Nato launches cruise missile raid on Serbs

Stealth fighters are next weapon

CHRISTOPHER BELLAMY

Defence Correspondent

In a dramatic escalation of the conflict with the Bosnian Serbs, Nato last night launched 13 Tomahawk cruise missiles towards Banja Luka in northwestern Bosnia. The missiles were launched from the cruiser USS Normandy, in the Adriatic, against Bosnian Serb air defence systems.

The Independent also learned yesterday that Nato is ready to use US Stealth fighters against the Bosnian Serbs, indicating that it plans to escalate its air attacks if US-brokered peace talks fail to achieve rapid results.

Military sources said the only thing delaying the deployment of the most advanced attack planes in the world, which are virtually undetectable by radar and able to hit targets at night with greater accuracy than any other, was the choice of an Italian air base.

With much of the Bosnian Serb air defence network dismantled by the Nato bombing campaign, it is the accuracy of both the Tomahawks and the F-117s, nicknamed "Nighthawks", which has commended them to Nato commanders. During the 1991 Gulf war, the angular F-117s were the only planes to attack targets in central Baghdad.

Captain Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for Nato Southern Command, said the use of the Tomahawks "minimises the dangers to Nato pilots ... I would point out that employment of this weapon system does not represent any change in our mission nor the types of targets being attacked."

Nato sources believe that since the air attacks began on 30 August, they have destroyed more than 60 per cent of the target list of 90 static "aiming points" - bunkers, radars, communications centres. The list has now been expanded to about 150, including three or four bridges, which have been hit. Nato, therefore, is likely to run out of targets in about a week.

Nato chiefs are wary of announcing this as it could create pressure to expand the list. The original target list comprised thousands of aiming points, but most were discarded as they were too close to civilian areas.

Yesterday the UN cancelled a visit by three observers to a Bosnian Serb hospital west of Sarajevo where UN artillery allegedly killed 10 people, because it was unable to get security guarantees. The visit was rescheduled for today.

The precision of the F-117s could permit expansion of the list to cover "several hundred" aiming points. It is the most suitable plane for precise attacks on heavily defended objectives, such as the Bosnian Serb capital, Pale, or command bunkers.

Operation "Deliberate Force", has the twin aims of encouraging the Bosnian Serbs to lift the siege of Sarajevo and destroy their war-making capacity throughout Bosnia. Although they have inflicted "devastating" damage against static targets, according to Nato and the UN yesterday, the attacks have been least effective against Serb weapons, which are relatively mobile. The Bosnian Serbs have refused to comply with the UN and Nato demand that they move their heavy weapons out of a 20km (12-mile) exclusion zone around Sarajevo. The Bosnian Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic, held talks yesterday with the UN commander in former Yugoslavia, General Bernard Janvier, but the French defence ministry said today that the talks had been a failure and Nato air strikes on "planned targets" had resumed.

Divided city, page 8