NATO troops again fail to capture Karadzic

NATO-led troops have launched a new raid to capture Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, but for the second day …

NATO-led troops have launched a new raid to capture Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, but for the second day running the operation ended in failure.

Poster of Karadzic
A poster of former Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic decorates a broken window in the village of Celebici.

A spokesman for the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR), said today’s operation was over but that the hunt for the Bosnian Serb wartime leader would go on.

The road to the village of Celebici in southeastern Bosnia was blocked by German soldiers from Bosnia's NATO-led SFOR peacekeeping force and an armoured personnel carrier.

Western officials have said in recent months they are stepping up efforts to ensure wartime political leader Mr Karadzic and his military chief Mr Ratko Mladic are brought to justice.

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The two men have been indicted on genocide charges both for the 1995 mass killing of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and for the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, which killed around 12,000 people.

With their erstwhile patron, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, now on trial at The Hague tribunal, Mr Karadzic and Gen Mladic are top of the tribunal's wanted list.

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Mr Mladen Ivanic protested against the operation, complaining his authorities had not been informed or consulted in advance.

"It is impermissible that such an operation take place without the knowledge of any institution of the Serb Republic," Mr Ivanic told the Bosnian Serb parliament in Banja Luka.

AFP &