In Eastern Bosnia, Last Mosques Fall

BIJELJINA, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  Bijeljina’s residents thought the early morning explosions last week were an artillery attack. They awoke to find that the town’s mosques--the last in eastern Bosnia--had been razed.

About 9,000, or half, of the town’s Muslims have left since the war began. Those remaining may see the mysterious destruction of the mosques as a pointed warning that they, too, should flee Bijeljina, a Serbian stronghold only five miles from the border with Serbia.

Muslims here are fearful, reluctant to give their names to reporters. They once were the majority in Bijeljina, although the surrounding region is mostly Serbian.

Bijeljina, 75 miles northeast of Sarajevo, might become an exclusively Serbian town in yet another wave of “ethnic cleansing,” one of the worst consequences of the war.

Jovo Vojnovic, the town’s Serbian mayor, said that extremists from any of the Bosnian factions might have blown up the six mosques, adding: “We condemn this as an act of extreme terrorism. But I swear that not a single local man did that.”