Sarajevo - US peacekeeping troops have abandoned a guard post at a bridge in the north Bosnian Serb-controlled town of Brcko a week after coming under attack there by stone-throwing mobs, NATO said yesterday.
"I can confirm to you that SFOR no longer has a checkpoint at the south end of the Brcko bridge," Lieut-Col Jim Cronin, a spokesman for the NATO-led peace Stabilisation Force, said from the American base in Tuzla.
"It's going to free up our SFOR soldiers to conduct roving patrols throughout the Brcko area. So we will still have (control of) overall security and we can go to the bridge," Lieut-Col Cronin said.
SFOR officers had been considered the move for some time prior to last week's incidents, he added. After US troops left on Wednesday night, Bosnian Serb police took sole control of the bridge, which spans the Sava river border with Croatia.