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NATO hits oil depot, car plant, Serb TV reports
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According to Serbian TV, NATO warplanes struck an oil refinery early Monday
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RELATED VIDEO
IMAGE GALLERY:April 12, 1999
Web posted at: 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT)
In this story: Albright launches diplomatic effort in Brussels Possible mass graves near Pristina Debate over ground troops Albright launches diplomatic effort in Brussels RELATED STORIES, SITES 
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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Serb TV broadcast video of an oil depot engulfed in flames on Monday, and said NATO hit a car plant with nine missiles.
On the 20th day of NATO's air campaign, Serb TV reported that warplanes struck both industrial and military targets north and south of Yugoslavia's capital early Monday.
NATO officials said adverse weather hampered air operations over Yugoslavia overnight, though the officials confirmed that NATO warplanes carried out strikes on the oil refinery at Pancevo.
But NATO said its pilots did not hit civilian targets in Novi Sad as claimed by Serb TV. The NATO official said its aircraft did target a Surface to Air Missile storage and production site in Novi Sad which is in the same general area of the damage being shown on Serb TV, and where the Serbs say there were strikes on civilian targets.
The new airstrike reports came as, in Brussels, NATO officials showed aerial photos of what they said could be a mass grave southwest of the Kosovo capital of Pristina.
The oil depot was 20 miles northeast of Belgrade, and the car plant and a targeted munitions factory, 45 miles south of the capital.
In addition, injuries were reported and damage was extensive after two industrial facilities in Krusevac, 80 miles southeast of Belgrade, were struck, Serb TV said.
The new attacks followed a relative lull in the bombardment that coincided with the Christian Orthodox Easter.
The oil depot strike was the second at the Pancevo (PAN-cha-voh) refinery, which Serb TV said is located about 100 yards from a residential area. NATO has said the fuel is provided to Yugoslav armour in Kosovo. No injuries were reported in the attack.
NATO missiles struck the Zastava car factory in Kragujevac (KRAH-goo-yeh-vatz), which NATO said also manufactures military armaments, the site of an attack last week that Serb TV said injured 120 civilians.
CNN's Alessio Vinci in Belgrade said the factory manager told him that 14 missiles hit the car factory in Kragujevac - the first seven within 20 seconds. After a warning from Serb authorities, all the workers were evacuated.
But 38,000 workers are now jobless, the factory manger said. He also said that, despite differing reports, 95 percent of production was devoted to civilian work.
NATO did not provide information about the site.Serb TV broadcast video it says shows the attack on a factory and central heating plant in in Krusevac (CRU-sheh-vatz).
The two plants were the targets of "many missiles" that caused heavy damage, Serb TV said. While no deaths were reported, Serb TV said there were an unspecified number of injuries.
Serb TV also said the area around Pristina's Slatina airport was hit, and that eight loud detonations were heard southeast of Pristina.
Earlier, Serb TV aired news footage of a fire Sunday evening in a residential section of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's second largest city, which it blamed on a NATO missile attack.
Shelling was reported around 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET), the Serb TV account said, causing heavy damage but no injuries.
NATO said it targeted a surface to air missile storage and production site in Novi Sad. But officials said they did not hit any civilian targets.
Albright launches diplomatic effort in Brussels
In Washington, administration and U.S. military officials making the Sunday TV talk show rounds, defended NATO's reliance on aerial bombardment as the sole weapon in its arsenal against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
The White House said NATO had considered the use of ground troops in planning last fall, but put that option on hold.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright arrived in Brussels to launch a new diplomatic initiative with NATO leaders and, later in Oslo, Norway, with Russia's foreign minister.
On another front, the office of United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees reported another nearly 7,000 Kosovar Albanians had left Kosovo in the past 24 hours -- 4,300 entering Albania and about 2,500 to Montenegro.
NATO officials expressed growing concern over the displaced ethnic Albanians -- possibly as many as 400,000 -- still inside Kosovo but with no food, water or housing.
Possible mass graves near Pristina
NATO officials told the daily news briefing in Brussels they had spotted what could be a mass burial ground southwest of Pristina in Kosovo.
"Freshly turned earth could indicate position of mass graves -- however this could only be confirmed when the area has been inspected," military spokesman Col. Konrad Freytag told reporters.
The aerial reconnaissance focused on a site between the small villages of Orahovac and Urosevac.
"We are simply indicating something from the air that could be a mass grave and, based on our experience in Bosnia, of course, a number of mass graves were identified and recovered and from the air, the form looks something similiar and that's the reason why we've shown you these photographs," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea.
"It could be a mass grave but obviously it will be up to the International Tribunal in the Hague, once it's able to go into Kosovo to conduct a thorough investigation," said Shea.
Debate over ground troops
In other developments:
In the United States, the Clinton administration responded to growing demands that NATO at least prepare for the contingency of committing ground forces to the campaign to return forcibly displaced Kosovar Albanians to their homes.
White House Chief of Staff John Podesta said there is such a contingency plan.
"With regard to planning for the use of ground troops, as you know, we have a substantial elaborate plan to insert a force in the event that there's a peaceful environment for which they can -- permissive environment for them to go into," Podesta said on NBC's "Meet The Press."
"And last fall, NATO did do an assessment of putting ground troops in in a non-permissive environment and those plans and assessments could be updated quickly if we decide to do that, need to do that," he said.
But a key Republican who has been leading the cry for the ground troop option, John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the administration for ruling that out at the outset of the nearly three-week-old NATO offensive.
"There's no doubt in my mind that no military commander, past or present, would think that it's appropriate, that it's anything but foolishness to say that you are not allowed to excercise any option, or at least threaten," said McCain, a Vietnam POW who delayed an announcement of his likely presidential candidacy because of the Kosovo conflict.
Others agreed that air power alone was not likely to reverse Milosevic's advances in the slaughter or expulsion of Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians.
"I can't think of a single case where a bombing campaign alone has made a foreign leader change his mind," Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President Bush during the Gulf War, said on CNN's "Late Edition.
McCain said he would like to see resolutions in both the Senate and the House authorizing President Clinton to use all means necessary to "achieve the stated goal" of "Operation Allied Force."
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Clark: 'We're going to attack, degrade, disrupt'
NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe, Gen. Wesley Clark, said he remains convinced that bombs will destroy Milosvevic's military.
"We're going to attack, degrade, disrupt and ultimately, if he doesn't comply to the demands of the international community, he's going to lose those forces," Clark said on "Late Edition."
NATO's 19 member nations plan to send a military force into Albania to help with humanitarian relief of the more than 300,000 refugees from Kosovo, a mission dubbed "Operation Allied Harbor," said alliance spokesman Jamie Shea.
Shea said officials of the International Red Cross officials were in Belgrade trying to locate and gain access to the hundreds of thousands of displaced ethnic Albanians still trapped in Kosovo.
"The border with the former Yogoslav republic of Macedonia, although formally closed, doesn't mean to say that refugees aren't going there too," he said.
Shea said NATO showed "relative restraint" in its overnight bombing because of more bad weather and the observance of Orthodox Easter.
"The concentration was on targets in Kosovo itself, particularly an assembly area, petroleum, oil and lubricant facilities at Pristina, and there was some cruise missile attacks against two radio relay stations. I stress as always these were strictly military targets."
Shea said there would be 192 flights into Tirana over the next several days to bring in the entire compliment of 24 Apache helicopters, which have the agility to fly closer to the ground and slower as it zeroes in on targets.
In addition, the Pentagon has approved the deployment of 82 more fighter planes, bringing the total number of planes that could take part in "Operation Allied Force" to nearly 700 -- all but 200 of them from the United States.
Plus, 15 A-10 "Thunderbolt" tank busters were being moved from Aviano Air Base to Gioia del Colle Air Base in southern Italy.
RELATED STORIES:
On Ortodox Easter, religious leaders pray for peace, goodwill
April 11, 1999
NATO adds muscle to air battle
April 10, 1999
Yeltsin warns of posslible world war over Kosovo
April 10, 1999
Refugee situation improves; U.S. says some used as shields
April 10, 1999
NATO getting more 'all-weather' fighter jets
April 9, 1999
RELATED SITES:
Extensive list of Kosovo-related sites
• Kosovo
Yugoslavia:
• Federal Republic of Yugoslavia official site
• Kesovo and Metohija facts
• Serbia Ministry of Information
• Serbia Now! News
Kosovo:
• Kosova Crisis Center
• Kosovo - from Albanian.com
Military:
• NATO official site
• BosniaLINK - U.S. Dept. of Defense
• U.S. Navy images from Operation Allied Force
• U.K. Ministry of Defence - Kosovo news
• U.K. Royal Air Force - Kosovo news
• Jane's Defence - Kosovo Crisis
Relief:
• Mercy International USA
• Donations for Kosovo Refugees
• International Rescue Committee
• Mercy International USA
• Unicef USA
• Doctors Without Borders
• World Vision
• CARE: The Kosovo Crisis
• InterAction
• International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• Disaster Relief from DisasterRelief.org
• Catholic Relief Services
• Kosovo Relief
• ReliefWeb: Home page
Media:
• Independent Yugoslav radio stations B92
• Institute for War and Peace Reporting
• United States Information Agency - Kosovo Crisis
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