Troops clash with ethnic Albanians

MITROVICA, Yugoslavia -- British troops have clashed with hundreds of ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica as violence continued for a fourth day.

The troops fired plastic bullets and drove tanks through the town on Thursday to scatter crowds hurling rocks and petrol bombs.

"The violence has been going on long enough. We will deal with aggressive behaviour with a positive response," British spokesman Major Tim Pearce said.

Fighting has flared in the ethnically divided Mitrovica often since Kosovo came under international control in 1999.

Kosovo's United Nations governor and leaders of the province's Albanian majority condemned the violence at a crisis meeting in the town on Thursday.

They said they were worried that international civilians could be targeted next.

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The British soldiers, sent to back up French forces who normally secure the town, drove through Mitrovica's run-down industrial zone in several tanks, flanked by troops carrying full-length riot shields and firing plastic bullets.

At least 20 soldiers have been wounded -- one critically -- and dozens of civilians have been hurt in the violence.

Ethnic Albanians, who have repeatedly accused the French of failing to protect Albanians in the Serb-dominated north of Mitrovica, began targeting KFOR after a 15-year-old Albanian boy was killed there on Monday.

"We strongly condemn the violence that has occurred in Mitrovica over the past several days," said Hans Haekkerup, the Danish head of Kosovo's U.N.-led administration.

"We are very concerned about potential attacks on international civilian representatives," the statement said, calling for extra KFOR troops and police.

Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of the town's Serb community, accused Albanians of provoking the violence to distract from ethnic Albanian guerrilla attacks in southern Serbia.

Meanwhile, NATO has announced it will take action to prevent any attempted link-up of extremist groups seeking a Greater Albania.

It said it plans to decrease the size of the buffer zone on the border between Kosovo and Serbia that is being used as a safe haven by ethnic Albanian paramilitaries.

The move is an effort to curb renewed violence in Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia, a NATO official said.

NATO commanders are negotiating with Yugoslavia on possible changes to the buffer zone, he added.

The Yugoslav Government says security in Serbia's Presevo Valley is hampered by the five-kilometre (three-mile) strip along the boundary with Kosovo where its forces may not go.

The past week has also seen a sharp flare-up of violence in the Presevo Valley buffer zone.

The buffer zone was imposed on Belgrade in an agreement at the end of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign in 1999, both to separate Serb troops from incoming NATO peacekeepers and to reassure Kosovo Albanians returning to their villages.

Reformist Serbian leaders want NATO to agree to eradicate or radically narrow the strip to one or two km (a mile or less), to permit Serbian security forces to deal with the paramilitary threat.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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NATO
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
KFOR

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