Two die on Kosovo border

Ethnic Albanian rebels used the buffer zone as a safe haven

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia -- At least two ethnic Albanians have been killed in fighting near the Kosovo border in Serbia.

The men were killed by sniper fire near the village of Oreovica, just outside the internationally-policed buffer zone established around Kosovo in June 1999.

There is some confusion as to the identities of the victims, and the precise circumstances of their deaths.

Sejdullah Kadriu, a spokesman for the ethnic Albanian rebels who are active in the Presevo Valley region, said that both victims were Albanian guerilla fighters.

Another ethnic Albanian spokesman however, named only as Profi, told the Associated Press on Monday that one of the victims was a civilian.

He said that the men had been killed in clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serb security forces.

The Serb government press centre in Bujanovac, meanwhile, quoted Albanian sources as saying the two died "in fighting between militant factions of the armed Albanians."

Two civilians were also reported injured in the clashes.

The deaths come amid some of the most violent fighting in the area for weeks between rebels and Serb police, and also on the eve of NATO's handover of more buffer-zone territory to Serb police.

The official transfer is expected on Monday afternoon.

Rebels used anti-aircraft machine guns and other heavy weapons just outside Presevo against Serb police positions on Sunday, government spokesman Ljubomir Podunavac said.

A spokesman for the rebel Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), said there were brief clashes on Sunday.

The attack began on Saturday in an effort to sabotage the transfer of territory, the so-called Sector B of the buffer zone, Serb officials said.

Sector B covers about 20 percent of the zone still controlled by the rebels.

Peacekeepers from the United States said on Monday that they had detained 10 people suspected of operating in the Presevo area during the past week.

Peacekeepers ran an advertisement in the Kosovo daily Koha Kitore on Monday calling on local residents to "distance themselves from the illegal extremist groups in the Presevo Valley."

The five-kilometre (three-mile) wide buffer zone was established after NATO's 1999 bombing campaign forced Yugoslav and Serb forces out of Kosovo to create the so-called buffer zone.

Ethnic Albanian rebels moved into the area, using it as a safe haven.

The Yugoslav army has now entered 80 percent of the zone, leaving the most sensitive ethnic area to be occupied.

General Nebojsa Pavkovic, head of the Yugoslav army, said in an interview on local television on Sunday that the planned return of his troops to the remaining zone will be complicated militarily as the main rebel strongholds are in the area.

In a separate development European Union foreign ministers condemned the continuing violence in the region, urging both Serb and Albanian leaders to work to reduce tension along the Serb-Kosovan border.

The council of ministers, meeting in Brussels, "expressed its concern about the ongoing serious violations of the cease-fire and the lack of sufficient progress in the dialogue between the Serb authorities and the ethnic Albanian representatives in Southern Serbia."

NATO reduces buffer zone
April 10, 2001
Peacekeepers kill Serb
May 7, 2001

NATO in Kosovo
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

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