Options Include Strikes at Artillery, Raids in Serbia

WASHINGTON — Although top officials on Saturday declined to reveal the specific military actions contained in the Bosnian plan that President Clinton has decided on, Pentagon officials cited two basic options that he is considering:

First, a series of limited air strikes designed primarily to destroy Serbian artillery emplacements in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with additional bombing of ammunition dumps, supply depots, command centers and key bridges.

Second, an expansion of the bombing raids into Serbia, where allied warplanes would seek to destroy Belgrade’s supply lines to the rebel Bosnian Serbs and damage military installations of the Yugoslav federal army, which has supplied arms to the rebels.

In a new wrinkle Saturday, the White House apparently cleared the way for a limited number of U.S. special operations forces to enter Bosnia to help locate Serbian artillery and guide allied warplanes to their targets, in the event air strikes are undertaken.

“It would be very naive to perceive that these capabilities would not be called on . . . in this situation,” a senior defense planner said.

However, officials said Clinton’s pledge against the use of any sizable contingent of U.S. ground forces in the conflict will remain in effect.

If the Bosnian Serbs should end up accepting an international peace plan drafted by the United Nations and the European Community, the United States and its allies would contribute between 50,000 and 75,000 ground troops to help enforce the accord, officials said.

Pentagon officials said that if the allies agree to support the plan by Wednesday, as Administration strategists hope, then U.S. aircraft could leave for designated staging areas in Italy as early as Thursday morning.

Officials had said earlier that the United States would have about 200 warplanes available for any military action in Bosnia--160 from Air Force bases in the United States and Europe and about 40 from the aircraft carriers Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt.