Nato Continues Air Attacks On Serbs Talks Reach Breakthrough As Sides Agree To A Division Of Bosnia

NATO airplanes struck at Bosnian Serb positions for a third straight day Friday, continuing to punish the rebels even as they made grudging moves toward seeking peace.

“The operation is still going on, mostly reconnaissance flights, but we are dropping some bombs,” Capt. Jim Mitchell, a NATO spokesman in Naples, Italy, said shortly after midnight.

There was no immediate word on Friday’s targets. Planes were flying over Sarajevo before dawn, but no explosions were heard.

NATO and the United Nations began their aggressive new strategy on Wednesday, flying more than 300 sorties the first day. The pounding continued Thursday, although heavy cloud cover prevented many bombing raids from being carried out.

Some aircraft returned to base without dropping their bombs because they could not see their intended targets, a senior Pentagon official said on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, a U.S. envoy pursuing a diplomatic solution to the war reported a breakthrough, saying both sides now agreed to a division that would give the Serbs less than half of Bosnia. But the tough job of actually drawing the map remained.

The rebel Serbs who have besieged Sarajevo since the war began in April 1992 also began pulling some tanks away from the city.

But NATO, in no mood to accept half-measures, kept up the attacks.

NATO sources said more than 130 sorties were flown Thursday, bombing Serb ammunition storage sites in three different areas around Sarajevo.

At least two of the three ammunition storage sites attacked also had been targeted in some of the more than 300 sorties flown Wednesday, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

Sources in Pale, the Bosnian Serb headquarters southeast of Sarajevo, told The Associated Press that an army barracks and arms depot about 10 miles away had been hit late Thursday.

Bosnian Serb radio claimed five civilians were killed Thursday in NATO air attacks north of Sarajevo.

In light of the continuing airstrikes, Serb defiance appeared to be cooling.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said in a letter to the U.N. chief for former Yugoslavia, Yasushi Akashi, that his forces would not fire artillery at Bosnian “safe areas.”

Serbs also appeared to be moving heavy weapons from around Sarajevo. Peacekeepers observed three tanks moving north and out of the 12-1/2-mile heavy weapons exclusion zone the United Nations wants around Sarajevo.

The United Nations established the zone in the winter of 1994 and the Serbs initially withdrew weapons. But they later moved back and the zone effectively collapsed this spring.

A U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Serbs did not say they were doing it to comply with the zone, but called the development “a very welcome sign.”

In other good news: Bosnian Serb TV released a videotape Thursday showing alive the five European Union monitors who were feared dead. Bosnian Serb Information Minister Miroslav Toholj said the men had left Serb territory for home, but that could not be independently confirmed.

On Wednesday, Serbs had said the five - three Spaniards, one Irish and one Dutch - were killed during the airstrikes. Toholj said the men had to be protected from angry Serbs after the first NATO attack.

Alliance jets searched Thursday for two French pilots who were shot down Wednesday, but there was no word on their fate.