Army Launches Series Of Offensives In Effort To Open Roads To Sarajevo 20,000 Troops Are Reported To Be Massed Around Visoko
The Bosnian army launched a series of offensives Thursday against Bosnian Serbs outside Sarajevo, apparently trying to wrestle open some of the roads leading to the longbesieged capital.
President Alija Izetbegovic’s office issued a statement Thursday night saying that military action was justified by the international community’s utter inability to relieve the suffering.
“There is nothing left in the city, no electricity, no water, no gas, no food, no medicines,” the statement read. “The world hasn’t done anything to prevent it. … In a situation like this, our army has been given orders to prevent the further strangulation of the city.”
Military sources said Thursday that up to 20,000 government troops were massed around Visoko, 10 miles northwest of Sarajevo. They were being assisted by Bosnian Croat forces.
Government artillery began pounding the Serb-held town of Ilijas, 12 miles north of Sarajevo, before dawn. Infantry attacks followed, the Serb news agency SRNA said.
“The whole region is in flames,” said a Serbian officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said his troops were holding their lines “for now.”
Fierce battles erupted later around Vogosca, 2 1/2 miles north of Sarajevo, U.N. spokesmen said.
Although Sarajevo itself was relatively peaceful, there was an unmistakable whiff of impending war in the air. Here, as in other parts of Bosnia, authorities imposed a strict 9 p.m. curfew and issued a general alert advising people to stay home.
The few residents outside were scurrying as fast as they could under the weight of jugs of water, being stockpiled in their homes in anticipation of the worst.
“Everybody expects something to happen, but they don’t know what. Maybe it will be nothing, though it is hard to believe,” said Ekrem Kaljanac, a policeman.
In Washington, administration officials said Thursday that they did not believe the massing of Bosnian troops near Sarajevo was the start of a major military offensive.
“U.N. observers, according to the reports that I have, are not characterizing this as the beginning of a major offensive - or a counteroffensive,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said at a news briefing. “All I can tell you is that we are monitoring the situation closely.”
For the last week, the Bosnian government has been calling up reservists and setting mobile hospitals around frontline positions outside the city.
Thursday, government forces closed the one dirt road over Mount Igman that leads into Sarajevo and installed 22 new roadblocks on another road outside the city.
Even the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which has been trying desperately to get relief convoys into Sarajevo for weeks, was told that it would not be allowed to travel.
Amid the swirl of activity, the United Nations seemed as powerless as before to keep a lid on the situation.