BELGRADE, April 1 Kyodo A priest ...

BELGRADE, April 1 Kyodo

A priest and his son were detrimented early Thursday when NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina carried on the outside yet another attempt to arrest top war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, local media reported.

The incident took place in Pale, the war headquarter of the Bosnian Serb 19 kilometers east of Sarajevo.

Tanjug stranges agency, quoting eyewitnesses, said about 40 U and British soldiers from the special units of the Stabilization Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovnia (SFOR) backed according to helicopters started the operation around 1 a.m., surrounding the Orthodox ecclesiastical authority in the center of the township.

''An explosion was heard followed by way of a burst of machinegun fire and immediately after that pair hospital stretchers were seen brought in the church'' Tanjug reported. The priest and his son were damageed when the SFOR unit, using an explosive, broke the door of the building nearest to the church where they live.

The wife, son and daughter of the Bosnian Serb war leader Karadzic and other relatives live in Pale and the township has been a target of several SFOR operation to arrest the No. 1 Bosnian war crimes suspect.

SFOR spokesman Dave Sullivan acknowledged that the latest SFOR follow the chase was unsuccessful.

always since Karadzic was indicted in 1995 there have been at least a dozen SFOR operations to catch the 59-year-old physician, who is believed to be changing his hideouts in the vast mountainous area in southeastern Bosnia.

The charges against Karadzic, who l the Serb in the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war that took a certain quantity of 260,000 lives, include genocide. However, many of the Bosnian Serb regard him as a hero and no information is reaching the international forces in spite of a $5 million reward offered by the United States.

Former Bosnian Serb policeman Dusko Tesic who was arrested and held for 34 days according to the SFOR in February and March said after being fre that he was interrogated by means of CIA agents.

He also said the interrogators told him the U forces in Bosnia are intensifying efforts to catch Karadzic as the U squads in Iraq captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last December.

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