INTERNATIONAL POLICE REPORTS MURDER IN TRAVNIK, BLAST IN PRIJEDOR

BANJA LUKA, Feb 18 (Hina) - International Police Task Force (IPTF) Sector West members had been sent to the Brcko area (northeastern Bosnia) to support their colleagues, but all of them were withdrawn because no incident happened in Brcko in connection with a decision of arbitrators, a spokesman for the IPTF in Banja Luka, Allun Roberts, said on Tuesday. Roberts informed a news conference of Tuesday's incident in the northwestern Bosnian town of Prijedor. In the early morning two explosive devices exploded near two houses where IPTF Sector West high-ranking officers were living, Roberts said. Cars of the international police, all windows and facades of the buildings were damaged in the blast, but fortunately no one was injured, he added. Roberts said nothing of possible motives of the incidents, pending an investigation which will be carried out by NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) and the IPTF. He said that the most dangerous incident that had happened recently in the area under IPTF West control was the murder in Travnik, central Bosnia, on February 15. Speaking of the 15 Feb. murder of Fabijan Babic, 72, in the Travnik outskirts of Sipovik, Roberts said he supposed that the killed person was a Croat and that a house was probably Croat, in the vicinity of which an explosive device blasted. Some journalists were dissatisfied with Roberts' report on the murder which he called "a criminal act", and demanded detailed information. He vowed to offer more information on the matter at the next news conference. At this conference a spokesman for the UNHCR in Banja Luka, Mans Nyberg, commented on alleged mass departures of Serbs from eastern Slavonia (Croatia) to the Bosnian Serb entity (the Republic of Srpska). We had no conditions to follow the developments. We had information that a number of Serb families from eastern Slavonia were moving into the Bosnian Serb entity, but mass movements or any exodus from eastern Slavonia to the Republic of Srpska were out of question, Nyberg said. (hina) jn mš 182106 MET feb 97