Army Story 4-17

Jerusalem Compassed with Armies

Clearly this single prophetic event will take place with great swiftness. We will post stories of any troop movements in the Middle East and any stories relating to increased military power among the nations.

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EU forces to take over NATO mission in Bosnia
The Associated Press

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina NATO decided Monday to hand over peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia to the EU, a move welcomed here as a sign that life is returning to normal.

NATO is formally retiring from nine years of peacekeeping in Bosnia at the end of this year and will hand over its 7,500-member mission to the EU, which will be the Union's most ambitious military operation to date.

A small NATO presence will remain in the country to help with military reforms, fight terrorism and keep up the hunt for war crimes suspects.

"NATO's long-term political commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unchanged and the establishment of a NATO headquarters will constitute NATO's residual military presence in the country," the alliance said in a communiqué.

The first NATO force deployed about 60,000 soldiers in Bosnia in 1995 after the end of a three-and-a-half-year war among the country's three ethnic groups: Muslims, Serbs and Croats. Gradually, the number of soldiers decreased as security improved.

In the last few years, the NATO-led Stabilization Force increasingly turned to mediating and supervising military matters. NATO recently was successful in getting all three ethnic groups to agree to join forces in a multiethnic army.

The alliance has been able to capture several lower-ranked war crimes suspects sought by the UN tribunal in The Hague, but it has failed to find Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader sought by the tribunal on charges of genocide.

Almir Brkic, a 36-year-old Muslim, said that although NATO was the most important foreign organization in Bosnia after the war, "in recent years, I hardly noticed their presence."

"Nobody here thinks about fighting again," Brkic said. "People are focused on jobs and money. That's kid of normal, right?"

A spokesman for the EU mission, Frane Marojevic, said the transfer of authority was expected to be relatively smooth, since most of the troops now in the NATO force are from EU countries.

Bosnia's top international official, Paddy Ashdown, also welcomed the decision. The alliance "has completed its mission to help stabilize Bosnia following the tragic conflict of the 1990s, and is now departing," he said in a statement. "This is a remarkable achievement."

Source

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