Sfor defends pursuit of Karadzic

Mr Karadzic and Gen Mladic are indicted over Srebrenica

Nato's outgoing commander in Bosnia has defended his force's efforts to capture the main former Bosnian Serb leader accused of war crimes.

Brig-Gen Steven Schook said he was "absolutely not" embarrassed that Radovan Karadzic remains free.

The UN War Crimes Tribunal's chief prosecutor is due to give a progress report to the Security Council on Tuesday that is expected to be caustic.

The EU is set to take over peacekeeping in Bosnia on 2 December.

Most wanted

During the nine years that Nato's Stabilisation Force (SFor) has been operating in Bosnia it has detained 28 suspects wanted by the UN War Crimes Tribunal based in the Hague.

But Mr Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic remain at large despite several operations to detain them. They are the two most wanted men among the Tribunal's indicted war crimes suspects.

Both Mr Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader, and ex-military chief Gen Mladic have been indicted by the UN Tribunal on 16 counts of genocide and war crimes over the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995.

The Tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, has criticised the failure to arrest them in the past.

Scrutiny

Her report is due to examine the degree of co-operation with the Tribunal by the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Carla Del Ponte wants more suspects arrested

Nato's general said he was "very proud" of what Sfor had accomplished and that the suspects' "support network" in Bosnia Serb areas had made arresting them "more difficult".

Meanwhile, Croatian President Stipe Mesic defended his country's record of compliance on Tuesday, ahead of the report.

Mr Mesic said Croatian security services had worked hard to locate retired Gen Ante Gotovina and that he does not believe the general is in Croatia.

Ms Del Ponte has previously said she believes Gen Gotovina is in hiding in Croatia.

Sfor is due to hand over Bosnian peacekeeping to an EU-convened force, Eufor, on 2 December. Brig Gen Schook was speaking at a press conference on the handover.