Blast at Kosovo party HQ

The blast apparently targeted the local HQ of ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- An explosion and fire have gutted the offices of Kosovo's two main political parties in a southern town in the first major outbreak of violence ahead of elections.

No one was injured.

The explosion in Suva Reka was an apparent attack on the local headquarters of the leading contender in the polls, the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, U.N. spokeswoman Andrea Angeli told the Associated Press.

Angelia said that the blast in the two-storey building started a fire that spread to the offices of Kosovo's second-largest party, former rebel leader Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo.

The LDK is headed by Ibrahim Rugova, the province's main ethnic Albanian leader.

Several party members were killed in politically motivated attacks during the campaign for municipal elections last year, which the party won.

The November 17 poll is due to create an elected parliament and government for the first time since the United Nations assumed responsibility for the province in 1999.

The U.N. took control after a NATO bombing campaign to drive out the forces of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who had mounted a crackdown on the ethnic Albanian majority.

Final authority over the province after the elections will still be vested in the United Nations.