Serbian television shows a bombed power plant outside Belgrade RELATED VIDEO CNN's Ralitsa Vassileva reports refugee aid sometimes gets caught in the middle of the dispute (May 22) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K CNN's Kasra Naji reports Kosovo children are showing signs of war trauma through their artwork (May 22). Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K To view the latest video streams on the strikes in Kosovo, use the arrow buttons below to scroll through the video gallery.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K IMAGE GALLERY A cracked window to a war To the corners of the world: The flight of Kosovo's refugees  ALSO: Given up for dead, hundreds of Kosovo men cross to safety  THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES: Where are they going?  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  MAPS: NATO officials describe the air campaign  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: NATO at 50 Strike on Yugoslavia

May 23, 1999
Web posted at: 1:42 p.m. EDT (1742 GMT)

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO bombs put Yugoslavia's largest coal-burning power plant out of business Sunday, the state-run Tanjug news agency said.

Tanjug said two rockets hit the Nikola Tesla plant near Obrenovac, 30 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Belgrade, just before dawn. The attack caused "additional problems" in supplying the Yugoslav capital with electricity after attacks early Saturday struck the nearby Kolubara power plant.

Other NATO targets included armored vehicles and tanks; artillery positions; parked aircraft; a command post; ammunition and petroleum storage sites; and communications facilities.

"It was quite an intensive night of air operations," NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said in Brussels, Belgium.

Overnight, NATO planes flew 652 sorties over Yugoslavia, 301 of them striking targets. Alliance members vowed to continue the strikes until Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic agrees to their conditions for a safe return of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians who have fled their homes in Serbia's Kosovo province.

"The NATO campaign is doing real damage to his military machine," said British Foreign Office Minister Tony Lloyd. "And NATO is prepared to go on and on with its air campaign while building up its forces necessary to take the refugees home in safety."

Lloyd added that NATO was equally committed to the diplomatic search for peace, "but it must be a peace that gives the people of Kosovo a secure future."

Ground troop debate continues

The British also continued their push for a willingness to send a ground force into Kosovo before Milosevic has fully complied with NATO's demands, which include a complete pullout of Yugoslav and Serb forces from the region.

Returning from a trip to Washington, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the British Broadcasting Corp. that NATO must be ready to "deploy troops in a permissive or a non-permissive environment" -- meaning with or without Milosevic's consent.

Cook also praised signals from Washington that the United States was no longer categorically rejecting early deployment of ground troops.

In an opinion piece published in Sunday's New York Times, U.S. President Bill Clinton reiterated NATO's oft-stated view that the air campaign was working, but said he did "not rule out other military options."

The U.S. has now joined other NATO allies in calling for a larger peacekeeping force than originally planned. The alliance is massing some 28,000 troops along the Macedonian border for the mission, but the U.S. and others said as many as 50,000 troops should be ready for action.

NATO's Shea said that the discussion about ground troops was to be expected from democracies, but the 19 NATO allies were still unified in their determination to force Milosevic's hand with an air campaign.

"We are not planning an invasion force for Kosovo," he told CNN on Sunday. "We still have confidence that our air power ... will force the Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. What we are doing is simply preparing for a peace implementation force which is going to big enough and robust enough to move quickly into Kosovo ... and allow the refugees to go back into their homes."

NATO's Shea said that the discussion about ground troops was to be expected from democracies, but the 19 NATO allies were still unified in their determination to force Milosevic's hand with an air campaign.

"We are not planning an invasion force for Kosovo," he told CNN on Sunday. "We still have confidence that our air power ... will force the Serb forces to withdraw from Kosovo. What we are doing is simply preparing for a peace implementation force which is going to big enough and robust enough to move quickly into Kosovo ... and allow the refugees to go back into their homes."

Correspondent John Raedler contributed to this report.

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