Soldier dies after Kosovo attack

The deadline for Albanian rebels to move out of hills approaches

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia -- A second Yugoslav soldier has died from injuries sustained in a border attack by ethnic Albanian rebels.

One soldier was killed immediately and four other soldiers were wounded in the attack on Thursday, the Serbian government in the region said.

They came under fire while patrolling the Kosovo border in an area 10 km (six miles) northwest of the town of Vranje.

Officials said the second soldier had died in a Belgrade military hospital late on Thursday night. He was the 46th victim since the crisis in the area began.

A doctor at a local hospital said the casualties had suffered shrapnel wounds.

The incident came as Yugoslav forces prepared for a May 24 re-entry into the last part of a NATO-imposed buffer zone around the Kosovo border currently held by the rebels.

Since early last year, the paramilitaries have used the buffer zone as a base for attacks on Serbian forces in Serbia's Presevo Valley region next to the boundary.

NATO has been trying to persuade the rebels to lay down their weapons and not to fight Yugoslav troops when they enter "Sector B" of the zone.

The rebels say they are fighting for the rights of local ethnic Albanians. But Belgrade has branded them terrorists who want to join the border area on to ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo.