SFOR ISN'T FAMILIAR WITH NATO PLANS TO PULL US TROOPS OUT OF BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, Oct 11 (Hina) - Stabilisation Force (SFOR) spokesman Daryl Morrell denied on Thursday again the existence of any plans to send US troops deployed in the country on missions against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The SFOR has not received any information from the NATO headquarters about such plans, Captain Morrell told reporters in Sarajevo. According to unofficial information which is based on anonymous sources from the Pentagon, NATO member-countries' ambassadors held a meeting in Canada on Tuesday and decided to send around 1,000 US troops from Bosnia and Kosovo to Afghanistan. The United States has reportedly requested Canada and European allies to secure replacement for those soldiers within SFOR and KFOR (Kosovo Force) missions. The SFOR headquarters in Sarajevo has regularly dismissed such information stressing the Afghanistan crisis will not jeopardise the peace mission in Bosnia. Captain Morrell could not confirm that Wednesday's attack on a Russian SFOR convoy was in any way linked to terrorist threats. Unidentified persons yesterday threw a hand-grenade at a Russian cistern convoy transporting fuel from Tuzla to Ugljevik in northern Bosnia, but the explosive device did not go off. The head of the Russian SFOR brigade headquarters, Sergei Nikolayevich Borgul, told the Bosnian Serb media he believed this was a terrorist act directed against SFOR soldiers. The SFOR spokesman in Sarajevo later said there was no evidence for the time being that the incident was a terrorist act. (hina) rml