Air force jets, army tanks and heavy artillery attacked the strategic Danube River town of Vukovar in eastern Croatia late Friday in an onslaught that could give Serbian rebels a key foothold in the republic.
The European Community worked desperately for a new cease-fire but seemed unlikely to achieve it before a deadline set by Croatia, which says it will mobilize all able-bodied males for war if the federal army does not withdraw to barracks by Saturday.The attacks on Vukovar, on Croatia's eastern border with Serbia, started around 7 p.m., intensifying during the evening, a Croatian Defense Ministry spokesman said.
AP reporter Tony Smith reported sniper and mortar fire during most of the afternoon in Vukovar. A brief lull allowed reporters to leave the town before the evening attack.
The loss of Vukovar, 150 miles east of Zagreb, would be a moral blow for Croatia and would give Serbian rebels a bridgehead to attack Osijek, Croatia's fourth-biggest city and the provincial capital of Slavonia, the eastern Croatia province where much of the fighting is taking place.
Vukovar, once inhabited by 80,000 people, has been the focus of a week of bitter fighting between Croats and the republic's Serbian minority. Local hospital officials said earlier Friday that 16 people had been killed.
The Defense Ministry spokesman, who under Croatian regulations cannot be identified, reported heavy shelling of Kostajnica, another strategic town 50 miles southeast of Zagreb. More than 250 mortar shells fell on the town Friday afternoon, he said.