The latest Serbian offensive has clearly been aimed at taking over the road linking Belgrade and Pale, which has been in Muslim hands since May.

It lies on the road linking Belgrade with the Montenegrin coast and off the Belgrade-Bar railway.

The greeter scheme - new this summer - coincides with the commencement of a new low-cost route operated by Wizz Air linking Luton and Belgrade.

Thus, the Highway of Brotherhood and Unity, which linked Belgrade and Zagreb, is mostly empty of traffic.

One particularly notorious road is the Ibarska Magistrala (linking Belgrade, via Čačak and Užice, to Montenegro).

It also links Belgrade with nearby districts of Bosnia and Herzegovina that the Serbs seized, and from which they drove out the Muslims, early in the war.

They have disappeared without trace from road signs on what was once the main Yugoslav highway linking Zagreb and Belgrade.

The town is crucial because it has a large munitions factory and straddles the main road linking Belgrade, the Serbian capital, with the Serb-held territory in southern Bosnia.

His case could directly link Belgrade, and Mr. Milosevic, with military actions and atrocities outside Serbia.

United Nations officials say the goal is to capture the road linking Belgrade and Pale, their stronghold in the mountains above Sarajevo.