Nato raid to seize fugitive Karadzic

British soldiers were among Nato troops who today launched a special operation in a remote pocket of eastern Bosnia where Radovan Karadzic, most wanted man on the United Nations war crimes tribunal list, is thought to be in hiding.

Nato spokesman Captain Daryl Morrell, would only confirm an "ongoing operation" in the area, refusing to give further details. Hundreds of troops, many of them in armoured vehicles, were reported to be involved.

The fugitive ex-Bosnian Serb leader has been on the run with his former military commander General Ratko Mladic since they were indicted six years ago on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Karadzic, 56, and 58-year-old Mladic are accused of besieging the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and butchering more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys near the town of Srebrenica.

An estimated 200,000 people were killed during the three-year war which began in 1992 when Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia. More than 20,000 are still missing, presumed dead, in the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Today, shelling and gunfire were reported near the village of Celebici, some 45 miles south-east of Sarajevo. Nato troops, who landed in two helicopters, were searching schools and homes in the area. Roads toward Celebici were blocked in a radius of some 25 miles and local people were told not to leave their homes. Local phone lines were cut.

To the west, Nato helicopters were seen leaving Mostar airport, 50 miles from Celebici. In Belgrade, the state Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug, reported a "large" peacekeeping force in the region where it was "claimed earlier that Karadzic was hiding".

Karadzic and Mladic were past allies of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, now being tried by tribunal in The Hague for alleged war crimes committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

Last Friday Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at The Hague, was in Banja Luka, capital of the Bosnian Serb territory in Bosnia, to discuss Karadzic's arrest with government officials.

She said: "I need to have him in court in The Hague by October. My information is that Karadzic is in the mountains moving around constantly with his entourage, which is getting smaller and smaller."

Sources close to the chief prosecutor said she wanted British troops based in Banja Luka to prepare for a snatch operation, saying she had lost faith in French troops who patrol the region where he is thought to be in hiding.

The UN says Karadzic's murder squads targeted the thousands of Muslim males at Srebrenica in July 1995 "in order to kill, terrorise and demoralise the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat poprefusedulation". The former Serb leader was also charged over the shelling of Sarajevo, and the use of 284 UN peacekeepers as human shields in May and June 1995.

Karadzic has denied the charges, and like Slobodan Milosevic before him, has to recognise the legitimacy of the UN war crimes tribunal, which has twice indicted him. Karadzic is a former consultant psychiatrist at Kosovo Hospital in Sarajevo. He is also a former poet and petty criminal. He was born in a stable in Montenegro, where his mother, Jovankas, still lives. His father died there some years ago.

His mother has described her son as loyal and a hard worker. His wife, Ljiljana, heads the Red Cross in the Bosnian Serb republic. She lives apart from her fugitive husband for security reasons, but has praised the achievements of his party, and has spoken of her husband's constant fear of being caught and put on trial in the West.

Their businessman son has lived in Belgrade for a number of years and their daughter has owned a television and radio station, Astra, based in Pale, the ski resort town near Sarajevo.