Finally Catching Up With Mladic

One evil, evil guy who has lots of friends and covert support. It's a wonder they caught him, and, who knows, maybe he was betrayed in the end:

LONDON— Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of overseeing the worst massacre in Europe since the end of World War II, has been arrested, Serbian authorities said Thursday.

Mladic is Europe's most wanted war crimes suspect for his alleged role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the enclave of Srebrenica, an atrocity that came to symbolize the brutality of the Balkans conflict. The war crimes tribunal in The Hague wants to try Mladic on charges of genocide.

...The arrest comes after sustained criticism of Serbia for being too lackadaisical in tracking down Mladic, including a new report by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that reportedly castigates Belgrade's efforts as insufficient.

Serbia is also eager to join the European Union, which has made Belgrade's cooperation with The Hague a condition of its membership. The EU's top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, is due in Serbia imminently for a visit.

...There will be questions, however, as to how Mladic managed to remain at large for so long and whether elements of Serbian security forces knew of his whereabouts without bothering to act. Some Serbian nationalists consider Mladic a hero and believe their country to be the unfair target of censure for its wartime past by international authorities. The arrest could trigger street protests.

...The massacre at Srebrenica was the biggest atrocity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing, a ruthless drive to get rid of Bosnian Muslims. Overall, about 200,000 people are believed to have died in the conflict.

...Three years ago, Serbian authorities arrested Radovan Karadzic, who is also accused of genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre. When he was caught, Karadzic had changed his appearance by growing a flowing beard, had adopted a pseudonym and worked as a sort of spiritual healer.