SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — NATO-led peacekeepers staged a dramatic helicopter raid on two remote mountain villages Thursday but failed to capture Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is wanted on war crimes charges by a U.N. tribunal.
The raid began when four helicopters landed near the southern Bosnian village of Celebici. Black-masked soldiers stormed out to search houses and other buildings, breaking through locks or doors when necessary, local residents told reporters who later visited the scene.
As they demanded entry to homes, the soldiers distributed leaflets that carried a message in Serbian: "Don't be afraid. It's a routine check." Soldiers also broke into shops, locked apartments and a church, sometimes using explosives or firing bullets into locks.
At least 40 troops from several countries participated. A soldier was reported slightly injured by one of the explosive blasts. Three weapons caches were found during the raid, but there was no resistance and no other injuries were reported.
The raid was the first publicly known effort to arrest Karadzic, who was indicted in 1995 on charges of genocide and other war crimes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He has been in hiding since 1996 and now tops the tribunal's list of most-wanted suspects.
"Karadzic was not found at this location," NATO said in a statement issued at its headquarters in Brussels. "However, this operation demonstrates SFOR's capabilities and resolve to act in apprehending, by force if necessary, persons indicted for war crimes."
Fear of casualties is widely seen as a key reason the peacekeeping force in Bosnia, known as SFOR, has not acted more aggressively to locate and arrest Karadzic.
There has also been speculation that his arrest could trigger anti-Western violence in Serb-dominated areas of Bosnia, where far more people consider him a hero than a criminal. In Celebici, a poster could be seen Thursday with a photograph of Karadzic and the words "Don't Touch Him."
Bosnia has a complicated system of elected leadership, but ultimate power rests with an international administration and an about 16,000-member international peacekeeping force set up by the 1995 Dayton accords that ended the war.
Supporters of Karadzic responded to the raid's failure by virtually taunting SFOR.
One of Karadzic's brothers, Raco, said Thursday that Karadzic is at "a safe place" and is "healthy and well," Yugoslavia's state-run Tanjug news agency reported.
