Del Ponte is due to meet EU force (EUFOR) commander General David Leakey in Bosnia on Thursday, the day NATO hands over peacekeeping duties to the nascent EU force.

Her spokeswoman, Florence Hartmann, told AFP Del Ponte would call for greater efforts to nab the two most wanted Balkan war crimes fugitives, Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

She would strees the need for "tight cooperation between the international forces present in Bosnia and local authorities in order to end the evasion of justice that has been going on for nine years," Hartmann said.

The 7,000-strong EUFOR is to take over peacekeeping from NATO's SFOR, nine years after the country's 1992-95 war, at a ceremony which will be attended by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Del Ponte is also due to meet the international community's high representative in Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, as well as NATO commanders.

NATO's mission is generally seen as successful in keeping the peace, but it has failed in repeated attempts to track down war crimes suspects.

Del Ponte has been highly critical of what she calls NATO's lack of political will to bring the perpetrators of some of Europe's worst atrocities since World War II to justice.

Bosnian Serb authorities have yet to arrest a single war crimes suspect since the end of the conflict.

Del Ponte reported to the UN Security Council on the situation last week, complaining that top war crimes suspects were being protected by allies in the former Yugoslav republics of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro.

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