THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502040299
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BRAC ISLAND, CROATIA LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Shrouded in secrecy, a U.S. military team has set up operations on this rocky outcrop in the Adriatic Sea to gather intelligence on neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Americans, who are reportedly launching reconnaissance aircraft, are part of the growing U.S. military involvement in the Balkans. While refraining from open armed support of the Bosnian government, Washington is getting closer to the edges of Europe's worst bloodshed since World War II.
The approximately 20 Americans, all in civilian clothes, have virtually taken over a tourist hotel in the village of Bol, this idyllic island's top resort. Accompanied by plainclothes Croatian guardsmen, they mainly keep to themselves, departing each morning by bus to an undisclosed location.
The Croatian government has not publicly acknowledged their presence, though the hotel would normally close in winter and the nearby small airport is blockaded by Croatian military police. Armed guards turn back the curious.
But the European headquarters of the U.S. military, upon questioning, confirmed that U.S. soldiers and Defense Department contractors are on Brac on a mission named ``Lofty View.''
It is ``an operation to map and survey primary and secondary lines of communication in Bosnia-Herzegovina,'' Cmdr. Ron Morse, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, told The Associated Press.
Morse said the operation was in support of the U.S.-led Provide Promise effort, which includes the Sarajevo airlift and aid airdrops over Bosnia that were suspended in May. He would not say how the information from the surveillance might be used.
The U.S. trade journal Aviation Week & Space Technology has reported that the CIA was launching manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft from Brac. It cited similar operations elsewhere in Croatia and last year in Albania. U.S. and Albanian sources told the AP last May that the CIA had used Gjader air base to fly unmanned spy missions over Serbia and Bosnia. But Morse refused to say whether Brac was a CIA operation.
Pentagon involvement in the Balkans has increased significantly in the past year.
The United States and Croatia signed a military accord on Nov. 29, just days before islanders first noted Americans on Brac. by CNB