"The effort will continue... we will not stop," said a NATO official, after chief UN prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said an operation to capture the former Bosnian Serb chief last month missed him by just two hours.

"We as an organization will not suddenly give up on the chase," said the official, asking not to be identified.

Indicted by the UN court for genocide for his role in Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, Karadzic remains for many in the Balkans the symbol of the worst atrocities perpetrated in Europe since World War II.

Del Ponte told Bosnian television Tuesday that "SFOR (the NATO-led force) arrived two hours too late" at a location where Karadzic was known to be.

The prosecutor for The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), said she had "no doubt that SFOR is doing everything possible" to arrest the fugitive by the end of the year.

WAR.WIRE