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NATO Launches New Hunt for Karadzic VOA News 1 Mar 2002 13:31 UTC 
A NATO statement says alliance-led forces launched the operation in the Celibici area, near Foca, southeast of Sarajevo in response to intelligence that Mr. Karadzic may be in the area. NATO troops blocked access to roads and villages in an area not far from where a massive search Thursday failed to locate Mr. Karadzic. It acknowledged that the troops again failed to find the former Bosnian Serb leader but urged him an other war crimes suspects to surrender.
Mr. Karadzic has evaded capture since being indicted by the U.N. tribunal at the Hague on charges of war crimes and genocide committed during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990's.
The alliance says troops Thursday seized three caches of weapons, including anti-tank rockets, mortar rounds, and anti-personnel mines during the raid on a compound near Foca. The prime minister of the Bosnian Serb Republic, Mladen Invanic, protested Thursday's operation, complaining that peacekeepers did not inform his government in advance. The Hague Tribunal indicted Mr. Karadzic and his military chief, General Ratko Mladic, for the shelling of civilians in Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict. Other charges include their role in the disappearance and presumed killing of thousands of Muslim men and boys after Serb forces captured the enclave of Srebrenica in July, 1995.
Humanitarian groups say the Serbs massacred up to 8,000 Muslims captured in Srebrenica, although the bodies of only about a half have been recovered. More than 20 war crimes suspects - most Bosnian Serbs - are still at large. 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.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.
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