[British newspaper] The Independent
Saturday, August 22, 1992,
by Leonard Doyle

Excerpts (quote):

UNITED NATIONS officials and senior Western military officers believe some of the worst recent killings in Sarajevo, including the massacre of at least 16 people in a bread queue, were the work of the city's mainly Muslim defenders - not Serb besiegers - as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and trigger military intervention. The view has been expressed in confidential reports circulating at UN headquarters in New York, and in classified briefings to US policymakers in Washington.

[...]

UN officials believe the bullet which killed US TV producer David Kaplan near Sarajevo airport on 13 August was unlikely to have been fired by a sniper from distant Serbian positions.
 

'That would have been impossible', one UN military officer said. 'That shot came in horizontal to the ground. Somebody was down at ground level'.

[...]
 

The attack came shortly before a meeting of European Community ambassadors to consider imposing sanctions on Serbia. The world's press concluded that the atrocity was caused by mortar shells fired from Serbian held position and the attack was widely interpreted as a cynical display of defience by the Serbs.
 

UN officials then said they were suspicious about the circumstances but could not go public with their thoughts without jeopardasing the UN mission and possibly endagering the lives of UN peace-keepers. Classified reports to the UN force commander, general Satish Nambiar, however, concluded that Bosnian forces loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic may have detonated a bomb in the area. 'We believe it was a command-detonated explosion, probably in a can', a UN official said. ...

End quote

NOTE: Almost identical text appeared in:

• "San Francisco Chronicle" on August 22, 1992, page A8, under title:

"UN believes Muslims staged 'Serb' attacks"
• Reuters, London
• United Press International, under title:

"Bosnian forces staged attacks to gain sympathy"
• Associated Press

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