Exploiting hostility between the government in Sarajevo and a breakaway region in northwest Bosnia, Serb forces are pitching in to help renegade Muslims battle government troops, U.N. officials said Wednesday.
U.N. Cmdr. Isebald Van Biesebroeck said Bosnian army troops and forces loyal to secessionist Muslim leader Fikret Abdic have been engaged in "fierce fighting" in the so-called Bihac pocket."The Serbs are helping the Abdic forces," said Van Biesebroeck, a spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia. "They're probably doing that just to destabilize the situation further."
He did not detail the extent of Serb support, which followed earlier reports of the Serbs helping the pro-Abdic forces, either tacitly by allowing them access through their territory or through artillery and tank support. But Bosnian radio said Serb artillery was involved in the latest fighting.
The fact that his close ties to Serbs and Croats have spared most of the Bihac pocket the horrors of war convulsing the rest of the country has earned Abdic a loyal following.
Among the 300,000 residents of Bihac, the 52-year-old Abdic is known as "Babo," a diminutive for father. In Sarajevo, the seat of Bosnia's government, he's considered a traitor.
A longtime opponent of Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Abdic declared the 860-square-mile Bihac pocket autonomous in September, signed peace accords with Serbs and Croats a month later and began battling the Bosnian Army's 5th Corps, headquartered in Bihac.