THE Bosnian peace process appeared stalled yesterday as the Serb army chief, Gen Ratko Mladic, retaliated for the detention of Serbs for alleged war crimes - a fate that investigators say could one day be his.
Senior US and Russian officials, co operating in the Nato led peacekeeping force, tried to defuse the crisis, but laid the blame in opposite corners.
Nato said yesterday afternoon it had lost communications with top level Bosnian Serb army officers a development which Lieut Gen Sir Michael Walker, the Nato ground commander in Bosnia, called ominous.
Gen Mladic earlier ordered the suspension of all contacts with Nato until a Serb general, a colonel and at least six other soldiers detained by the Muslim led government in connection with war crimes were released.
"I certainly don't think we want to underestimate the dangers of this situation," Gen Walker said, describing the cutting of contacts as the Serbs' "first wilful sign of non compliance" with the military requirements of the Dayton accord.
Serb civilians continued to cross the dividing lines with Muslim Croat territory despite an order by Gen Mladic suspending such journeys. "The border will not be closed," Mr Maksim Stanisic, mayor of Serb held Sarajevo, said.
Serb authorities said on Thursday they would seize Muslims or Croats crossing into their territory unless the Bosnian government freed the Serb detainees.
In another sign that many Serbs were unwilling to cut off all, contact, Mr Stanisic said he would be willing to meet the international community's top civilian envoy, Mr Carl Bildt, or his deputy, Mrs Michael Steiner, in the mayor's office in Ilidza or at the Nato controlled airport in Sarajevo.
Gen John Shalikashvili, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, asked Bosnia's President to provide better treatment for the Serbs held on suspicion of involvement in war crimes, in an apparent attempt to defuse the tension.
"I have asked that those against whom there is no evidence that they participated in war crimes be released immediately," he told reporters in Sarajevo.
He reiterated the US position that Gen Mladic's continued presence at the head of the Bosnian Serb army was a serious impediment to peace.
"As far as we are concerned we are going to deal with those people who properly represent the Serbian people and not with indicted war criminals," he said.
Gen Mladic, like the Bosnian Serb president, Dr Radovan Karadzic, has been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The Russian Defence Minister, Mr Pavel Grachev, visiting Belgrade, struck a different note, calling "unjust" the detentions of the Serbs, some of whom were reportedly on their way to take part in negotiations with the Muslim led government when seized.
"We greatly regret this event, we think it is unjust," he said. "We think that none of us should take actions that could torpedo the process."
The US Assistant Secretary of State, Mr Richard Holbrooke, the main architect of the Dayton, peace accord, said in Budapest he would travel to Sarajevo, Belgrade and Zagreb to deal with the "serious challenges" to the pact.
"The US will not tolerate the kind of threats that some of the Bosnian Serbs have been making," he said.
The Bosnian government says Gen Djordje Djukic and Col Aleksa Krsmanovic of the Bosnian Serb army are suspected of killing civilians during the war.
The war crimes tribunal has asked Bosnian authorities to hold the two officers until it decides whether to issue an indictment. However, the dispute exposes a grey area in the peace treaty, which does not set out clear guidelines for the investigation and extradition of suspected war criminals.