NATO forces step up search for Karadzic

Nato-led troops were today searching near the Bosnian border with Montenegro for war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Nato-led troops were today searching near the Bosnian border with Montenegro for war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

German, French and US soldiers set up checkpoints in the area yesterday and military helicopters flew overhead during the night.

The former Bosnian Serb president, who is accused of genocide, has long been rumoured to be hiding in the region with the help of locals.

It is said he does not to spend more than 48 hours in the same place, that he is protected by several bodyguards, and that he often crosses into Montenegro where SFOR has no authorisation to follow.

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Black-masked troops failed to catch him when they made a lightning raid on the village of Celebici, southeast of Sarajevo, in February.

The NATO-led peacekeeping force, SFOR, said it set up the checkpoints to find out more about the support network Karadzic uses to hide. Hundreds of troops have been deployed in armoured cars.

The UN says his murder squads killed up to 6,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995 "in order to kill, terrorise and demoralise the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat population".

He was also charged over the shelling of Sarajevo and the use of 284 UN peacekeepers as human shields in May and June 1995.

AP