PITY THE PEACEKEEPERS

The words sounded drearily familiar. Bosnia's Serbs "have gone too far," intoned German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. "This is where we draw the line." NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes asserted that "the international community cannot accept any longer to be humiliated" -- just as so many other statesmen had insisted so many, many times in the past three years.

It seemed that this time, for once, words would be matched with action. And they were, sort of, in what might be called a Balkan-style chain reaction. A heavy NATO bombing raid was swiftly countered by Serb shelling of supposed "safe areas"; that brought a second, more intense NATO bombing attack, which in turn prompted the Serbs to take more than 200 U.N. peacekeepers as hostages against still more air raids. There the explosive situation stalled, as everyone from troops on the ground to diplomats on their cellular phones teetered between the dangers of excess belligerence and empty bluster.

On Saturday a skirmish erupted in Sarajevo that was a microcosm of the escalating confrontation. At 4:30 a.m., two Bosnian Serbs disguised as French peacekeepers, complete with blue helmets and flak jackets, infiltrated a U.N. observation post on the Vrbanja bridge and spearheaded the Serbs' capture of the post -- and 12 French U.N. prisoners. Four hours later, a platoon of French troops responded in the first-ever combat engagement for territory between Serbian and U.N. soldiers, recapturing one end of the bridge. In the process, two French soldiers and four Bosnian Serbs were killed.

But with so many U.N. peacekeepers held hostage -- in some cases chained by the Serbs to ammunition dumps or near other potential bombing targets -- the French willingness to strike back did not translate into rhetorical resolve on the part of the allies. Top U.N. officials, backed by the Russians, argued against further confrontation. Meanwhile, the British, the Germans and the Americans continued searching for a way to avoid both a full-scale continuance of the air campaign and the humiliation of yet another backdown.

The lead-up to this showdown began with increasingly open Serb violations of a heavy-weapons exclusion zone enforced by NATO around Sarajevo. The Serbs had already been shelling the Bosnian capital from inside the zone, breaking the February 1994 agreement. Last week they made the nose thumbing official by brassily pulling three artillery pieces and a mortar out of a U.N. impoundment depot, firing them at Sarajevo and ignoring a U.N.-NATO ultimatum to hand them back. That was too much even for Yasushi Akashi, the top U.N. official in Bosnia. He had vetoed several previous requests by local U.N. commanders for bombing strikes, but this time he approved one. It came Thursday and was more than the usual pinprick: a squadron of 15 NATO planes flying out of Italy -- mostly American but including a sprinkling of other craft -- bombed ammunition dumps just outside Pale, the Bosnian Serbs' so-called capital.