SARAJEVO NATO said on Sunday its peacekeeping force in Bosnia had detained a Bosnian Serb indicted by a UN tribunal for alleged involvement in the massacre of thousands of Muslims in 1995.

A statement issued in Brussels from NATO Secretary General George Robertson said the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) had detained Dragan Obrenovic, who was under sealed indictment' for alleged crimes committed between July and November 1995.

The tribunal issues unpublicized 'closed indictments' to avoid alerting suspects to their possible arrest.

A spokeswoman for the Tribunal Prosecutors' Office, Florence Hartman, said Obrenovic was arrested in Zvornik, in Bosnia's Serb Republic near the border with Yugoslavia.

He flew to The Hague on Sunday night and was expected to be brought before the court in the next few days.

Hartman said he was charged with complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity and violations against the laws and customs of war. The indictment was issued on April 9.

Obrenovic was allegedly involved in the killing of thousands of Muslims in the Bosnian-Herzegovinan town of Srebrenica, Hartman said. In 1995, he was commander of the Zvornik Brigade.

"(Prosecutor) Carla Del Ponte welcomes with satisfaction the fact of the arrest ... We hope that this will lead to other arrests in the next weeks. There are still some 10 fugitives in the Bosnian Serb entity," she said by telephone.

A spokeswoman for the UN mission in Sarajevo said the only information she had was a statement from Bosnian Serb police in Zvornik that Obrenovic had been "abducted" on Sunday in the nearby town of Kozluk.

"Three armed men and one woman abducted Major Dragan Obrenovic, who was commander of Zvornik, at 14:30 (1230 GMT) today," spokeswoman Kate Frieson told Reuters, citing the police statement.

According to the Zvornik police report, the "abductors" were driving a Skoda car and there was one VW Golf in the convoy.

Bosnian Serb television said Obrenovic, who it also said is the commander of the Zvornik Brigade based in eastern Bosnia, was arrested by Hague-based tribunal officials.

It said their car was stopped by local police, who had told the television the four were officials from the tribunal.

Hartman was not immediately available for comment on this report.

Obrenovic's lawyer Krstan Simic told the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA that he was shocked to hear of the arrest on the "greatest Christian holiday" and that if Obrenovic had known he was indicted he would have surrendered voluntarily, Reuters said.

Bosnian Serb forces are alleged to have killed up to 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica. The biggest mass grave of the Srebrenica victims was found near Zvornik.