HEAVY fighting raged today for the fifth day running around the

Croat-held Orasje pocket bordering a vital Serb corridor in northern

Bosnia, local and United Nations sources reported.

UN military observers in the area recorded some 2000 detonations and

said Bosnian Croats had fired 60 rockets on the Bosnian Serb territory

since the morning.

Iljo Dominkovic, spokesman for the Bosnian Croat forces in Orasje,

told Reuters in a telephone interview that the pocket ''has seen one of

the worst days of fighting.''

He said some 5000 shells and two Russian-made Luna-type

ground-to-ground missiles hit Croat defence lines. The fiercest battle

was for control of the village of Vidovice, on the eastern part of the

pocket.

Dominkovic said Bosnian Serbs attempted a combined tank and infantry

attack from three directions, using 10 tanks, several APCs (Armoured

Personnel Carriers), and several hundred soldiers, but the attack was

repelled.

''There have also been hand-to-hand fighting, but our troops managed

to keep the defence lines, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy,'' he

said.

Dominkovic said four Serb tanks and an armoured personnel carrier were

destroyed while more than 50 Serb soldiers have been killed.

Two Bosnian Croat soldiers were killed and another five wounded in the

fighting. There was no independent confirmation of Dominkovic's report.

The Croatian news agency Hina said Bosnian Serb forces shelled the

town of Zupanja and the village of Bosnjaci in eastern Croatia, causing

much damage. It said there were no reports of casualties.

The Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA said that Croatian forces had been

shelling the Bosnian Serb port town of Brcko from their positions in

Rajevo Selo and Podgajci Posavski in Croatia. It said Orasje Croats

fired six rockets on the town.

SRNA said Brcko sustained ''substantial damage'' but reported no

casualties.

The Bosnian Croat news agency, quoting local military sources, said

Bosnian Serbs were shelling civilian targets in Orasje and were

attempting to pierce the Croat defence lines on the western edge of the

pocket.

The Orasje pocket forms a troublesome Croat bridgehead south of the

river Sava, close to a vital Serb corridor linking separatist Serb

enclaves in Croatia and Bosnia with Serbia, their only supply source.

Bosnian Serbs apparently want to widen the corridor in preparation for

decisive battles elsewhere in Bosnia and Croatia, local Croat and UN

sources said.

The corridor, reported closed for a brief period yesterday because of

fighting, reopened today, SRNA said.

* More than 200 Muslims were expelled from territory by Serbs in

northern Bosnia yesterday, government television reported today.

The nightly television news broadcast said 208 civilians were bussed

across the front line into government territory at Turbe, west of

Travnik.

Another 40 Muslim men reportedly had been removed from the buses by

Bosnian Serb army authorities in nearby Donji Vakuf.

These men were said to have paid Serb authorities 500 German marks

($350) for the right to leave their homes, suggesting that at least some

of the refugees may have requested to leave Serb-held territory.