War crimes suspect Ratko Mladic.

 Gen. Ratko Mladic, the brutal Bosnian Serb general suspected of leading the bloody massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, was arrested in an early morning raid Thursday in Serbia after years in hiding, the country's president said.The arrest 16 years after Mladic was indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for genocide, could be a jolt for Serbia's lagging efforts to join the European Union. The country has been under intense pressure from the international community to catch Europe's most wanted war crimes suspect and the EU has insisted on his arrest as a condition for its membership bid.U.N. prosecutors have said they believed the suspect in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II was hiding in Serbia under the protection of hardliners who consider him a hero for his role in Bosnia's 1992-95 ethnic war.

Belgrade's media said Mladic was arrested in Lazarevo, a village some 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Belgrade, at the home of relatives. B-92 radio said Mladic was not in disguise when arrested, unlike wartime Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 posing as a New Age guru, with long white hair and a beard.Villagers told The Associated Press that the dusk action by Serbian security officers appeared to be swift and quiet.

"They didn't even wake us up," a man who identified himself only as Zoran for fear of reprisals said. "We learned about the arrest only in the morning."

The general earned a reputation as a cold and ruthless killer, personally leading his troops in the bloody Serb onslaught against the U.N.-protected Srebrenica enclave in Bosnia. Just hours before the slaughter, Mladic handed out candy to Muslim children in the town's square, assuring them everything would be fine and patting one child on the head. Then the shootings began and the bodies of the victims were bulldozed into mass graves.The town's name has become nearly synonymous with the horrible bloodshed of the Balkan conflicts.

Mladic will be extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, he said. He did not specify when, but said "an extradition process is under way." Justice officials say it will take at least a week before he is handed over.

In Bosnia, the head of a group of victims' family members formed to keep the pressure on war crimes investigators, welcomed the arrest. But, added Munira Subasic, "I'm sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day."Serbia has been under intense scrutiny over Mladic, with the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, complaining earlier this month that authorities were not doing enough to capture him and other war crimes fugitives.