Sarajevo- Bosnian authorities arrested two Serb military officers suspected of taking part in the massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica 13 years ago, local media said Wednesday.

The two high-ranking officers, Momir Pelemis and Slavko Peric, face genocide charges for their alleged role in the imprisonment and execution of 1,700 Muslim boys and men in 1995, after the Bosnian Serb army entered the Srebrenica enclave, in the east of the country.

They were arrested on orders by the country's state prosecutor, reports said.

Overall, some 8,000 Muslims were killed at Srebrenica, an enclave declared a safe haven by United Nations in the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian war. The town was on Serb territory but had a Muslim majority.

The overall military commander of Serb forces in Bosnia, Ratko Mladic, was indicted for genocide by the United Nations war crimes tribunal, but remains at large and is believed to be hiding in neighbouring Serbia.

The Serb political leader from that time, Radovan Karadzic, was finally arrested in July in Belgrade and extradited to stand trial at The Hague-based tribunal.

The war ended in late 1995 with a US-brokered deal which had established largely independent entities, one dominated by Serbs, the other by Muslims and Croats. (dpa)