February 6 - Markale massacres: A Bosnian Serb Army mortar shell kills 68 civilians and wounds about 200 in a Sarajevo marketplace.

After the West's commitment in London last month to defend the remaining "safe areas," a strong NATO response to the shelling of the Sarajevo marketplace appeared essential to maintain credibility.

There was no explanation on Tuesday from the Bosnian Serb leaders as to why their forces would lob a shell onto the Sarajevo marketplace at a time when they are professing a new interest in peace.

After a mortar attack on the Sarajevo marketplace in late August, NATO air strikes began, signaling the last chapter of the civil war and leading to the American-brokered Dayton Accords.

On 30 July, 1993, a mortar shell fired by Bosnian Serb troops hit a Sarajevo marketplace, injuring five-year-old Irma Hadzimuratovic and killing 15 others, including her mother.

Last February, in response to a mortar attack that killed 68 people in a Sarajevo marketplace, President Clinton successfully pushed the alliance to create a weapons-free zone around the Bosnian capital.

Clinton began pressing for a resolution to the conflict, and in late August, after Serbs killed 38 people in a Sarajevo marketplace, NATO launched massive air strikes against the Serbs.

They also fired the deadliest single shell of the war, killing 71 people in the northeastern town of Tuzla - a massacre more bloody than at the Sarajevo marketplace last year.

On 28 August 1995, a mortar shell slammed into a Sarajevo marketplace, killing 37 people.

By Sunday, with the carnage from Saturday's attack on a Sarajevo marketplace dominating the news, Mr. Perry was finding his voice.