Kosovo NATO troops under fire

NATO peacekeepers were marking the border with Serbia when the attack happened

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Peacekeepers with the NATO-led force in Kosovo have come under fire from suspected ethnic Albanian rebels, NATO has said.

The Reuters news agency quoted officials as saying U.S. and Russian peacekeepers escaped without injury in the incident.

They had been pinned down by small arms fire near the village of Gornje Karacevo in eastern Kosovo near the border with Serbia proper, the peace force said in a statement.

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The peacekeepers returned fire, then "broke contact," Reuters quoted Major Jim Marshall, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Kosovo, as saying.

The shooting came from a post-war buffer zone ringing Kosovo.

"There are strong indications that this small arms fire was from Albanian extremists," said Col. Dan Nolan, chief of staff for U.S. forces in Kosovo.

Last month, a Russian peacekeeper was shot and killed in a similar attack nearby.

Violence involving ethnic Albanian rebels has killed more than 30 people in the Presevo Valley adjoining Kosovo since it began early in 2000.

A similar group emerged in neighbouring Macedonia this year. Macedonia forces launched a fresh offensive against the rebels on Friday.

The group in Kosovo is known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac.

It operates in a part of the buffer zone known as Sector B, just east of Kosovo.

The NATO peacekeepers had been marking the border with Serbia when they came under fire on Friday.

Lt. Gen. Thorstein Skiaker, head of Kosovo peacekeepers, called on "extremists" to lay down their weapons and negotiate.

"Any attack on KFOR soldiers is totally unacceptable and I condemn this action in the very strongest terms," Skiaker said.

"Launched as it was from a position of sanctuary, across the administrative boundary, makes it all the more cowardly."

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