Peace Splintering In Bosnia

Bosnian Serb officials said Wednesday that they had detained several Muslim men who wandered into areas under their control. In a separate incident, a sniper believed to be a Bosnian Serb fired on a bus on the first day of service outside Sarajevo since the war began, wounding two people.

Western diplomats here said they saw both actions as retaliation for the extradition of two Bosnian Serb officers to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The two extradited officers had been held by the Muslim-led Bosnian government along with several soldiers.

Bosnian Serb officials in Pale, the nearby town that serves as the Bosnian Serb headquarters, announced Wednesday the “arrest of several Muslims” in the eastern Bosnian town of Foca. They said the men were being investigated for war crimes.

The Bosnian Serb political leader, Radovan Karadzic, himself indicted by the tribunal for war crimes, also issued a statement Wednesday condemning the extraditions of Gen. Djordje Djukic and Col. Aleksa Krsmanovic as an “international shame.”

NATO commanders said that for the last six days senior Bosnian Serb officers have refused all contact with the 60,000-strong NATO peacekeeping force. These Bosnian Serb commanders have also boycotted discussions on reducing military arsenals and marking boundaries, as called for in the Bosnian peace accord reached last year in Dayton, Ohio. The Bosnian Serb military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, also under indictment by the tribunal, ordered the boycott until the extradited Bosnian Serb officers are freed.

The detention of the Muslim men by the Bosnian Serbs could not be confirmed by either NATO or the Bosnian government. The sniper attack, in which a gunman fired four bullets at a bus, provoked a harsh response from NATO officials.

The attack on the bus appeared to be the work of a single gunman, who fired four quick rounds of small-arms fire and fled. One passenger was seriously injured, and an assistant driver was grazed in the leg.

Wednesday was the first day of scheduled bus service in and out of the city since the Bosnian war began nearly four years ago. Early Wednesday morning, the City Transport Authority began shuttling three buses every 10 minutes through the Serbian-held suburb of Ilidza.

Many on board, including some young Bosnian Serbs who had ridden into Sarajevo, had been shopping and were clutching bags of groceries. By the time the bus detoured to the State Hospital with the two wounded men, its interior was filled with blood.

“I wouldn’t go back to Ilidza without a NATO escort,” said the assistant driver, Sadik Sadikovic, holding his bandaged leg. “People shouldn’t be going there on buses. It’s just risking their lives. This bullet could have hit my head.”

Gunmen have fired a few shots at NATO vehicles during the night in Ilidza over the last three weeks. But this was the first time shots were fired at a civilian vehicle.

On Monday night, shortly after the extradition of the two Bosnian Serb officers to The Hague, a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the NATO barracks in the Ilidza compound, ripping away part of the roof but causing no injuries.

“Tensions are very high,” said Dragan Bozanic, a senior Bosnian Serb official in Pale, “and certain people may get out of control.”

Western diplomats said that the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, agreed to support the extradition of the two Bosnian Serb officers if the Bosnian government released other Bosnian Serb soldiers it was holding.

But the Bosnian government has balked at the deal, the diplomats said.