"I didn't say that no Croat civilians should leave the town alive," he said, brushing aside the fact that several hundred non-Serbs were later rounded up and executed.

According to witness testimony, the unit rounded up a group of Croat civilians and captured soldiers.

BRITISH peacekeeping troops faced sniper fire yesterday as they evacuated 181 Croat civilians from an 800 year-old monastery outside Travnik.

A significant number of Croat civilians in hospitals and shelters marked with a red cross were targeted by Serb forces.

These forces were assisted by local Serb civilians, which pointed the Serb forces to the Croat civilians, carrying lists.

The Serbs expelled nearly all of the Croats from the three enclaves, murdered hundreds of Croat civilians and looted and burned Croat homes.

"It was reported that Bosnian Army soldiers were firing over the heads of Croat civilians."

Some Chetniks committed atrocities against Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civilians in regions under their control.

The operation was stopped by Bosnian authorities after it received information about the massacre against Croat civilians and POWs in the villages of Grabovica and Uzdol.

BRITISH peacekeepers saw Muslim soldiers gun down Croat civilians yesterday, UN military sources said.