Huge Nato swoop for Serb war leader ends in failure

Fugitive Bosnian war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic evades troops staging massive operation in remote hamlet

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In a tiny hamlet in the mountains of Bosnia yesterday morning, the hunt for the most wanted man in the Balkans suddenly went public – and drew a blank.

British soldiers were believed to have been among scores of Nato troops involved in the dramatic attempt to capture Radovan Karadzic, the wartime Bosnian Serb leader, who is wanted by the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague for genocide.

At around 7.20 amthe peace of Jemista, near Celebici, was suddenly shattered as two military helicopters swept inand heavily armed Nato soldiers secured the village. The troops ordered locals inside. Around 50 local children were rounded up in the village school.

At the same time, all mobile phones in the village went dead. The electricity was cut. Nato soldiers sealed off all roads leading to Jemista for 25 miles. Two armoured personnel carriers full of more troops arrived up the main road – a huge number of soldiers to secure a village of just nine houses.

They had come for Mr Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader during Bosnia's savage war, who is indicted, among other crimes, for the genocide at Serebrenica, where 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred.

But Mr Karadzic was nowhere to be seen. The soldiers searched every building. They blew open the doors of the town hall with explosives. Villagers complained that they had torn up the floor of the village church. At 12.30pm local time, the search was called off.

Officials said Nato was acting on a tip-off that Mr Karadzic would be in Jemista. It was still not clear last night whether he had made a dramatic last-minute escape, or Nato's intelligence had been wrong.

Nato officials refused to comment on the nationality of the troops involved, only saying that it was a multinational operation by the alliance's S-For peacekeeping force in Bosnia. Villagers described soldiers in combat uniform with US flags on their sleeves. S-For troops have been known to wear the uniforms of other nations when on missions of this kind.

Since the hand over of Slobodan Milosevic, Mr Karadzic has become the most wanted indicted war criminal in the Balkans. Carla del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor, has repeatedly accused S-For of not doing enough to capture him. There have long been rumours that Mr Karadzic has evaded capture because French S-For troops were tipping him off. He is said to have shaved off his trademark bouffant hair and is wandering the mountains of eastern Bosnia, disguised as a monk.

For months now, there have been persistent rumours of secret operations to capture Mr Karadzic. But yesterday was the first time Nato mounted a public attempt to capture him, which would seem to indicate the alliance was fairly confident he would be in Jemista.

"We made a pretty serious attempt yesterday," said Captain Daryl Morrel, S-For's spokesman. Nato officials claimed that yesterday's public raid had sent a strong signal to Mr Karadzic that the alliance was serious about capturing him, but they may have been making the best of a bad situation, after Mr Karadzic slipped through their fingers.

It would have been a serious coup for the Hague tribunal to get its hands on Mr Karadzic. It would have deflected attention away from the trial of Mr Milosevic, which has been going badly. But the failure to capture him will only add to growing frustrations. After Mr Milosevic was handed over last year, it appeared the remaining indicted war criminals' days on the run were numbered.

But Nato has been continuously frustrated in its attempts to get its hands on Mr Karadzic and his military commander, General Ratko Mladic. General Mladic is believed to be in Belgrade, and the West is pressuring the authorities to hand him over – so far, without success, although, tellingly, his army guard has been removed in the past two weeks.

Sources say it is true that there have been several operations to capture Mr Karadzic in Bosnia before, although Nato has always officially denied that they took place.

Last July there were reports Nato soldiers had been injured in a shoot-out with Mr Karadzic's bodyguards – there were even claims British SAS troops had died in the raid. In the autumn there were reports of further casualties in another attempt on the Montenegro.

Nato had to content itself yesterday with finding secret caches of arms and ammunition in three houses in Jemista, but stashes like these are found in Bosnia all the time.