Bosnia, the most multi-ethnic of the Yugoslav republics, follows Slovenia and Croatia in declaring independence. The Serb minority boycotts the vote, and its leader, Radovan Karadzic, proclaims a Bosnian Serb republic.
In April 1992, civil war breaks out, with Mr Karadzic leading the Bosnian Serbs as their president. During the war, around 17,000 people are killed, 12,000 of them in Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, which was besieged by Bosnian Serbs during the conflict.
In Srebrenica, more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys are killed in what was supposed to be a UN "safe area". It is the worst atrocity to take place in Europe since the second world war. Lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers did not intervene as Serb forces divided women from men, who were to be slaughtered.
In 1995, Mr Karadzic is indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide and war crimes alongside his army commander, General Ratko Mladic. The UN hopes to try both men at the war crimes tribunal at The Hague, in the Netherlands.
With the Bosnian Serbs weakened by Nato airstrikes, Mr Karadzic is forced to accept the peace accords set out in the Daytona Agreement that ends the war.
During this period, efforts to arrest Mr Karadzic are not as intensive as those of recent years. After Daytona, Mr Karadzic claims he had been assured by the US envoy, Richard Holbrooke, that, as long as he kept out of sight, he would be out of mind. For a number of years, he was apparently regularly seen by Nato troops in Bosnia, who were reluctant to risk destabilising the peace and so left him alone.
September 11 2001
After the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington, a huge scaling down of the numbers of US forces in Bosnia is needed for the US to address new commitments and priorities in the "war on terror". The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, calls Mr Karadzic their "exit strategy" from Bosnia. The Serb president, Vojislav Kostunica, says that pressure from the US to hand over the indicted men has become "unrelenting".
In the aftermath of September 11, the west increases pressure on Mr Karadzic to surrender, with aggressive media and poster campaigns offering £3.5m to anyone able to turn him in. Nato-led peacekeepers fail to arrest him in raids during February and March. Many local Serbs remain fiercely loyal to him, but hundreds of thousands of ransom leaflets are being dropped on the mountains of eastern Bosnia.
A BBC/Guardian Films documentary, made by the Guardian's Maggie O'Kane, tries to trace Mr Karadzic's movements, and sees her talk to his supporters. She obtains a list from Bosnian intelligence sources of locations in which he has been hiding during the past two years. There are 19 places on the list, including Orthodox monasteries, private houses, military barracks and hunting lodges. He is said to move between eastern Bosnia and the coastal Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, where he was born.
French Nato troops raid Mr Karadzic's empty former home in Pale, Bosnia, once the "capital" of the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic. His wife, who still lives in Pale, says that they should have asked for the keys, and adds that he "is not hiding behind the paintings".
The US and Nato launch a new push to corner Mr Karadzic by blacklisting his supporters, raiding offices, sacking officials and taking steps to cut his money supply. Montenegro denies that he has been hiding at an Orthodox monastery in the state.
January 11 2004
Nato-led peacekeeping forces again search Mr Karadzic's home in Pale, but fail to find him.
February 11 2004
Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, says that Mr Karadzic is sheltering with impunity in Belgrade, free from prosecution. She adds that she could "have him tomorrow" if there is the "political will", and says she hopes that he will be arrested by the end of the year.
March 14 2004
Bosnian Serb police fail to catch Mr Karadzic after sweeping the area of Bratunac, near the border with Serbia, following a tip that he had been planning to cross into Serbia.
April 1 2004
Nato peacekeepers again raid Pale, focusing on a Serbian Orthodox church, but fail to find Mr Karadzic. A priest and his son are wounded during the raid. Commentators suggest that efforts to find Mr Karadzic and his supporters before Nato hands over its mission to an EU force by the end of the year are increasing.