Tensions High after Murders of Bosnian Croats

ld Bosnian Croat man this week near the central town of Travnik was the latest in a series of killings over the past several months which have left six Croats dead. Ivica Domic was shot dead and his father and teenage brother were wounded on the same street where a double murder of Croats occurred in August. Bosnian police have so far failed to solve the murder cases which coincide with agreements between Croat and Moslem leaders to allow refugees to move back to the area and to form joint police forces. Police in Bosnia's Moslem-Croat federation said they were investigating the possibility that hardline elements opposed to the power-sharing agreements in the federation may have been behind the violence. International police monitors said that, whatever the motivation for the murder of Domic, the violence carries "immediate political ramifications", U.N. spokesman Liam McDowall told Reuters. Croat leaders in the federation and the foreign minister of neighbouring Croatia expressed outrage over the murders. Granic said the murder had occurred just when progress was being made on setting up a joint police force for the Travnik region. Relief workers had reported some positive trends in central Bosnia in recent months with Moslem and Croat authorities accepting the return of a small number of refugees. Croats and Moslems began the Bosnian conflict as allies and later fought a 10-month war for territory which ended with the formation of the federation, which covers half of Bosnia.