As Gorazde Threat Eases, Serbs Eye North

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia The threat of NATO air strikes forcedBosnian Serbs to back down at Gorazde, but Serb signals portend a newoffensive in the north.

The stage appears set for a battle around Brcko, aSerb-controlled town on Bosnia's northern border with Croatia, wherethe Serbs want to widen a corridor linking their holdings in east andwest Bosnia.

Unlike Gorazde and Sarajevo, Brcko - pronounced BIRCH-ko - isnot a Muslim enclave surrounded by Serb besiegers. But the potentialfor violence is so great that UN diplomats are consideringdesignating it a "safe area."

A year after the United Nations gave that designation to Gorazdeand five other Muslim enclaves, NATO last Friday threatened airstrikes if any are attacked. Under threat of bombing, Serbs stoppedtheir three-week offensive against Gorazde and withdrew their heavyweapons from a 12.5-mile exclusion zone around the city.

Aside from Gorazde, the designated safe areas are the Bosniancapital Sarajevo, where a similar exclusion zone is in effect; theeastern enclaves of Zepa and Srebrenica; Bihac in the far northwest,and the central Tuzla region.

Few diplomats believe the Serbs will defy NATO's threat andattack the safe areas. But there are plenty of other targets inBosnia not covered by the ultimatum.

The region around Brcko is vital to Serb dreams of uniting theirterritories in Bosnia and Croatia with Serb-dominated Yugoslavia tocreate a "Greater Serbia."

In one sign of a pending offensive, the Serbs have moved partsof their elite 1st Krajina Corps into the Brcko area, and weaponswithdrawn from around Gorazde this week could be redeployed there.

"Of course we are concerned about what could happen" aroundBrcko, said UN spokesman Cmdr. Eric Chaperon in Sarajevo.

Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,said Tuesday on CNN that the Security Council is discussing "thepossibility of making some kind of a safe zone area around Brcko."

Recent Serb pronouncements about the Brcko area have beenominous.

"There's been a sort of steady propaganda campaign about Brcko,"said a senior U.S. official involved in peace talks, speaking oncondition of anonymity.

"They always tend to couch it in terms of Muslim aggression,which really means that they're getting ready to do somethingthemselves."

Lt. Col. Milovan Milutinovic, a Bosnian Serb militaryspokesman, has declared that "100,000 enemy soldiers are poised forthe offensive against the area between Doboj and Brcko."

Daily Serb media reports speak of Muslim "onslaughts againstpeaceful Serb villages and defensive positions."

The immediate military aim around Brcko apparently is to expandthe corridor of Serb-controlled land in northern Bosnia, which isonly two miles wide at its narrowest point.

Around Brcko, however, Serbs would face stronger resistance thanin Gorazde.

Bosnian government troops south of Brcko are in a much betterdefensive position than were the lightly armed soldiers in isolatedGorazde. They can count on significant reinforcements from centralBosnia.

The Bosnian army has beaten back two major Serb offensivesalready this year. They have succeeded in breaking through theSerb-held corridor in the past, cutting off Serb-held regions inwestern Bosnia, but lacked tanks and heavy weapons to keep the Serbsat bay.