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Western powers are preparing sanctions against separatist Bosnian Serbs in a confrontation that could tear Bosnia apart and trigger a new Balkans conflict. According to diplomatic sources, the US and UK are drawing up new measures to punish the nationalist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, and Germany is leading a push for the European Union to follow suit. Bosnia is run as an international protectorate under the terms of the US-brokered Dayton Accords after the savage inter-ethnic wars triggered by the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The US and European governments fear that Bosnia’s break-up will deal...

Six people have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling weapons to radical Islamists in Sweden, Bosnian Serb authorities said on Friday. ... Authorities further stated that another person had "previously" been arrested in Sweden, while another two remained at large. Five arrests were made by Bosnian-Serbian anti-terrorism officials on Thursday, said officials, after large quantities of military-grade weapons were found during police raids. ... According to claims in Bosnian Serb media cited by TT, police suspect that the smugglers had intended to deliver the weapons to a group in Sweden called 'Muslim Brothers'. It was not immediately known whether or...

Ratko Mladic, wanted for genocide during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, has been arrested in Serbia. Serbian President Boris Tadic said the process to extradite the former Bosnian Serb army chief to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague was under way. Gen Mladic is accused over the massacre of at least 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995. He was the most prominent Bosnian war crimes suspect at large since the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in 2008. The detention, the Serbian leader said, closed one chapter in Serbian history, bringing the country and the...

SOUTHEASTERN EUROPEWASHINGTON WARNS BELGRADE OVER ARMS SALES TO IRAQ... The Untied States has "accused two state-owned companies in Yugoslavia and Bosnia of repairing the engines of Iraqi MiG fighters and demanded that the two countries' governments act to stop the trade," the "Washington Post" reported on 23 October (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 22 October 2002). Serbian experts are also believed to be helping Iraq improve its air defenses. Speaking in Washington on 22 October, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said there is "clear evidence" of dealings with Baghdad by the Belgrade-based Yugoimport firm and the Orao company, which is located...

Friday April 19, 2:42 AM US warns Bosnian Serbs their fate is tied to war crimes fugitives A US envoy warned Bosnian Serb leaders that their republic will remain poor and isolated as long as wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic remain on the run. Karadzic and Mladic are wanted for trial before the UN tribunal in The Hague for genocide and war crimes during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia. In talks here with Bosnian Serb President Mirko Sarovic and other leaders, US envoy Pierre-Richard Prosper delivered the message that there would be no improvement in the lives of...