
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 14, 1994                   TAG: 9402140064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

AIR-STRIKE WARNING REINFORCED

NATO credibility is at stake in Bosnia, U.S. and French officials said Sunday in warning Bosnian Serbs they face certain air attacks if they do not withdraw their artillery positioned around Sarajevo.

Defense Secretary William Perry also said the Pentagon is studying the possibility of increasing the intensity or scope of air strikes if the Serbs resist demands that they end the shelling of the Bosnian capital.

NATO has given the Serbs until midnight Feb. 20 to withdraw their heavy weapons from a zone extending 20 kilometers from the city, or face air strikes. The ultimatum came after an artillery shell killed 68 at a downtown Sarajevo market last week in the worst civilian loss of life in the 2-year-old war.

"All the forces are coming together to make sure that that particular ultimatum stays in place," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeleine Albright said on NBC's "Meet the Press" when asked whether United States and its allies were again "crying wolf" in threatening the Serbs.

The Serbs should realize that "the 10 days is a very serious ultimatum," she said.

The Serbs agreed to pull back their guns as part of a cease-fire signed Wednesday, but on Sunday balked at turning over heavy weapons to the United Nations until the Bosnian Muslims withdraw from front-line positions around Sarajevo.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, whose country in the past has been reluctant to escalate military action in Bosnia because of concerns for its peacekeeping forces on the ground, said air strikes were crucial because "NATO credibility, U.N. credibility, are at stake."

Perry, on ABC, said air strikes could "reduce the level of carnage and violence" while at the same time "illustrate firmness and resolve and solidarity in NATO."

He said the risks to U.S. airmen would not be great because of the "minimal air defense system that we are going against." Perry also noted that NATO, with 160 planes now providing air cover over Bosnia, could pick up the coordinates of an artillery firing within seconds, and have a plane bear down on the weaponry within minutes.

The United States is not looking at options that involve sending in ground troops, but is studying the possibility of increasing the intensity of the air strikes or extending the strikes to areas outside Sarajevo if the Serbs refuse to comply with the withdrawal and cease-fire, he said.

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB