A car bomb exploded near a police station in the Croat-controlled western half of bitterly divided Mostar, injuring 50 people, officials said Friday.
It was the worst explosion anywhere in Bosnia since the Dayton peace accords ended a 31/2-year civil war in 1995.Explosives packed into a vehicle parked 130 yards from the police station and close to two large apartment buildings went off at 11:40 p.m. Thursday, said police and Kelly Moore, a U.N. police force spokeswoman.
Dr. Zoran Antunovic at the local hospital said the injured included a 1-month-old baby and three other children. Moore said 25 of the wounded were seriously hurt.
Soldiers with the NATO-led peace force helped evacuate the wounded and transported one seriously injured person to a hospital in Split, in neighboring Croatia.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, in remarks to reporters Thursday in Washington, hinted that even when the current peacekeeping mission in Bosnia ends next summer, NATO may continue to have a presence in the region.
Solana said the focus for now should be on completing the work of the 36,000-strong Stabilization Force, known as SFOR, whose NATO mandate is due to expire next June.
"SFOR as such will not be continued - as such" beyond June, Solana said, putting emphasis on the term "as such" to suggest that an intervention force under some other name and form could replace SFOR in Bosnia and continue the work of maintaining peace.
"The international community should not abandon Bosnia," Solana said.
President Clinton has said the SFOR mission will end as scheduled at the end of June 1998. But he has not ruled out the possibility of a continued U.S. role in some aspect of supporting Bosnia's fragile peace. About 9,800 American troops are participating in the SFOR mission.
Last December, SFOR itself replaced the original peacekeeping force that entered Bosnia to implement the 1995 Dayton peace accords. Although the military aspects of securing peace in Bosnia have largely succeeded, the tasks of re-establishing a viable political system and rebuilding the economy have lagged.