BUILDING PEACE IN THE BALKANS : NATO Ready to Monitor Grave Sites, Admiral Says

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  The commander of NATO forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina said Saturday the mission is now in a position to become more actively involved in monitoring suspected mass grave sites in the Balkan nation and in providing a secure environment for the investigation of those sites by international agencies.

U.S. Navy Adm. Leighton W. Smith said he had ordered North Atlantic Treaty Organization air forces “to establish a [reconnaissance] program over a couple of known [grave] sites” and indicated that NATO ground troops also would monitor suspected sites in the course of other duties.

The admiral confirmed he had received a request for assistance from the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, but he refused to go into the details of that request or of his response.

Smith denied that aerial reconnaissance by NATO forces of suspected mass grave sites represented an expanded and debilitating assumption of new responsibility.

“This is not mission creep,” he said. “It is intelligence gathering in the course of normal operations.”