Soldiers from the multinational Eurocorps left their base in Strasbourg for Bosnia yesterday on their first active mission since France and Germany launched the new-style force in 1993.
About 150 men from France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg are due to fly to Sarajevo over the next few days for a six-month mission with the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia.
SFOR implements the military provisions of the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended nearly four years of bitter fighting in Bosnia, although the situation remains fragile due to continuing divisions among Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
The 50,000-strong Eurocorps was the first of several joint units Bonn set up or planned with its allies since German reunification in 1990.
Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg have joined the Eurocorps while the Netherlands committed virtually its entire army to a joint division based in the western German town of Muenster.
Germany also plans to found a 25,000-strong joint corps with its NATO partner, Denmark, and former Warsaw Pact member, Poland.
NATO decided last year to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to its ranks.
In central Bosnia, the UN sent police reinforcements to Novi Travnik yesterday after two people were killed in a house explosion, the UN Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina said.
An investigation support team from the UN's International Police Task Force was being sent to the town, along with extra IPTF monitors from Jajce and Bugojno towns, a UN spokesman, Mr Alex Ivanko, said.
Novi Travnik remains a flashpoint of tension between Croats and Muslims, 30 months after Bosnia's 1992-1995 war ended, but Mr Ivanko said investigations by local police into recent violence have failed to bear fruit.