Peacekeepers keep eyes open for top U.N. war crimes fugitive

PALE, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- NATO troops in Bosnia on Tuesday gathered outside the home of Radovan Karadzic's daughter, suspected of helping the top U.N. war crimes fugitive elude justice.

There were no signs the operation was an attempt to arrest Karadzic himself, who reportedly has been hiding in remote eastern Bosnia.

U.S., French and Italian peacekeepers began gathering at about 10 a.m. around the home of Sonja Karadzic in Pale, Karadzic's wartime headquarters 10 miles northeast of Sarajevo.

Others patrolled the town, stopping at intersections and outside homes in wealthier neighborhoods. They were not seen entering any buildings. At one point, soldiers paused in front of the private medical practice of Karadzic's wife, Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic.

"These sorts of operations are conducted in order to disrupt the efforts of persons performing activities that impede the progress and development of Bosnia-Herzegovina," the peacekeeping force said in a statement issued Tuesday evening.

"There is no place for obstructionist activities in this country," it said.

The Italian military in Bosnia said about 80 Italian paramilitary police were involved.

Karadzic's wife and daughter, along with his son, Aleksandar, and brother, Luka, are suspected of helping him elude capture.

Last month, Bosnia's top international official, Paddy Ashdown, ordered the family's bank accounts and assets in Bosnia to be frozen. In January, peacekeepers searched a radio station owned by Karadzic's daughter.

A spokesman for the peacekeeping force, Capt. Dale MacEachern, told The Associated Press only that an operation under way was "necessary in order to disrupt the activities of persons conducting anti-Dayton activities."

The 1995 Dayton peace accords ended Bosnia's 3 1/2-year war, which killed 250,000 people and made refugees of 1.8 million others.

A spokesman for the Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry, Zoran Glusac, said he had no information about the nature of the operation. Spokesmen at NATO's civilian and military headquarters in Belgium also declined to comment.

NATO-led peacekeepers have conducted numerous raids and other operations in recent months aimed at tightening the noose around Karadzic.

Karadzic and his wartime military chief, Gen. Ratko Mladic, were indicted in 1995 for genocide and crimes against humanity committed against Bosnia's non-Serb population. Both have been in hiding.

The most infamous atrocity in the U.N. indictment against Karadzic is the July 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, a U.N. "safe haven" for Muslim refugees.

The enclave was overrun by Serbs who separated the men and boys, forced them to strip, executed up to 8,000 and bulldozed their bodies into mass graves. Women and children also were raped and killed in several days of bloodletting.

One judge at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, reviewing the evidence of what happened at Srebrenica, described it as "scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."

Karadzic's hideouts reportedly have included Serbian Orthodox monasteries and refurbished mountain caves in remote eastern Bosnia. He is said to don various disguises and move about frequently.