Serbs Reportedly Tightening Grip on Zepa

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  Bosnian Serb forces closed in on Zepa on Friday, landing reinforcements by helicopter just outside the besieged Muslim enclave, amateur radio reports from the area said.

No independent confirmation was available for the reports, which said Serbian forces had captured and torched the village of Ribioc, 2 1/2 miles east of Zepa--one of five towns and cities declared “safe areas” by the U.N. Security Council.

In a broadcast from Zepa, radio operator Fadil Heljic said that Bosnian Serb tanks were pounding the eastern mountain town and that Serbian infantry had advanced to within three-quarters of a mile of the defense lines at one point.

Sarajevo Radio said more than 200 people have been killed and 320 wounded since Tuesday, when the Serbs launched their attack on Zepa where about 40,000 civilians and refugees are trapped.

U.N. commander Gen. Philippe Morillon said today the Bosnian Serb army chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, had signed an agreement for the deployment of U.N. military observers and troops to Zepa today and to Gorazde, another Muslim enclave, on Sunday.

Earlier, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said Serbs in Bosnia would comply with a U.N. resolution to establish safe areas in besieged Muslim areas of the former Yugoslav republic.

“We are going to comply fully and to coordinate with the U.N. personnel according to this resolution,” he told NBC Television from the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale.

The Security Council proclaimed Sarajevo, Zepa, Tuzla, Gorazde and Bihac to be U.N.-monitored safe areas Thursday.

Meanwhile, traffic rumbled back and forth across the Drina River bridges on the frontier between Bosnia and Serbia on Friday despite a supply blockade declared by Yugoslavia.

Yugoslav security forces at a roadblock on a bridge in Mali Zvornik said they had not yet been given orders to apply the embargo announced Thursday by the Serb-led government in Belgrade against their Bosnian kin.

Serbs from both sides of the Drina said closing the border would be a betrayal by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, but almost all of them scoffed at the idea that the cutoff in supplies could work.

Bragging that Bosnian Serbs do not need weapons supplies from Serbia, one Bosnian Serb soldier said: “You guys have got it all wrong. We’ve got enough of our own guns.”

The Bosnian Serb parliament refused Thursday to sign the peace plan drafted by Lord Owen and fellow mediator Cyrus R. Vance to end the civil war.

Milosevic, whose personal plea to the Bosnian Serb assembly to accept the plan was rebuffed, and the Serb-led Yugoslav government promptly ordered the virtual sealing of the border with Bosnia.

Serbia, previously regarded as the Bosnian Serbs’ main ally and paymaster, said only limited amounts of food and medicine would be allowed to cross.

It was the first public admission by Serbia, after months of denials, of the extent to which it supplied the Bosnian Serb forces.