A NEW Nato-led peace force takes over in Bosnia today from the implementation force, Ifor, which has policed the ceasefire line for the past year.
The S-for, or "stabilisation force", is scheduled to stay for 18 months to shore up the Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war.
It will comprise soldiers from the major nations that contributed to Ifor, but will be only half the size at about 31,000. It will also lack much of Ifor's heavy military muscle, which leaders say is no longer needed.
According to an agreement confirmed at the London conference two weeks ago, the British will provide 5,000 soldiers and support staff, the Americans 8,500 and the French 2,500.
About 3,000 German troops will also serve in a joint Franco-German unit - the first time German combat troops have been stationed outside their home country since the end of the Second World War.
Nato officials say the new force, which will be reviewed every six months, will be large enough to maintain the peace in Bosnia .
Major Jan Joosten, a Dutch Nato spokesman, said: "Ifor has done a lot of things during the first year. We have put weapons in cantonment sites and created a zone of separation between the two sides.
"On the civilian side we have been building bridges and roads. We are convinced we can now maintain the stable situation with less forces."
Despite much debate on broadening the mandate of the new force, Western defence ministers have settled on leaving its role unchanged.
While in military terms Bosnia has made giant leaps towards peace under Ifor, progress in the civilian sphere has been patchy. In effect there is no freedom of movement across the ethnic divide and only a few hundred refugees have managed to return to their homes in areas where they are not in the majority.
About 90,000 Bosnians have left or been forced out of their homes during Ifor's tenure, and S-for is unlikely to alleviate the strains the ethnic purists have forced on the country.
Ifor has been criticised for failing to use its might to carry out a more robust role in implementing Bosnia 's peace.
In particular it has refused to arrest indicted war criminals who are still at large in Bosnia .
Instead, America has suggested that a new police force should be set up to chase war criminals.
The Dayton peace agreement promised the Muslims that their refugees could return to their homes in Serb-held territory. Ifor has done little to facilitate such returns and has sometimes actively blocked them, so as not to antagonise the Serbs.
A Western aid official said: "The problem with Ifor was that they supported the status quo, as do the Serbs. This pitted them against the Muslims who are trying to reintegrate the country."
If S-for follows the same policy and groups of Muslim refugees continue to try to return home by force, it could find itself in the undesirable position of taking on the Muslims.
