"Our remaining forces will focus on these two, as we want them arrested. Until they are arrested, we will remain here," Brigadier General Timothy Wright said, quoted by the Onasa news agency.

Wright spoke at a ceremony marking the end of the US mission in the NATO-led peacekeeping Stabilisation Force (SFOR) held at SFOR's Eagle Base near the northern town of Tuzla.

Washington is ending its mission in SFOR ahead of the handover of peacekeeping duties in Bosnia from NATO to the European Union. It will keep some 150 troops who will be stationed at the Eagle Base.

The 7,000-strong EU mission to Bosnia, codenamed Althea, will take over from SFOR on December 2 in the biggest military operation yet undertaken by the 25-nation bloc.

NATO will maintain a small headquarters in Sarajevo to help with defence reforms and the manhunt for war crimes suspects.

Karadzic, Bosnian Serb wartime political leader, and Mladic, his army commander, have been charged by the UN war crimes court at The Hague with crimes including genocide for their role in Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

SFOR has launched several high-scale operations to nab Karadzic, who is believed to shuffle between Serb-dominated parts of Bosnia and Montenegro, but without success.

Mladic is said to be hiding in neighbouring Serbia, but on Monday SFOR troops hunting for him raided a house near Sarajevo occupied by relatives.

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