Sarajevo- Bosnian police arrested a former mujahedin leader and fighter facing possible deportation to his homeland Syria, news reports said Tuesday.

Imad Al-Husini, or Abu Hamza, was placed in an immigrant centre after his arrest by Bosnian anti-terror police, according to local newspapers.

He led a mujahedin group fighting Serbs on the side of Muslims in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

Deauville, France  - European Union defence ministers meeting in France on Wednesday were to consider ending the bloc's military operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, officials said.

"Citizens should know that we can create a mission and terminate it as well," said the meeting's host, French Defence Minister Herve Morin, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU.

The EUFOR Althea mission was launched in December 2004, tasked with bringing military stability to that former part of Yugoslavia.

At the time it was the EU's biggest ever military operation. Tragedy struck in June, when a Spanish helicopter operating a peacekeeping flight crashed in the hills of central Bosnia, killing all four soldiers aboard.

Washington - Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro were invited Thursday to join a group of countries seeking membership in the NATO alliance, the US State Department said Thursday.

The Adriatic Charter, which consists of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, extended invitations to the two Balkan states during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"This decision was made in the firm belief that this expansion of the charter will further strengthen mutual cooperation and advance Euro-Atlantic integration," McCormack said.

Sarajevo - Bosnia is under threat of partition, the mood reminiscent of that in Czechoslovakia and in former Yugoslavia before they were split up, Miroslav Lajcak, the international community's representative in the country was quoted to have said Wednesday.

Persistent tension between the Muslim majority and the Serb minority, each thoroughly dominant in their respective area, has hampered Bosnia's progress over much of the 13 years since the end of the war.

Sarajevo - Bosnia and China agreed Friday to seek closer economic ties, and a Bosnian official said his country would welcome Chinese investment.

Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang signed three cooperation deals in Sarajevo after a visit to Germany and before heading to Macedonia for talks also expected to focus on trade and investment.

"We agreed that we should significantly strengthen our economic and trade cooperation," Bosnia-Herzegovina Prime Minister Nikola Spiric said.

Amsterdam - The International Criminal Tribunal for Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) has named judges Patrick Robinson (Jamaica), Iain
Bonomy (Britain) and Michele Picard (France) to preside over pre- trial
proceedings in the case against former Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, it
was revealed Friday.

Robinson released the information on behalf of the ICTY. The
judges' assignment deals strictly with the pre-trial proceedings. It
may take many months until the actual trial against Karadzic starts.

On Thursday, ICTY president Judge Fausto Pocar announced trial
chamber 3 had replaced trial chamber 1 in the case against the former
Serb leader.

The tribunal explained the change as "a better redivision of the work load."