Serbia Targets Fugitive Mladic In Special Operations

Special forces taking part in the operation in Arandjelovac

BELGRADE (RFE/RL) -- Serbian forces have conducted special operations in an effort to locate former Bosnian Serb military leader General Ratko Mladic, who has been indicted for war crimes by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Special brigades of the Serbian Interior Ministry searched a private house in the town of Arandjelovac in an unsuccessful attempt to locate Mladic and his supporters.

Mladic is suspected of organizing the mass killing of Muslim males in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica during the war in former Yugoslavia in 1995.

Serbian authorities have launched numerous raids in an effort to bring in Mladic, including a raid on an apartment belonging to his family on December 4.

The operation on December 12 took place on the same day that the UN tribunal's chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, is set to present a semi-annual report to the UN Security Council in which he will assess Serbia's cooperation with the tribunal.

RFE/RL's Russian Service contributed to this report