officials reported a major violation for the first time since the truce took effect Sunday: fighting between government forces and Serb rebels in Bosanska Krupa.

Nearly 40 detonations were recorded as well Wednesday afternoon near Velika Kladusa. A U.N. spokesman reported heavy machine-gun bursts and small arms fire near a U.N. base near the Croatian border.

Rebel Serbs from Croatia and fighters loyal to a renegade Muslim leader - neither signatories to the truce agreement - are fighting government forces around Velika Kladusa.

Just southeast, government troops and Bosnian Serbs battled each other near Bosanska Krupa.

Paul Risley, a U.N. spokesman in Croatia, said there was “fairly regular fighting in the (northwest) pocket, but we are very concerned that this fighting involves Bosnian Serbs,” who signed the truce, along with the Muslim-led government army.

As part of the overall truce agreement, government troops 110 miles away did as they were supposed to and withdrew by Wednesday from a demilitarized zone on Mount Igman, south of Sarajevo.

From their positions above Krupac, government forces have been able to fire on a Serb supply route south of Sarajevo. Serbs demanded a government withdrawal from the Igman demilitarized zone as a precondition for clearing road access for civilians in and out of the besieged Bosnian capital.