All too quiet on the Sarajevo front - for now

THE front lines around Sarajevo were quiet yesterday, after the fierce fighting of the past two days. The UN believes the Bosnian government has advanced on several fronts near the city, but there have as yet been no signs of a rebel Serb counter-attack.

Several shells hit the city - at least two falling within the main hospital complex - and officials reported at least one person dead and three wounded yesterday. The totals for Friday, they said, were 20 people killed - at least 15 of them soldiers - and 42 wounded, while Serb sources said five of their civilians had been killed and 80 wounded.

Fierce fire-fights broke out in mid-afternoon to the southeast of the city, with intense machine-gun fire and some shelling. Heavy fighting continued close to the Serb-held village of Hadzici, west of Sarajevo, for control of high ground taken and then lost by the Bosnian army.

At least two shells were fired at Pale, the Bosnian Serb "capital", but landed harmlessly in woodland. The Serb stronghold has not been shelled since 1992.

Although Pale has not yet suffered the effects of war, there is Serb concern over the Bosnian attack on the main road west to Lukavica, which is perilously close to becoming a Serb enclave. Yesterday, the Bosnian army said it had withdrawn from the road, but remained in a position to fire at will on traffic.

The isolation of Serb positions in Lukavica and Ilidza, north of the airport, "would give the Bosnian government some serious leverage in trying to lift the siege of Sarajevo", one UN official said.

There was some surprise in UN ranks at the silence yesterday morning - though most people expect the battles to go on. "One would imagine that there is an intent to continue. It has been quiet and it begs the question why?" said Lt-Col Gary Coward, a UN spokesman. Speculation includes the possibility that the Serbs are short of ammunition or are biding their time until they can see where the main Bosnian thrust is.

"The Serbs will probably try to recover the lost ground," Yasushi Akashi, the UN envoy, said. He was due to visit Belgrade for talks with President Slobodan Milosevic. Mr Akashi is seeking the release of another 26 peace- keepers still held hostage in Pale, and an end to restrictions on the movement of 91 soldiers near Sarajevo. At the G7 summit in Halifax. Nova Scotia, last night the French President, Jacques Chirac, said all the remaining UN peace-keepers held hostage by the rebel Serbs should be freed within hours.

Eleven Canadians and one UN military observer held hostage in the Serb town of Ilijas - a recent Bosnian target - have boarded buses for transport to Pale, Lt-Col Coward said. The move suggests self-styled "president" Radovan Karadzic may yet make good on his promise to release all peace- keepers detained by today.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Group of Seven industrialised nations joined President Boris Yeltsin of Russia in a new plea for an end to the fighting between the Bosnian government and the Serbs. But there was no sign of any new initiative to tackle the conflict.

John Major said he believed British troops should stay despite the latest fighting because a withdrawal would be disastrous.

The one piece of good news for Britain came in an outspoken press conference late on Friday by President Bill Clinton, in which he praised the Anglo- French peace-keepers and promised to fight for funding for the UN reinforcements so far denied by Congress.