NATO-led peacekeepers have launched a major operation in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina but have failed to locate Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic.
An alliance statement says troops seized three caches of illegal weapons, including anti-tank rockets, grenades, mortar rounds and anti-personnel mines at a compound in an area near the town of Foca, southeast of Sarajevo. But the statement said troops failed to find Mr. Karadzic. However, it called the operation a demonstration of the capabilities of the peacekeeping force and its determination to apprehend war crimes suspects.
Bosnian Serb media reports say troops used helicopters and armored vehicles in the operation. They mentioned the sound of explosions as peacekeepers entered houses, schools, churches and other facilities. Telephone and radio communications also reportedly were blocked and electricity cut off.
The Prime Minister of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Mladen Invanic, protested the operation, complaining that peackeepers had failed to inform his government in advance. The United Nations tribunal in The Hague has indicted Mr. Karadzic and his military chief, General Ratko Mladic, for war crimes in connection with the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict. The tribunal also indicted both men for their role in the disappearance of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys after Serb forces captured the enclave of Srebrenica in July, 1995.
International humanitarian organizations say the Serbs massacred those who are missing, although only about 4,000 bodies have been recovered from mass graves so far. More than 20 war crimes suspects - most Bosnian Serbs - are still at large including Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Mladic.
The Bosnian Serb government earlier this month gave war crimes suspects a 30-day deadline to surrender or lose their chance of being provisionally released on bail if detained.