Five men detained in attack on Serbian minister

One of the men detained was a police officer and the other a retired police, said Mihajlovic, who was unharmed in the apparent assassination bid in the city centre of Belgrade early Friday.

Two vehicles tried to block Mihajlovic's car, but his driver managed to evade them. Attackers then shot at the vehicle, but failed to hit it, Beta news agency reported, quoting police sources. No one was injured in the incident. Mihajlovic is provisionally in charge of the interior ministry in Serbia's three-week-old government.

Mihajlovic said the arrests proved that organized crime had links to the interior ministry, and vowed to continue the battle against criminal gangs. The acting minister said whether he had indeed been targetted was unclear. He said his car may have gotten into the crossfire accidentally. Meanwhile acting Yugoslav Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic blamed the incident on former officials of the regime of Yugoslav ex-president Slobodan Milosevic. Zivkovic vowed that Yugoslavia's new democratic government would get tough on organized crime. A string of high-profile killings occurred in Belgrade in the first half of the last year, starting with underworld boss, paramilitary leader and politician Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan, in January. Federal defence minister Pavle Bulatovic was killed a month later at a restaurant he owned.

(dpa)