Stabilisation Force (SFOR) troops collected a total of 24,377 hand grenades, 6,250 mortars and mortar shells, 444 mines, 243 kilogramspounds) of explosives, some 400 rifles and 26 rockets in northwestern Bosnia, an SFOR spokesman told AFP.

The weapons were gathered between January and June in an area under the control of SFOR's northwest brigade, covering approximately one quarter of the country, mainly under Bosnian Serb control, spokesman Mark Hamilton said.

Some of the weapons have been handed over to SFOR by those who were illegally holding them.

Bosnia-wide Operation Harvest is being conducted since 1998, with the aim to collect all illegally-held weapons remaining from the 1992-1995 war in the former Yugoslav republic.

In November 2002, the peacekeepers seized some eight tonnes of illegal weapons hidden in a warehouse in the northwestern town of Prijedor, while in May they discovered over three tonnes of illegal arms at a car dump in the southern town of Mostar.

Postwar Bosnia has two semi-independent entities -- the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

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