Muslims Ready To Attack, Nato Warns Offensive Against Serbs Won’t Come While Peacekeepers Are Still In Place, Officials Say

The Muslim-led government in Sarajevo appears to be intensifying a clandestine program to arm and train its military, and senior NATO officials say it is close to or may already have achieved the ability to mount a crushing offensive against the Bosnian Serb-held part of Bosnia.

“The question no longer is if the Muslims will attack the Bosnian Serbs, but when,” said a senior European NATO commander. “The only way to prevent such an attack, at this point, is for the peacekeeping mission to extend its mandate.”

The NATO officials were united in favoring an extension of the NATO peacekeepers’ mandate, and none of them suggested that the Sarajevo government would attempt a military offensive with NATO troops still in place.

The peacekeepers are scheduled to leave next June, but the Clinton administration, recognizing the slow pace of reconciliation in Bosnia, has recently joined other NATO allies in favoring an extension of the NATO force, which includes American troops.

U.S. congressional opposition, the strength of which has yet to be tested, appears to be the only remaining obstacle to a continued NATO presence that the officials agreed would offer the best chance of averting a resumption of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. It appeared that the NATO officials’ willingness to talk about the Muslim buildup was an attempt to influence the debate on Capitol Hill.

NATO aside, all other factors point toward renewed military confrontation. The NATO officials noted that while the Muslims are busy building a formidable military machine, the Bosnian Serb army is imploding under the weight of the current power struggle, a lack of funds, poor morale, a severe shortage of spare parts and high desertion rates.

There have been several indications over the past few weeks that the Bosnian government’s secret weapons acquisition program and clandestine training has been stepped up. For example, an Egyptian freighter sailing under a Ukrainian flag sits quarantined under NATO guard in the waters off the Croatian port of Ploce, its hold filled with 10 Soviet-built T-55 tanks that were to be delivered as part of a secret arms shipment to the Bosnian Muslim army.

All weapons deliveries are supposed to be shared between Muslim and Croatian units in the united force established under the peace accord. The Muslim-Croat force exists largely on paper, however, and NATO officials said the T-55s were to be delivered only to the Muslims.

A spokesman from the State Department’s Task Force on Military Stabilization in the Balkans reached in Washington described the impounded weapons as a “procedural” problem that “will be resolved shortly.”

But senior NATO officials described the Americans as being angry about the shipment, and said that other shipments have managed to elude NATO monitors and have been delivered.

There have been reports in recent weeks of heavy arms shipments arriving in the Croatian port of Rijeka, which is not monitored by NATO soldiers as Ploce is, senior officials said.

These officials also said that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general was posted to the Iranian Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, and that since his arrival in August he has apparently been working out deals with the Croats to smuggle more weapons to the Muslims. And NATO officials say they have received several intelligence reports of clandestine infantry training for Bosnian Muslim soldiers in Iran and Malaysia.