Beefing Up the Bosnian Brigade

The last thing the 1,500 United Nations troops on duty in Bosnia-Herzegovina needed was another lesson in what a thankless task they face. They got one anyway, when two French soldiers were killed and five more injured as their convoy, carrying supplies from Belgrade, was raked by machine-gun fire near Sarajevo's airport. The U.N. commander in Sarajevo, Egyptian Brigadier General Hussein Ali Abdul-Razek, blamed the attack on "irresponsible elements" among the Bosnian government troops loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic. Abdul- Razek's deputy, French Lieut. General Philippe Morillon, called it "a clear provocation by people who are enormously upset by the possibility of peace and determined to remain at war."

The deaths gave new urgency to plans announced last week by U.N. Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to increase as much as fivefold the strength of the peacekeeping force. The new troops, to be supplied by NATO countries other than the United States, would be deployed to protect U.N. convoys and help get detainees on both sides out of the war zones. For its part, Washington praised Croatia for interdicting an Iranian plane carrying weapons intended for Bosnian Muslim forces, and also urged a ban on military flights, to thwart Serbian bombing runs in Bosnia.

The U.N.'s broader tasks become crucial as winter approaches with a cold promise of more agony for civilians pinned down in Sarajevo, Goradze and other towns in the war-torn republic. But movement toward an end to the hostilities remains fitful at best. Former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and former British Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, co-chairmen of the peace conference on + Yugoslavia, were encouraged that leaders of all three Bosnian factions agreed to meet in Geneva this week. With the spirit of compromise long since bludgeoned by atrocities on all sides, however, no agreement at the table is likely. And the deadly frustrations of the U.N. forces augur even worse for implementing anything on the ground.