Thieves in the Night

Defiance and desperation drive Bosnian Serbs to raid a U.N. arms depot and provoke a NATO air strike

Give the Bosnian Serbs at least this much: if audacity were the only requirement for winning a war, they would have routed their opponents long ago. But even the most brazen strategists can sometimes trump themselves. And the Serbs did so last week by launching a raid on a United Nations weapons center in an abandoned factory just west of Sarajevo. The Ukrainian peacekeepers guarding the depot were taken completely by surprise, not realizing the predawn smash-and-grab had taken place until they spotted the Serbs rolling a T-55 tank, two armored personnel carriers and an anti-aircraft gun out the main gate.

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