Julian Borger

The Guardian, June 13, 1996

Julian Borger reports from Sarajevo on claims that the US has been giving classified information to Bosnia

INTELLIGENCE gathering has become a source of division among the Nato allies in the Bosnian peacekeeping force (I-For) as British and French contingents fear that United States co- operation with the Sarajevo government threatens to compromise their mission.

In the most damaging recent incident, European military intelligence services discovered the state department had given the Sarajevo authorities information about Iranian covert operations which had been gathered in a Nato operation.

Last month John Kornblum, the US special envoy to the Balkans, gave a list of 10 suspected Iranian agents to the Bosnian authorities and requested their deportation.

"Basically, the state department filched the information and gave it away to the Bosnians," said a British I-For officer. "It caused a certain amount of consternation here."

The European intelligence services had wanted to stage a series of dramatic raids on suspected Iranian training camps, similar to a highly-publicised swoop on an alleged camp near the town of Fojnica in February.

The raids would have been aimed at highlighting Bosnian non- compliance with the Dayton peace accord, which stipulates the total withdrawal of foreign forces. This would have had the effect of diminishing political pressure on I-For to take a more aggressive posture against the Bosnian Serbs and, in particular, to arrest the separatist leaders, Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.

The US government, on the other hand, is understood to be anxious to play down the Iranian role, at a time when Congress is increasingly sceptical about plans to arm and train the Bosnian army. The Bosnian programme has been held up until all military trainers from Islamic countries have left.

A Sarajevo government official confirmed that a list of names had been handed over by Mr Kornblum, but said he was not aware of any action having been taken.

"The people on the list were not serious - one was the Iranian ambassador's driver - and we told them this," said the official. "It was part of a more far-reaching operation by the Europeans. They tried a couple of raids after Fojnica, but they were failures. So they wanted a success."

The row over the Iranian list has crowned a mounting sense among European staff in the Nato ARRC (Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps) headquarters in Sarajevo that the US agenda in Bosnia is overwhelming the "team spirit".

The Europeans also suspect the US is either conniving at or turning a blind eye to Bosnian covert operations in northern Bosnia - in contravention of the Dayton pact.

On May 10, a US artillery platoon, training on Serb-held territory near the river port of Zvornik, heard gunfire and grenade explosions from a nearby hill.Immediately afterwards, seven men ran towards the platoon and put themselves at its mercy, saying they were Muslims fleeing Serb patrols.

The American military police major who arrived on the scene soon afterwards handed them over to the Serb police, on the grounds that the Muslims constituted an illegal armed group.

European officers in Sarajevo say there was near-panic in the US military headquarters in Tuzla when commanders learned of the incident.

The group claimed to be from the former Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. They told the United Nations that they hid in the woods of eastern Bosnia for more than nine months after Serb forces overran the enclave and slaughtered thousands of men.

However, the men - now eight after a subsequent arrest by Bosnian Serb police - looked better groomed and fed than would have been expected. Two in particular were fit and wore some form of uniform. Their pistols also appeared in good condition. Bosnian military intelligence also seemed well-informed about the group.

A confidential Nato intelligence assessment in Sarajevo concluded: "This suggests that what is under way is a co- ordinated high-level effort to cover up an ABIH (Bosnian army) covert operation that went wrong."

European officers believe senior officers in the US sector had approved the operation without the knowledge of the Europeans or lower-ranking US field officers.

They also say the US military in Tuzla give the impression of knowing far more about the incident than they were prepared to share with their allies.

The evidence for a conspiracy appears largely based on such impressions, and the fact that these theories circulate in ARRC Sarajevo headquarters says much about the mutual distrust.

A non-US intelligence officer said: "I came here with a very naive view that we were all on one team. I wasn't really aware how much the national agendas would come into play."

Such fundamental differences, said Michael Williams, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, "are going to be a sure recipe for a great deal of political tension across the Atlantic. Dayton and I-For have just papered over the cracks."