Banja Luka - Heavily armed NATO troops surrounded police stations in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka yesterday to bolster the Bosnian Serb President, Ms Biljana Plavsic, in her bid to assert authority over her hardline rivals. About 350 British and Czech troops in dozens of armoured vehicles rolled down the streets of Banja Luka in the early morning and deployed around four police stations and a police academy. Western officials said a tense stand-off developed when some state security officers initially refused to leave their building.
Ms Plavsic has been fighting for months to gain control over the security apparatus. Several hundred townspeople cheered her after her officers took over. She shook hands with the new police chief and said: "We have succeeded after all."
