Her limited stocks included rotting potatoes, a few oranges, cans of Pepsi and packet soups, but she has reserves at home for sale in the future. “I think the siege will end in a few months – I can survive that,” she said.In the meantime, everyone in Sarajevo is trying to work out why the Serbs have remained so quiet thus far: is it because they are short of ammunition following the Nato air strikes that destroyed 80 per cent of the arms dump near Pale; because they are over-stretched and afraid; or because they are biding their time, bent on inflicting the maximum pain they can? The city fears it is the third option.. FOR perhaps the first time in the 38-month-old war, the Muslim- led Bosnian government thinks the tide of conflict may be shifting in its direction. This has very little to do with what the Sarajevo leadership perceives as the feeble support of the most powerful Western countries, and rather more to do with the steady erosion of the military and economic strength of the Bosnian Serbs

Clearly, the Muslims still have a long way to go. The Bosnian Serbs control up to 70 per cent of Bosnia, retain a distinct advantage in heavy weaponry, and are capable of overrunning the three small Muslim enclaves of eastern Bosnia – Gorazde, Srebrenica and Zepa.
But if any party to the conflict is worrying this weekend about what the future may hold, it is the Bosnian Serbs, not the Muslim-led forces. International outcasts, starved of military and economic support from their former patrons in Serbia, and forced to fight with limited resources on several fronts, the Bosnian Serbs are in their most vulnerable condition since they rebelled against Bosnia’s independence in April 1992.This is the underlying reason for the Bosnian government’s new offensive in the Sarajevo area.

The operation’s short-term objective is to cut the Bosnian Serbs’ supply roads around the capital and ease the pressure of the siege, which before long will be threatening to enter its fourth successive winter.But the Bosnian government appears to have even more ambitious long- term objectives. The Sarajevo operation is being conducted in conjunction with a so far highly successful Croat offensive against Serb forces in western Bosnia.The intention of the Muslims and Croats, allies once more after fighting an ugly war in central and southern Bosnia in 1993, is to squeeze the Bosnian Serb heartland between central Bosnia and Croatia’s border with western Bosnia. A related aim is to block off the vital supply route linking the Bosnian Serbs to the Krajina Serb rebels of Croatia, who control about 25 per cent of Croatia’s territory but who are on the defensive after having surrendered the enclave of western Slavonia last month.The Croats have been advancing since last November on a wide front in western Bosnia and last week announced the capture of Mount Sator, an important peak near Croatia’s border with Bosnia. A Bosnian Croat military spokesman, Ignac Kostroman, said: “The Serbs’ increasing losses at the front mean they find themselves in a hopeless situation.

This has resulted in major reversals of fortune on the battlefield and should influence a political solution for the internationally recognised state of Bosnia- Herzegovina.”Since their initial successes of 1992, when they swept through largely unarmed Muslim communities, the Bosnian Serbs have found the war a hard grind. They have not only failed to induce the Bosnian government’s capitulation but have discovered themselves fighting increasingly well-equipped, well- trained and highly motivated Muslim armies. Not for nothing are some Muslim units known as “the avengers”. Their members are men who were expelled from their homes in the early months of the war, whose relatives and friends were sometimes killed in cold blood. They need little encouragement to fight anywhere in Bosnia.By contrast, Bosnian Serb soldiers are reluctant to do battle outside their home areas.

For more than two years, many have preferred to sit on hilltops and fire the odd artillery round at their former Muslim neighbours. This immobility is finally costing the Bosnian Serbs dear.Two months ago the Muslim-led forces pushed them off Mount Vlasic, the mountain in central Bosnia where the most important telecommunications towers left in former Yugoslavia are located. Last month government forces in the Bihac pocket of northwestern Bosnia captured Ripac, an important link between Bosnian Serb and Krajina Serb positions. None of this is to suggest that the Muslims and Croats could have the war wrapped up by the end of summer.