NATO bids to end Kosovo attacks

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO-led troops have cleared ethnic Albanian rebels from a village in the security zone on the Kosovo-Macedonia border.

The move, part of fresh attempts to halt incursions by ethnic Albanian gunmen, came as NATO leaders agreed to allow Serb troops to police the so-called ground safety zone after increasing violence in the area.

Around 50 ethnic Albanian rebels were forced by troops from the NATO-led KFOR force to withdraw from the village of Tanusevci, which straddles the Kosovo-Macedonian border, on Thursday.

The Yugoslav army was expelled from the buffer zone by NATO at the end of the Kosovo war in 1999, but is being allowed back following increasing attacks by ethnic Albanians in the five-kilometre (three-mile) wide region.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said: "NATO is determined that those extremist elements seeking to sow instability or to advance their political agenda by violent means will be stopped, whether in southern Serbia, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or within Kosovo."

KFOR Major James Marshall said U.S., Polish, and Ukrainian KFOR troops also located a rebel outpost in Kosovo on Thursday and swept it for weapons.

NATO's decision to allow a restricted Serbian presence -- army border guards rather than regular army patrols -- was welcomed by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica.

His country has been pushing for their troops to be allowed to patrol in Kosovo, saying Albanian rebels are using the buffer zone to smuggle in weapons.

But Kostunica said the guards would be effectively clearing up where KFOR had failed through a "lack of courage."

"KFOR is abandoning protection of the border and is inviting our army to be in the crossfire," he said.

"What we are really lacking badly is more understanding, more goodwill on the part of KFOR and NATO and more readiness to risk something, maybe more courage on the part of NATO and KFOR that is so badly lacking at this moment."

The timing for the "controlled return" of the Yugoslav patrols, and where they will go, will be up to KFOR.

Serb forces will not be allowed to fly aircraft into what is called the "air safety zone" across Kosovo except in limited circumstances approved by KFOR.

Until now, only lightly-armed policemen have been allowed in the buffer region.

But KFOR says that ultimately the zone will be abolished.

Spiralling troubles

The troubles have spiralled since ethnic Albanians occupied a stretch of the buffer zone in southern Serbia last year and began launching attacks on police in the Presevo Valley area bordering Kosovo.

The gunmen have recently seized adjacent Macedonian land.

KFOR troops had their first armed encounter with suspected rebels last week in which two men were wounded.

As a result, international peacekeepers had been placed on alert in the region.

The buffer zone was one of the main topics discussed by Robertson and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington on Thursday.

Robertson said the two sides had talked about the continuing "long term concern" and "priority to us for the safety and security" in the area.

"But we must make the key difference between the gunmen causing trouble and the vast majority of ethnic Albanians who simply seek peace and stability," he said.

He added: "The skirmishes are of concern and we want to prevent localised skirmishes becoming more widespread."

He said the situation was one of "seriousness and sensitivity."

Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgan Kerim is due to hold talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday.

He said he believed Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Ukraine and Bulgaria would be willing to send troops if KFOR was unable to patrol the whole area.

"All eyes and hopes of the Macedonian population are now turned towards KFOR and measures they will undertake," Kerim told the council.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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KFOR
OSCE
Macedonian Government
United Nations
NATO
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

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