SARAJEVO, Yugoslavia -- Fierce ethnic fighting enveloped the capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina early Monday, with a booming battle for control of its airport and gasoline tank fires lighting up the night, witnesses and official media said.
Government radio and television reported artillery fire all around the airport and described attacks on several barracks of the Serb- dominated Yugoslav army, but said it could not identify the combatants on either side.
Burning gasoline storage tanks and other fires could be seen around the city in the early hours Monday, with electricity cut off in some locations and the sound of sporadic machine-gun fire heard into the night.
The ethnic strife in Bosnia-Hercegovina had escalated dramatically Sunday, the day before the European Community was expected to announce its recognition of the powderkeg Yugoslav republic as an independent state.
Croatian forces captured a Serb-populated town Sunday, and Serbian gunmen fired into a peace march in the capital Sarajevo.
At least seven people were reported killed in fighting that continued despite an agreement among factional leaders to call for a cease-fire.
Bosnia-Hercegovina's 1.9 Muslims and 1.4 million Roman Catholic Croats favor independence, but its 1.4 million Christian Orthodox Serbs oppose the idea.
The republic's government-run television said a shell hit the main airport building and it later was seen burning out of control, with firefighters unable to reach it because of the fighting.
The broadcasts said Monday they had no reports on casualties.
The government also announced a curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Several Yugoslav army barracks in the Sarajevo area were been attacked, in some cases with mortars, the republic's television reported.
It also reported fighting around a Yugoslav army barracks in the town of Zvornik, on the border with Serbia.
In the middle of the fighting, some 2,000 people of various ethnic groups remained inside the capital's Assembly building into Monday morning, their speeches urging peace being broadcast live over television.
The spoke alongside portraits of Marshal Tito, who despite being disliked as an authoritarian now gets more credit for keeping the nation united during his rule from the end of World War II until his death in 1980.
A doctor at Sarajevo hospital and police officials said at least seven people were killed Sunday -- three in pre-dawn police station attacks -- and 10 injured in the worst violence in the city of 700,000 since World War II.
Low-flying MiG-21 warjets of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army flashed over Sarajevo in apparent attempts to discourage the fighting pitting Serbian militiamen against Muslim and Croatian police and paramilitary fighters.
Grenade explosions and machine-gun fire resounded during the day in a number of neighborhoods amid the siren screams of racing ambulances and police vehicles.
Several armored cars manned by Muslim police were seen on the streets as were bullet-shattered windows in a number of downtown buildings.
The fighting began after the expiration of a 2 p.m. deadline set by Serbian leaders for cancellation of a full mobilization of the republic's Territorial Defense and police reserve forces, dominated by Croats and Muslims.
The mobilization order was issued Saturday by the republic's Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, following the capture of a mostly Muslim- populated town by a Serbian paramilitary group linked to the communist regime of Serbia and commanded by the Serb-led Yugoslav army.
Suares Dos Santos, the head of the EC observer mission in Sarajevo, huddled late Sunday afternoon with Izetbegovic, the leader of the Party of Democratic Action, Serbian Democratic Party chief Radovan Karadzic, and Milenko Brkic of the Croatian Democratic Union, in a bid to arrange a cease-fire.
Also present was Col. Gen. Milutin Kukanjac of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, which has an estimated 100,000 troops in the republic and has openly opposed the republic's secession.
The leaders later appeared on television to call for a cease-fire and disengagement of forces across the republic.
The prospects of EC recognition have been fueling ethnic clashes for several weeks, pushing Bosnia-Hercegovina to the brink of all-out war.
Many feared such a conflagration could reignite the Serb-Croat conflict in neighboring Croatia, completely unhinging a Jan. 3 cease- fire as a U.N. peacekeeping operation gets underway.
The headquarters of the U.N. Protection Force is located in Sarajevo. A Western diplomat, however, said the deployment of 14,000 U.N. troops in Croatia would proceed on schedule despite the crisis in Bosnia- Hercegovina.
Tensions began mounting Sunday in Sarajevo after two unsuccessful pre-dawn police station takeovers by Serbian police and paramilitary troops of the self-styled Serbian state that was declared on 60 percent of Bosnia-Hercegovina, police and government-run radio said.
After the Serbian deadline passed, tens of thousands of people poured into the streets in spontaneous multi-ethnic peace marches as government-run Sarajevo television began issuing appeals for ethnic amity.
The largest body of demonstrators headed toward the republic's Assembly building, and hundreds began moving over a bridge toward several buildings that had been seized by armed Serbs, witnesses said. The crowd chanted, 'Put down your arms.'
Gunmen first shot into the air to discourage the crowd from crossing the bridge, the witnesses said. When it continued, the gunmen fired into the demonstrators.
'I saw two men and a woman fall on the bridge,' said a Yugoslav journalist who asked to remain anonymous, adding that the crowd scattered and hundreds charged into the assembly building for cover.
Muslim police, some manning two armored cars with heavy machine guns, and members of the 'Muslim Green Berets' militia returned fire, the witnesses said.
Elsewhere, Sarajevo television said Sunday, local Croats and fighters of an ultra-nationalist Croatia-based paramilitary force captured the predominantly Serbian town of Kupres after four days of heavy fighting against Serbs backed by reservists of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army.
The television said the Croatian forces shot down two Yugoslav air force warjets that attacked their positions in the town. There was no immediate confirmation of the report from the Yugoslav military.
News reports also spoke of continued clashes pitting Serbs against Muslims and Croats in Bosanski Brod, located on the Sava River border with Croatia and the scene of heavy fighting for several weeks.
Fears of clashes provoked a mass exodus of civilians from the ethnically mixed town of Brcko, located on the Sava River border with Croatia, near Bosanski Brod, said Sarajevo television, which showed videotape of the flight.
Izetbegovic has charged that the violence is being fomented by Karadzic's party in collusion with communist-ruled Serbia as part of a plan to seize territory and pre-empt international recognition of Bosnia-Hercegovina as an independent state.
Western governments believe recognition would dissuade Serbian threats of partitioning Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Like their rebellious compatriots in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina's Serbs want to remain in a 'new' truncated Yugoslav federation that would be centered on communist-ruled Serbia and allow all 8.5 million members of the Christian Orthodox ethnic group to live in a single state.
Muslims and Roman Catholic Croats object to remaining in the Serb- dominated remains of Yugoslavia.
Western diplomats said the 12 EC foreign ministers were almost certain to agree on recognition of Bosnia-Hercegovina on the first day of a meeting due to open Monday in Luxembourg.
But, they said, the announcement was not likely to be made until Tuesday. Monday is the anniversary of the 1941 German invasion of Yugoslavia and diplomats said the date was considered inappropriate for the announcement.
They said the United States was expected to announce its recognition of Bosnia-Hercegovina, as well as Croatia and Slovenia, on April 9.
Croatia and Slovenia were recognized by the EC on Jan. 15.
