A handout video grab from footage shown at the Hague war crimes tribunal showing the teenage boys shot for being Muslims. (Reuters)

BELGRADE, June 3, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Following the showing of a sickening video depicting anti-Muslim atrocities, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has announced the arrest of several former soldiers accused of executing Muslims during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The soldiers of the so-called "Scorpions" paramilitary unit, then linked to the Serbian interior ministry, are believed to be those shown in a video depicting atrocities which was screened Wednesday during the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the UN tribunal at The Hague, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The video, filmed by a Serb soldier but never before seen publicly, showed six Muslim teenage boys with their hands bound and in civilian clothes being unloaded from a truck and shot in the back.

The faces of the perpetrators can be seen and their insults to the scared young Muslims can be clearly heard. The film was shot by a member of the Scorpions, according to Reuters.

B-92 television said additional footage of two youths who were taken to a house and tortured before being killed was not shown because it was too disturbing.

Some 9,000 Muslim men and boys were executed when Bosnian Serb forces backed by the Milosevic regime overran the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in 1995.

"Since yesterday several suspects implicated in this crime have been arrested," Kostunica said Thursday, June 2, after a meeting UN prosecutor Carla Del Ponte in Belgrade, according to AFP.

"It was important to react immediately on the basis of this video which was shocking and terrible for all of us."

He did not identify the suspects or reveal how many had been arrested. However a human rights lawyer who helped unearth the video, Natasa Kandic, identified two of them as Pera Petrasevic and Aleksandar Medic, AFP said.

Meanwhile, Serbian state television reported that at least ten men, including the alleged commander of the notorious Scorpions unit, were arrested in an ongoing police operation.

And Rasim Ljajic, country's top official in charge of cooperation with the UN tribunal, said "more than eight people, suspected of execution of Srebrenica's Muslims" have been arrested in a police operation which had started late Wednesday.

"Direct executors were arrested in an operation which will last till all participants in the crime are arrested," Ljajic said.

Considered the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II, the massacre has led to genocide charges against suspects including Milosevic, former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic.

The video, excerpts of which were shown on Serbian television late Wednesday, came as a deep shock to the former Yugoslav republic where many people continue to deny the massacre took place.

Serbia has always denied any involvement in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. But del Ponte said the Scorpions were under the command of the Serbian police and were transferred to Bosnia to join the fighting with police knowledge.

In a report issued by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1999, the United Nations admitted it failed to do its part to protect the Muslims of Srebrenica from mass murder.

The two men believed responsible for the slaughter, Karadzic and Mladic, have been indicted by the UN tribunal at The Hague for genocide and war crimes but remain at large.

In a landmark ruling, the Appeals Chamber of the UN war crimes tribunal confirmed in April, 2004, that the 1995 massacre amounted to a "genocide".

Del Ponte said Thursday the arrests were a "brilliant operation" by the Serbian authorities, and urged them to follow up by arresting Mladic and Karadzic.

Kostunica declared the arrests after meeting with del Ponte (left). (Reuters)

Serbian political leaders are divided over how to reconcile the country to the atrocities committed in the wars that tore the former Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, and in particular how to cooperate with the UN war crimes court.

Kostunica dismisses Del Ponte's claims that Mladic is being protected by rogue elements of the Serbian military, and has accused the tribunal of anti-Serb bias.

But his main political rival, President Boris Tadic, said the gruesome video was clear evidence of the "monstrous crimes" committed by Serb forces during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.

"This video is evidence of monstrous crimes which have been committed during the war in that region. The crimes were committed in the name of our nation," Tadic told Beta news agency.

Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said "bringing to justice all those indicted for war crimes is our primary national obligation".

"Those we saw on the video killing unarmed youngsters from Srebrenica, the organizers and those who ordered such crimes, have committed the biggest crime against the Serbian and Montenegrin people," he said.