Croatia reeling after loss of Bosnia outpost

CROATIA was struggling yesterday to cope with the worst military disaster its forces have suffered since fighting started in Bosnia, after a Serbian offensive wiped out the last important pocket of resistance in northern Bosnia, at Bosanski Brod.

'The loss of the town, although a severe blow does not mean we have lost the war,' a Croatian television commentator said. Television pictures showed buildings on fire and pillars of smoke rising from the captured town.

The fall of Bosanski Brod was immediately followed by Serbian attacks on the towns of Gradacac and Orasje, the last two outposts in northern Bosnia still in Croatian or Muslim hands. Both towns look certain to fall to the Serbs within days, now that Bosanski Brod has fallen and all realistic hope of relief has collapsed.

At the same time, Serbian forces besieging Sarajevo battered the Bosnian capital with renewed intensity, in an apparent move to seize control of part of the city centre, before winter sets in and positions get bogged down.

The capture of Bosanski Brod, which lies on the Sava river, bordering Croatia and Bosnia, is a huge boost to Serbian morale. It immeasurably strengthens the Serbs' strategic position. Serbian forces on the south bank of the Sava are now separated only by the river from a big Croatian industrial city, Slavonski Brod, and are in a position to reduce it to rubble.

If this catastrophe were not enough, the collapse of Bosanski Brod dealt a death blow to hopes in Sarajevo and Zagreb of severing the vital land corridor that links Serb-held territories in Bosnia and Croatia with Serbia proper. After the bridge over the river from Bosanski Brod to Croatia was blown up at dawn, the return of Croatian forces to northern Bosnia looks impossible, from a logistic point of view.

Jubilant Serbs in Bosnia reported 'hundreds of Croatian and Muslim soldiers were killed' after they overran Bosanski Brod. They said that the streets of the town were littered with Croatian and Muslim corpses and they claimed that they took several hundred Croat and Muslim prisoners.

A dismal report carried on Bosnian Radio commented that there was 'no good news' from Bosanski Brod. The Sarajevo- based radio station later specified that 'Croatian defence forces have lost control over that town'. Most of the Bosnian fighters succeeded in escaping to Croatia before the town fell to the Serbs, along with the remaining civilians.

Many of Slavonski Brod's 150,000 population, who have been forced to take refuge in shelters, are reported to be furious with the President of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman. They attribute the military debacle on the south side of the river to a deal allegedly struck between Mr Tudjman and the president of Yugoslavia, Dobrica Cosic, at their recent joint talks in Geneva.

The city of Slavonski Brod is strung out along the banks of the Sava and is now entirely exposed to Serbian tank and cannon fire. Until July, Bosnian forces held most of the towns in the north of the republic. But the threat of international sanctions against Serbia forced the government in Zagreb to pull out its troops and tanks from the region. Since then, Serbian forces have swept through in waves, backed by tanks and MiG fighter planes.

The ever more intense bombardment of Sarajevo by the Serbs in the last few days appeared to make a nonsense of talks that started yesterday in Geneva and at which the Serbs took part, over plans to demilitarise the Bosnian capital.

(Photograph and map omitted)