NATO peacekeepers attacked in Bosnia

Hardline Croatian nationalist attacked NATO peacekeepers in the city of Mostar yesterday after they mounted a crackdown on organisations bent on breaking up the country's Muslim-Croat Federation.

The peacekeepers, along with Bosnian police, surrounded several banks throughout Bosnia that are suspected of supporting the ultra-nationalist Croatian Democratic Union.

However, the Croats, who backed Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Muslim's in Bosnia's 1992 to 1995 war, stoned the troops, overturned cars and attacked employees of international organisations who helped in the crackdown.

The Croatian Democratic Union has been attempting to set up its own mini-state, run solely by Croats, in southern Bosnia.